Your Train Update

Things are not looking good for passenger trains in Vermont, as this article shows. Here are two glaring particulars:

• RIDERSHIP: The number of passengers on the Vermonter route declined from 72,235 in fiscal 2001 to 52,490 in the last budget year.
• STATE SUBSIDY: Amtrak has required Vermont to pay increasing shares of the cost of the train routes in the state. The subsidy went from $1.58 million in fiscal 2001 to $3.3 million this year.

From a financial perspective, these numbers are enough to doom passenger rail in the Green Mountain State. Over a five-year period, passenger total decreased by roughly 25 percent, while the amount the state government had to pay increased by more than 100 percent. This is exactly the sort of glaring inefficiency that taxpayers rightly condemn.

At the same time, as this article notes, rail does hold out the long-term promise of more energy-efficient transportation. In an age of oil shortages, this is absolutely necessary. So I put it to the group: how do we promote rural rail in a cost-effective manner? Can we?