In 2010, Gov. Bobby Jindal refused to apply for federal stimulus dollars to create a passenger rail line between New Orleans and Baton Rouge
Despite talk in recent years that the increased hassles of air travel -- intrusive security checks, jam-packed planes, ever-rising fees for baggage -- were driving more Americans to take the train, the shift for those traveling long distances has been minor, a new study suggests. Although Amtrak's ridership rose by 55 percent between 1997 and 2012, nearly half of its fiscal year 2012 business was in the Northeast, and 67 percent of its passengers rode on trains traveling less than 400 miles.
The three long-distance Amtrak trains that serve New Orleans -- the Sunset Limited to and from Los Angeles, the City of New Orleans to and from Chicago and the Crescent to and from New York -- carried a total of 658,000 passengers in 2012, including those who took the trains for relatively short distances, and together lost more than $100 million.
In 2011, Amtrak routes of less than 400 miles carried 83 percent of the line's passengers and showed a profit of $47 million. Routes longer than 750 miles carried 15 percent of the passengers and lost $598 million, according to the new study from the Brookings Institution, a nonpartisan but liberal-leaning Washington think tank.
The report, titled "A New Alignment: American Passenger Rail in an Era of Fiscal Constraint," concludes that Amtrak's future lies in strengthening and expanding its short-haul routes, especially along the east and west coasts. Ten metropolitan areas -- mostly concentrated on the coasts, except for Chicago -- are responsible for almost two-thirds of Amtrak's ridership.
New Orleans generated 230,000 passenger boardings or departures in 2012, representing just 0.4 percent of all Amtrak passengers.
In 2010, an independent evaluation commissioned by the Southern High-Speed Rail Commission and the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development found that a proposed short-haul passenger rail line between New Orleans and Baton Rouge would provide enough positive economic and social benefits to justify the public subsidy needed for its operation. However, Gov. Bobby Jindal refused to apply for federal stimulus dollars set aside for passenger rail construction projects.
The 2010 study said the route -- using six stops on an existing track from downtown Baton Rouge to the Union Passenger Terminal on Loyola Avenue -- could have begun service in 2013 with eight trains carrying about 1,300 passengers a day, with doubled ridership likely within about 10 years.
Business and regional planning groups in both cities supported the idea, but the route would have required an annual public subsidy to meet its operational expenses, even if the federal government paid for the rail upgrade and start-up costs. Jindal cited the ongoing costs as a reason for holding off on a state application to the Federal Railroad Administration to back the project.
The Brookings report looks at the potential for such short-distance routes differently.
"Amtrak is too often considered a big, bloated bureaucracy that depends heavily on federal subsidies and is no longer relevant to the technologically oriented metropolitan economies of today," said Robert Puentes, a Brookings senior fellow and co-author of the report. "But the fact is that Amtrak is reinventing itself through its short-haul routes and with the support of states, which are helping upgrade tracks, operate routes and redevelop stations."
Between 2007 and 2011, 15 states paid at least a portion of the operating expenses, totaling nearly $850 million, for 21 different Amtrak routes. Starting later this year, all states will be required to increase support for routes less than 750 miles.
"While the financial sustainability of short-distance routes is now more secure as states become stronger partners in their operation and maintenance, the future of long-distance routes remains uncertain," Puentes said. "These routes continue to hamstring the entire network with high costs and relatively low ridership. A new relationship between Amtrak and the states home to these longer routes is now critical if they are to survive."
The report proposes that states should agree to share operating costs and other responsibilities for longer corridors. It also urges Amtrak, the federal government and the states to complete a national rail plan, do more to promote multistate rail compacts, and foster a stronger relationship between public agencies and private capital and management firms.
"Amtrak's ridership has grown faster than other major travel modes, and we can see that passenger rail in the United States is on track for success," said Adie Tomer, a Brookings associate fellow and co-author of the report. "Now is the time for policymakers and state leaders to better understand the location dynamics of Amtrak so that they can make pragmatic decisions going forward."