Amtrak

Amtrak CEO Alex Kummant has resigned, according to the Associated Press. Mr. Kummant's two-year tenure has been marked by leaps in ridership and revenue.

Here's my sit-down with Mr. Kummant in August. We discussed efforts to improve Amtrak service out of Penn, the passenger rail's work with other transit bodies, and the development plan for Moynihan Station.

ST. PAUL--One of the more headline-grabbing stories involving Amtrak and New York of the past few months was a congressman's proposal for the federal government to take bids to create a two-hour train from New York City to Washington, D.C.

The far-off, years-long, multi-billion dollar idea, which has passed the House and awaits a final resolution with the Senate, came not from anyone in the city, or from the Northeast at all, but rather from a conservative Republican from northeastern Florida, Representative John Mica.

On Wednesday, I briefly caught up with Mr. Mica, who was speaking on a forum on transportation issues here at the University of Minnesota.  read more »

The Chinese government plans to introduce by 2012 a new generation of bullet trains that run for long stretches at 236 miles per hour. That's about half the speed of your average passenger jet. More here in the British press.

Will the U.S., particularly its train-happy Northeast, ever produce such fast rail? You know the answer, but more here anyway.

Joe Biden may be the first presidential or vice presidential nominee ever of a major party to have been a daily Amtrak commuter.

The Delaware Democrat commutes daily on Amtak between Wilmington's train station and Washington's Union Station, a trip that usually takes no more than 90 minutes each way. His running mate, Barack Obama, referred to the commute during the duo's Saturday appearance, describing Mr. Biden as a "scrappy kid from Scranton who beat the odds, the dedicated family man and committed Catholic who knows every conductor on that Amtrak train to Wilmington."

Mr. Biden entered the Senate after his 1972 election.  read more »

I took Amtrak last week to meet with its president and chief executive, Alex Kummant, in his office in Washington's Union Station. We talked about Moynihan Station, the planned New Jersey Transit tunnel under the Hudson, the recent fare hikes, the many delays out of Penn, and the fact that a lot more Americans, in the Northeast and elsewhere, are taking trains.

We're in a different world today from a transportation point of view. We're seeing dramatic growth; we're seeing dramatic needs; we're seeing the airlines pull back in capacity. The country tends to react in these large issues in crisis; and, I think, yeah, we are in a transportation crisis. Will something happen overnight right now? Probably not.

Here's the long version of the interview. A shorter one will be in tomorrow's print Observer.

Editor's note: A shorter version of this interview will run in the Aug. 13 print edition of The Observer.

 

LOCATION: Explain why Amtrak wants New Jersey Transit's planned ARC (Access to the Region's Core) tunnel under the Hudson River to connect with the Penn Station tracks.

Mr. Kummant: Basically, look, this goes back to a process we're leading, which is a process for the whole Northeast corridor. And, at the end of the day, we're in a completely different world, where capacity matters a great deal. You're looking at 2030 projections where commuter volume and Amtrak volume in total is almost doubling.  read more »

"Now that the recent rise in gas prices has everyone ditching their SUVs and running to mass transit, what will our government do to build off of the momentum? We are dumping billions of dollars into Iraq for, among other things, infrastructure, while the Iraqis pile up cash reserves (including in an account at the NY Federal Reserve) when our infrastructure at home is in shambles. If the Democrats want more government intervention in our fight against global warming and energy security, let's start with Amtrak. What is Congress going to do to take our mass transit system out of the dark ages and up to speed with our friends across the pond?" ["Amtrak Northeast Ridership, Challenges Way Up"]

Amtrak's Northeast ridership was up nearly 8 percent annually in July, following a national trend of increasing ridership on the passenger rail carrier. Amtrak is on pace to carry a record 28 million passengers nationwide in 2008, a jump from the previous record of 25.8 million set last year, according to this morning's Wall Street Journal.

But the ridership jumps are straining a decidedly creaky infrastructure. From the Journal:

On a recent Wednesday afternoon train, travelers boarding at Philadelphia's 30th Street Station toward Washington discovered passengers were already crammed together between cars. Crowding is also a problem on the higher-priced Acela Express service in the Northeast Corridor, which Amtrak launched in 2000.

 read more »

Ridership on Amtrak's Northeast corridor increased over 3.2 percent annually in June, from 878,671 passengers to 907,316, according to new figures from the national rail service.

A look at the most recent numbers for fiscal year 2008, which covers October through June, reveals an even sharper increase in ridership compared to the same nine months in 2007. From October through June, over 5.6 million passengers traveled the Northeast corridor, from Washington to Boston, versus 5 million during the same period last year, representing an 11 percent increase (and coming despite increased fares). Travel on Acela, the Northeast-only express service, increased by 8 percent, from 2.  read more »

"Jesus Christ, get over it. Transportation costs have gone up across the board for everyone, and every shipper. If you're bitching about $92, I wonder what you'll be saying two years from now when airfare to go anywhere domestic will start at $400, and the trains won't be far behind." ["Amtrak On Its Latest Fare Hike"]

Last week, I griped about Amtrak's latest fare increase, particularly in the Northeast. Amtrak got back to me today in an email. It turns out it's not just in the Northeast; and it is partly due to higher fuel costs. From the email:

On July 8th, we increased the fares on the following routes by 5%. This was done as a result of our recent labor agreements as well as the rising cost of fuel on those routes that are powered by diesel locomotives. Our fares are set by supply and demand so the continued high demand and constrained capacity we are experiencing were also factors in the increase.  read more »

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Just when higher gas prices are making air and car travel ever more expensive, the nation's intercity rail carrier has hiked its Northeast corridor fares. Amtrak some day very recently--we're waiting for an email back about the time details--raised its fares between New York's Penn Station and cities from Washington to at least Boston.

The cheapest ticket between Penn and Washington's Union Station is now $72, up from $69 as recently as a couple of weeks ago (full disclosure: I take Amtrak to D.C. at least once a month). The cheapest ticket between Penn and Boston's South Station is now $89, up from $70 or thereabouts only a year ago.  read more »

The Times' Matthew Wald in a Saturday story reported that Amtrak ridership was increasing because of higher gasoline prices and other factors.

Amtrak set records in May, both for the number of passengers it carried and for ticket revenues — all the more remarkable because May is not usually a strong travel month... Want to take Amtrak’s daily Crescent train from New York to New Orleans? It is sold out on July 5, 6, 7 and 8. Seattle to Vancouver, British Columbia, on July 5? The train is sold out, but Amtrak will sell you a bus ticket.

(Now only if Amtrak would lower its Northeast fares.)

My colleague Lysandra Ohrstrom earlier this month reported that ridership on the Long Island Railroad route from New York City to the Hamptons was up by double-digit percentages this spring over spring 2007.

The U.S. House of Representatives today passed a bill that would authorize billions in federal spending on Amtrak, boosting opportunities for high-speed rail and other programs in the Northeast and around the country.

The bill, which would allow more than $14 billion in spending, could also provide some money for Moynihan Station as part of a $2.5 billion grant program, according to Representative Jerry Nadler’s office, which has been active in pushing the bill. It also contains a provision that would have Amtrak take proposals to build a higher-speed rail link between Washington, D.C., and New York City, looking to reduce the trip to two hours; however, such a proposal would likely cost billions.  read more »

Traveling on I-95 on a summer weekend has never been pleasant, but this weekend you can expect it to be particularly rough.

Amtrak announced that its Accela and regional service between New York, Boston, and New Haven will be cancelled from June 14 to June 17 so the moveable span of the 90-year-old Thames River Bridge connecting Groton and New London, Conn., can be replaced.  read more »

Mayor Bloomberg today gave his support to a push to make a higher-speed train line between New York and Washington, D.C., endorsing federal legislation that seeks to create a two-hour rail trip between the cities.

The Acela, Amtrak’s high-speed service launched less than 10 years ago, takes about 2 hours and 45 minutes between the two cities.

The bill, part of a reauthorization of Amtrak, would solicit preliminary bids from the private sector to build the service. It’s being pushed by Representative John Mica, a Florida Republican.  read more »

Today, Barack Obama decided to meet with an Amtrak worker and talk about expanding and improving rail service. The timing is not an accident.

He is alone among the presidential candidates in not advocating a cut in gas taxes over the summer, a stance for which he received an extremely rare bit of (conditional) praise from Paul Krugman, but for which he was attacked by his opponents.  read more »

An addendum to our article earlier this week on the never-ending Moynihan Station saga: The concept of converting the Farley Post Office into a rail station is widely viewed as belonging to the late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, its most persistent advocate from the early 1990s until his death in 2003. But the history goes back a bit further, and started as a partnership between the U.S. Postal Service and Amtrak, both of which stood to gain from a redevelopment of Farley.

Two of the major forces behind the plan's genesis: Donald Pross, who served as Amtrak’s director of real estate and development until 1995, and Dennis Wamsley, who ran the Postal Service’s asset management division.

Amtrak, eager to have a more presentable flagship station, was looking at options of how to improve Penn Station in the late 1980s and early 1990s, according to Mr. Pross.

Around the same time, a postal service executive was heading up a program known as asset management for the agency, finding ways to take existing properties, add other uses, and bring in some new money.  read more »

WNBC.com got hold of a March 25 letter from Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to Madison Square Garden Chairman James Dolan, Vornado Realty chief executive Steve Roth, and the heads of the M.T.A. and Amtrak, faulting the parties for holding up the installation of a security perimeter around Penn Station to protect what he called “the single most critical transit hub in the United States” from terrorist attacks.  read more »

To jolt commuters from the holiday lull, Amtrak will now greet passengers at Penn Station and elsewhere with bomb-sniffing dogs, machine-gun-wielding security officers, and random carry-on bag checks starting today as part of a program to boost security measures on domestic rail lines.

A long-time proponent of upping security on America’s vulnerable rail system, Senator Charles Schumer, supported the initiative but feared that cash-strapped Amtrak might not have the personnel to make the system work without “bringing service to a screeching halt.”  read more »

I wrote in this week's Observer about New Yorkers moving to Philadelphia. One of the statistics I dug up that didn't make it into the story was the amount of daily Amtrak commuters between New York's Penn Station and Philly's 30th Street Station. It turns out that annual daily round-trip ridership along the line peaked in 2004 and 2005, and has dropped precipitously ever since.  read more »

So we were on Amtrak this weekend, and there's a profile of mega-chef Daniel Boulud in the on-train magazine Arrive. In it, Mr. Boulud sounds off on many topics, including his new wine bar, Bar Boulud, in Lincoln Center, and his efforts at feeding rescue workers immediately after September 11.

He also talks about the time he re-interpreted an American classic ...  read more »

Fans of bagel dogs and other Bronx-made baked goods, get ready for more crusty carbs, in a somewhat unusual setting. Zaro's New York Bakery will soon open its 13th area store--far removed from its typical train-station or bus-terminal digs.

Having already established a dominating presence at the city's transit hubs--including four stores at Grand Central, two at Penn Station, and another at Port Authority--Zaro's is now targeting Flatiron-area flatfoots.

At its newest location, next door to Mayrose Comfortable Food at the corner of Broadway and 21st Street, contractors worked well past sunset on Friday to install new windows. Seems the circa-1977 chain is in a hurry to expand its audience beyond the Amtrak and LIRR set.

"We are hoping to be open by the end of the year," proprietor Joseph Zaro tells The Observer in an e-mail, "but with construction, one never knows!"  read more »

- Chris Shott

Troubled Amtrak has long worked well in the Northeast Corridor--Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, various Connecticut cities, Providence, Boston.

So now the Bush administration, according to The New York Times, has a new solution: Charge surplus-addled commuter rail systems in those cities for their use of Amtrak facilities--tracks, stations, etc.

The plan, according to The Times,

could hit New Jersey Transit hard, because it operates many trains over long routes. The Long Island Rail Road could be charged more for using Pennsylvania Station in New York City. Metro-North Railroad, which terminates in New Haven, runs on tracks owned by New York and Connecticut, but the Shore Line East, which runs east of New Haven, operates on Amtrak tracks and could be hit for more. Septa, which serves the Philadelphia area, and the commuter systems serving Boston, Wilmington and Baltimore would also be subject to new charges.

But can they actually do this? The commuter rails already have arrangements with Amtrak for the use of their facilities.

And in New York, where a greater portion of commuter rail is already funded through fare-paying customers, are Amtrak trains serving the region to be partially subsidized by suburban commuters?

As it is, the successful New Jersey Transit and Long Island Railroad lines are likely to be the ones footing the bill for the new Penn Station--which will be across the street from Amtrak's old "vomitorium," Penn Station. Remember the big plans for a rail hub that would welcome commuters to the city? To paraphrase Vincent Scully, now suburban commuters who already work in the city will be entering like emperors, while tourists slither in like rats.  read more »

- Tom McGeveran

On Nov.  read more »

Toward the end of an industry luncheon one recent Wednesday, after the roast chicken but before the  read more »

Senator Hilary Clinton had just spent several hours on Friday, Sept.  read more »

Trying to defeat the terrorists in my own small way, I've gone about my business, traveling a good d  read more »