Warning: this is about to get a little wonky. But I figure if Streetsblog readers can get all nerdy on transit, you can probably geek out on legalese every once in a while too.

CRS looked at two constitutional provisions and found that the GOP plan violates them both.

First: the Takings Clause [PDF]. The government is allowed to take private property for public use, as long as the owner is justly compensated. The bill proposes to transfer the corridor and rolling stock from Amtrak to the USDOT.

According to CRS, this poses three constitutional questions:

• Is Amtrak an entity outside the government? (It’s not a “taking” if property is transferred to different agencies within the government.) On this question, CRS says that the federal statute creating Amtrak unequivocally stated that it “is not a department, agency, or instrumentality of the United States Government.” The courts have upheld this definition.
• Do the assets to be transferred constitute “property” under the Takings Clause? CRS says they are “classic, well-established forms of Taking Clause property.”
• Is the transfer of assets from Amtrak to USDOT a taking? Indeed, it’s a “paradigmatic” taking, according to CRS. The only way for the term not to apply is if the transfer were somehow deemed non-coercive, since the draft bill contains no mechanism for enforcement. Still, CRS concludes that the “not-truly-coercive argument seems unlikely to succeed.”

OK, so it’s a taking. That’s fine – as we said, the constitution allows takings – as long as they’re justly compensated and for the public use. Whatever you think of the plan to privatize Amtrak, apparently just about anything Congress decides to do satisfies the “public use” clause. But the question of compensation is thornier.

Under the bill, the compensation Amtrak will be awarded consists of “all but one share of the preferred stock of Amtrak held by the Secretary” (USDOT holds all of Amtrak’s preferred stock) and relief of all debts to USDOT. CRS doesn’t make a determination on what the value of that compensation is, but Amtrak’s common stock, at least, is virtually worthless.

Either way, CRS says, it’s not so much the amount of the compensation as its form that is troubling. State courts have consistently found that “money is the only legally adequate compensation.”

Moving on now to the Appointments Clause [PDF]. Paradoxically, the reasoning behind CRS’s conclusion that the rail plan violates the Appointments Clause contradicts the reasoning behind its conclusion that it violates the Takings Clause.

The Appointments Clause protects the separation and balance of powers by vesting the president with the power to appoint high-level officials only with the advice and consent of the Senate. The rail privatization proposal would create a Northeast Corridor Committee that essentially takes over the powers of Amtrak, with broad authority over the acquisition and improvement of rail facilities. CRS finds that the powers given to the members of that committee are significant enough to warrant presidential appointment with Senate approval, under the Appointments Clause.

Here’s the rub: in order to determine this, CRS found that Amtrak is enough of a federal entity to warrant constitutional appointments, as to any other key federal post. In so doing, it cites a Supreme Court case that decided that Amtrak was enough of a federal entity that it had to abide by governmental free-speech mandates.

In discussing the Takings Clause, CRS found this case to be somewhat of an outlier in a case history that generally defined Amtrak as independent. But in discussing the Appointments Clause, CRS quotes the Justice Department as saying “we can conceive of no principled basis for distinguishing between the status of a federal entity vis-à-vis constitutional obligations relating to individual rights and vis-à-vis the structural obligations that the Constitution imposes on federal entities.” Which is to say, either Amtrak is a federal entity or it isn’t. And in this case, they found that it is.

The way that the House had proposed to appoint the five members of the executive committee was a little more haphazard than what the Appointments Clause mandates. The committee, under the plan, would consist of (A) The Secretary of Transportation,  (B) one member representing the states of the Northeast Corridor, appointed by the governors (and DC’s mayor), (C) one member appointed by the Speaker of the House of Representatives and one member appointed by the majority leader of the Senate, and (D) one member, selected by a majority of the voting members of the Northeast Corridor Infrastructure and Operations Advisory Commission.

The House Transportation Committee can try to argue with the contradictions behind the CRS results, but it most likely cannot escape the fact that the rail plan, as currently written, violates at least one constitutional amendment.

Top committee Democrat Nick Rahall of West Virginia couldn’t be more pleased. “The ideals enshrined in the Constitution by our Founding Fathers have guided our Nation for centuries and Republicans should not railroad these principles in their flawed rush to privatize Amtrak,” he said in a statement. “This ideological assault on Amtrak is nothing more than a Transcontinental Tragedy that will result in a Constitutional Catastrophe.”

A government shutdown could empty out the D.C. metro system. Photo: Examiner

Just a month ago, AASHTO sounded the warning that the transportation sector could lose up to $100 million a day in case of a shutdown. However, Congress’s extension of SAFETEA-LU through the end of the fiscal year (September 30) has put their minds at ease. Now, AASHTO spokesperson Tony Dorsey says spending for federal highway programs will continue unabated, despite a shutdown. “At this point,” Dorsey said, “we’re not anticipating any issues.” Still, he said, they’re hoping that “should there be a shutdown, it will be a very, very short one.”

But that’s not the whole story. According to a detailed DOT shutdown plan, the vast majority of the Federal Transit Administration would shut down, keeping only 54 out of 575 positions working. Already-awarded stimulus grants would continue to receive oversight and the Lower Manhattan Recovery Office would continue to function. The $270 million that the FTA normally remits to transit agencies every week would cease.

Jeff Rosenberg, government affairs director for the Amalgamated Transit Union, says the SAFETEA-LU extension only continues government’s authority to pay for transportation programs. But “if the FTA isn’t authorized to open the door,” he says, those payments will cease. That could be especially damaging for smaller metros that receive operating assistance, not just capital funds, from the feds. However, he’s hopeful that a potential shutdown would only last a couple of days and would just be “a blip on the screen.”

What else can you expect to happen if the government does shut down as of midnight tonight?

• At least 800,000 federal employees would be furloughed immediately. That would cause a massive drop in transit ridership, especially here in D.C., where Metro is predicting a five to 20 percent drop in case of a shutdown. Michael Perkins of Greater Greater Washington estimates that this would result in a loss for Metro of a quarter million dollars a day.
• Amtrak’s federal subsidies – up in the air for months now anyway as Congress debates whether to eliminate them, reduce them, or maintain them – will stop. However, Amtrak CEO Joe Boardman recently assured employees that the rail operator can keep going on ticket revenue alone in the short term.
• The Federal Highway Administration will stay open, with no positions furloughed, according to the DOT shutdown plan. The FHWA is funded with contract authority and has enough funds available to operate in that way for about a month.
• More than half of the Federal Railroad Administration’s workers would be furloughed.
• The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will keep operating with a full staff.
• As a result of the colonial arrangement by which Congress controls D.C.’s city budget, some core D.C. city functions would grind to a halt. A new campaign to “take your trash to Boehner’s house” in case a shutdown stops garbage collection already has nearly 5,600 Facebook fans. (The city would resume trash collection after one week, when uncollected garbage constitutes “a danger to public health.”)
• D.C. Street sweeping, taxicab regulation, most road repairs, the DMV, and public libraries could also be suspended.
• D.C.’s metro system would keep running, and would even keep a rush hour schedule, but might reduce the number of cars.
• Circulator buses and Capital Bikeshare would also keep running.
• The Federal Housing Administration would stop guaranteeing new home loans. FHA loans account for 30% of the housing market.
• Most of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, which issues auto recalls and makes grants to states for safety campaigns, would close, with about 65 percent of its employees furloughed.
• The air traffic control system would keep functioning.
• Long project delivery times and construction delays are already a major concern of Congress, and the House Transportation Committee has prioritized eliminating delays. Well, so much for that – the EPA would cease conducting environmental impact reviews in case of a shutdown, slowing the approval for construction projects.

We’re continuing to monitor developments, but at this point, we’re bracing for a shutdown. A few hours ago, Reid took to the Senate floor to declare that the “one issue remaining last night” was the GOP rider defunding women’s health services. Boehner’s office maintains that the issue is, as always, spending cuts. Both sides are hoping the public will blame the other party in case of a shutdown. Reid hopes people will be as “appalled,” “frustrated,” and “personally offended” as he is if the GOP is so dead-set against cancer screenings for women that they’ll shut down the government over it. The Republicans hope to portray the Democrats as being so unwilling to budge on just a few billion dollars that they’d even let U.S. troops overseas go without pay.

Whoever’s to blame, it looks like the rest of us may be forced to go without some government services for a while. The longest government shutdown in modern history – the Newt Gingrich episode – lasted 21 days, but there’s no telling whether this one will break that record.

Remember, even once Congress is able to come to some kind of agreement over the FY2011 budget – whenever that may be – there’s still the FY2012 budget to worry about.

Will this be the face of future high-speed rail service in Florida and California? Photo: aarchitect/flickr

The administration has doled out $10.5 billion so far for rail improvements around the country. Some of that is going to existing rail lines that Amtrak runs, such as the Cascade service in the Pacific Northwest, which is using federal funds to improve on-time performance, increase frequency of service, improve signaling, and slowly increase top speeds.

But the banner projects are new, next-generation high-speed lines in places like Florida and California. Service on those lines is being opened up to competitive bidding. Will Amtrak be part of it? And if not, will the nation’s 40-year-old rail giant fade into irrelevance?

Florida is expected to issue a call for bids any day now (assuming Governor Rick Scott doesn’t decide, in the end, to kill the project like his colleagues in Wisconsin and Ohio). The state only represents a prospective 2.4 million riders a year (compared with about 13 million on the NEC) but it’s enormously significant because Florida and California are the only new lines projected to run passenger rail service on dedicated tracks – not competing with freight trains.

Where intercity passenger trains compete with freight – in most of the country these days, excluding the NEC – “Amtrak can only run a handful of trains per day because they’re leasing space on a freight railroad that doesn’t keep the schedules,” said Petra Todorovich, an expert on high-speed rail with the nonprofit America 2050. “When [freight trains] fill up their cargo from the yard, then they leave the yard. So Amtrak is trying to run passenger trains on a schedule on tracks that are owned by a railroad that doesn’t keep a schedule.”

That’s why rail service in much of the country has been infrequent and unreliable and has been in a poor position to compete with private automobiles or air travel. Amtrak continues to run those lines as a public service, in many cases mandated by Congress – but they’re not profitable or efficient.

So a dedicated track for passenger rail in Florida and California presents a unique opportunity for rail to show off what it can do for other parts of the country, which haven’t historically had world-class train service.

Amtrak has teamed with French National Railway Corporation (SNCF), in partnership with Bechtel, to offer a bid to design, build, operate, maintain and finance the Florida line.

Amtrak recently brought on Al Engel, a leader in the field, to lead its new high-speed rail division. Todorovich says his hire, along with the creation of the division, sent a message that “Amtrak is going to go after these opportunities.”

“Amtrak is certainly disappointed that we aren’t a factor that’s built into every corridor,” Engel told Streetsblog, “because we do operate passenger services in Florida, and California is our second largest market. It would be unfortunate if a state had to proceed without the benefit of Amtrak’s involvement.”

Still, Engel says Amtrak is in a good position to win the contracts for the new high-speed lines. He points to Acela’s 10-year anniversary of “successfully operating and growing the market for high-speed rail in the Northeast Corridor.”

Amtrak's new HSR division head, Al Engel, speaking in Philadelphia's 30th Street Station about Amtrak's plans for HSR in the Northeast Corridor. Photo: Matt Rourke/AP

“We work with 16 different unions and deliver a very popular service, and our ridership statistics show that,” Engel told Streetsblog. “All that experience of working with labor, the operating equipment, the reservation systems, the marketing, all the different aspects of providing a successful passenger rail service in the United States – we can bring all that strength and all that experience to Florida, or California, or the Midwest.”

He added that Amtrak also has decades of experience working with the regulators at the FRA.

Amtrak’s critics have long said that the company is a money pit for federal funds. Republicans recently proposed (again) to eliminate funding for Amtrak. But Engel says it’s not a fair criticism.

“You have to compare different modes on an equal basis, which is never done. The aviation system is heavily subsidized,” Engel said. “We’re providing routes that are desired by those in leadership positions. We also are operating with agreements that were statutorily established in terms of our labor and the routes that we provide.” Besides, in the NEC, he said, Amtrak turns a profit, recouping 121 percent of its expenses.

Malcolm Kenton of the National Association of Railroad Passengers agrees that the Amtrak gets a bad rap.

“My view is that they have been under this survivor mentality – I mean, you can’t do a good long-range plan if you don’t know how much money you’re going to get year after year. You can only plan as far out as one year unless there’s a multi-year authorization.” The Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act of 2008 funded Amtrak though 2013, alleviating some of the problem Kenton referred to – for the time being.

Kenton says Amtrak is in a good position to compete for the high-speed rail contracts because of their long experience operating in the United States, their good relationships with the railroads, and the economy of scale. But he welcomes competition from other companies around the globe.

“If there’s competition to bring the fares down and for better customer service, that would be good for the passenger,” Kenton says. On the other hand, though, it could be detrimental “if the other operators don’t work with Amtrak on cross ticketing, so you wouldn’t be able to book through-tickets to a place that’s only served by a non-Amtrak line.”

The stimulus money for high-speed rail will create jobs and build needed rail improvements in this country, no matter who builds it. But if Amtrak runs it, it could help strengthen the struggling public company by adding new lines that are generating significant buzz.

But will Amtrak survive if it doesn’t nab these high-speed routes? Certainly Amtrak is going to fight hard for the chance to run them, but Engel didn’t seem to think it was an existential question. And he’s still hopeful that much of the federal money will find its way to Amtrak. He wouldn’t engage in “forecasting” but he said that while Amtrak was in a good position to compete in Florida, “California is going to play out very differently than Florida.”

NARP’s Kenton isn’t burying Amtrak just yet. “For the foreseeable future, they’ll have a lock on the long-distance national network trains which will tie these other corridors together by rail and provide an alternative to driving and flying even over long distances,” he said.

Engel said that even if the team Amtrak has put together in Florida isn’t victorious, Amtrak could still be brought on to help the winning team. And other observers see a role for Amtrak in partnering, at least, with whatever rail operator ends up running the lines.

And of course, billions of high-speed rail dollars are aimed at shoring up existing mid-speed corridors already operated by Amtrak, which will continue to be operated by Amtrak. Dramatically improved service on lines that have been long left for dead will arguably do as much to raise Amtrak’s profile as the headline-grabbing high-speed lines elsewhere.

Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is sworn in by House Speaker John Boehner Jan. 5, 2011. Jordan is sponsoring the Spending Reduction Act. Photo: AP

According to a Committee press release, “Compared to current projections, the Spending Reduction Act would save taxpayers $2.5 trillion through 2021. It starts by keeping House Republicans’ pledge to take current spending back to 2008 levels and repeal unspent funds from the failed ‘stimulus.’ At the beginning of the next fiscal year on October 1, 2011, spending is further reduced to 2006 levels and frozen there for the next decade.”

The proposal would shift some spending, like Medicaid costs, to the states, which are even more cash-strapped than the federal government. Media attention is focusing on proposed cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, USAID, and veterans’ programs. But the cuts to transportation are deep.

The FTA’s New Starts program is, in its own words, “the federal government’s primary financial resource for supporting locally planned, implemented, and operated major transit capital investments.” SAFETEA-LU authorized $6.6 billion for the program through 2009, and the extension gave another $2 billion for last year. It funds commuter rail, light rail, heavy rail, bus rapid transit, streetcars, and ferries.

According to Bureau of Transportation Statistics contributor William Mallett, “Partly as a result of federal support, rail transit route mileage in the United States almost doubled between 1985 and 2008, and rail transit passenger trips and passenger miles grew by 66 percent and 73 percent, respectively.”

The Republican Study Committee would axe the entire program. Along with it, the entire $1.57 billion Amtrak subsidy would disappear. The high speed rail program, which the GOP has been publicly itching to gut, is also, predictably, on the chopping block. Lesser-known programs like the Appalachian Regional Commission, which includes transportation as one of its programs, would also lose $76 million in annual federal subsidies. The $150 million annual federal contribution toward Washington DCs transit authority, WMATA, would also be cut, despite the longstanding federal commitment to supporting the infrastructure, like the metro system, that keep the capital running.

The EnergyStar program, grants to states for weatherization, U.S. support for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: all gone.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) is promising an up-or-down vote on the spending cuts. Though Democrats are generally trying to go along with much of the Republicans’ rhetoric of fiscal restraint, it’s unlikely the Senate will go along with the wholesale elimination of so many popular programs.

To be eligible you need to be a frequent rider of Amtrak and willing to do a bit of travelling. Details are posted on the Amtrak website. The deadline to apply is August 21st.

Amtrak carried 13.6 million passengers over the past
six months, putting it on pace for a record-breaking ridership year,
according to a statement released today by officials at the national
inter-city rail system.

Amtrak’s Acela line saw carried 13.5 percent more riders last month than in March 2009. (Photo: America 2050)

Every
one of Amtrak’s lines recorded an increase last month relative to 2009
figures, with the northeastern Acela line recording a 13.5 percent
uptick. Acela is often referred to as the closest thing to high-speed
rail on offer in America, thanks to its top achievable speed of 150
miles per hour.

During the past six months — Amtrak
measures performance in fiscal years, which typically begin in October
– five short-haul lines recorded double-digit ridership increases,
including the northwestern Cascades route and the Lincoln, which
connects St. Louis and Chicago.

Amtrak recently made a pitch
for $446 million in new funding from Congress, including aid to help
replace its older fleet of locomotives with more fuel-efficient models.
If lawmakers agree to the rail network’s request, General Electric’s
transport division stands to benefit from new business for its
diesel-electric rail cars, thanks to a coordinated lobbying effort by the company and its main labor union.

In
a statement hailing the record ridership, Amtrak President Joseph
Boardman ascribed the increase in part to "a slowly improving economy
and continued high fuel prices." The fuel-efficient fleet upgrade, he
added, remains the system’s "most urgent unfunded need."

Now that the Obama administration has
awarded $8 billion in high-speed rail grants to more than two dozen
states, with $2.5 billion more coming soon, why not keep thinking big
when it comes to bullet-train expansion?

That’s the ethos of a new
report released today by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group
(PIRG) calling for a New Deal-like public works juggernaut that would
eventually connect all major cities located within 100 and 500 miles of
each other. For a look at how such a system would remake the American
rail map, check out the image above.

"The first step in building the network is to set a national goal
with an ambitious time frame, just like we did for the Interstate
Highway System or getting to the moon," U.S. PIRG senior analyst Phineas
Baxandall wrote in a blog
post unveiling the report. "We can link all our major cities
by 2050, if we set our minds to it."

Given the political wrangling over the deficit that continues to
paralyze Washington, however, it’s worth asking how an ambitious rail
program would be funded. The U.S. PIRG answers that question in several
ways: First, the group calls for a dedicated revenue stream for
inter-city passenger rail in the next long-term transportation bill,
with local investments matched by the federal government in the same
80:20 ratio that highway plans receive.

"By financing transportation projects equitably," the report’s
authors write, "states will be able to make rational transportation
decisions based on the needs of their residents, rather than on the
chances of securing a lucrative federal match."

Secondly, the U.S. PIRG aims to put government support for Amtrak
– often derided by
conservatives for its reliance on federal subsidies that also benefit
road projects — in perspective. When evaluated as a share of U.S. GDP,
government investment of passenger rail looks stunningly low compared
with other industrialized nations. The imbalance is visible in the chart
below:

(Chart:
U.S. PIRG)

From the U.S. PIRG report:

To begin to dig out of that hole, the federal government
should invest steadily increasing levels of funding in passenger rail.
We probably cannot hope to match the $300 billion China will be
investing in its high-speed rail system between now and 2020, but we
should endeavor to match the level of investment provided by other
industrialized nations, as a share of GDP, in their rail networks.

The group does not address the lingering debate over whether all
planned U.S. inter-city rail projects can truly be called "high-speed"
given that many
would achieve maximum speeds little better than 110 miles per hour.
Still, its vision of finishing the job begun by the White House this
year is likely to fire up rail advocates and give helpful new tools to
local planners.

The Vice President and his wife share a tender moment — on the Acela. (Photo: NYT)

Biden
doesn’t get too political in the piece, eschewing calls for more Amtrak
funding in favor of a paean to the "emotional connection" he
experienced riding the rails during his 36-year congressional career.

But the vice president, who has taken on a central role in the White House’s high-speed rail push, closes with a strong endorsement of inter-city trains as pollution reducers:

Consider that if you shut down Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor, it is
estimated that to compensate for the loss, you’d have to add seven new
lanes of highway to Interstate 95. When you consider that it costs an
average of $30 million for one linear mile of one lane of highway, you
see what a sound investment rail travel is. And that’s before you
factor in the environmental benefits of keeping millions and millions
of cars off the road.

The House is poised to take up a jobs bill later today that provides
$37.3 billion in new transportation spending, including $27.5 billion
for roads, $8.4 billion for transit … and a holiday gift for General
Electric?

Could this cleaner GE locomotive be coming soon to Amtrak? (Photo: Inhabitat)

GE’s transportation division recently joined its main labor union in a lobbying campaign aimed at winning federal money for Amtrak to buy its lower-emissions locomotives, which are catching on in China but not in the U.S.

And
tucked into the new House jobs bill is language that appears to give GE
the opening it has sought. The bill states that its $800 million in
Amtrak funds can be used (emphasis mine):

for fleet modernization, including rehabilitation of existing and acquisition of new passenger equipment, including fuel-efficient locomotives.

What’s
more, the House jobs bill also includes language requiring the
Transportation Secretary to adhere to "buy American" rules for Amtrak
even if the equipment in question "cannot be bought and delivered in
the United States within a reasonable time." (Existing law allows the
U.S. DOT to waive Amtrak "buy American" rules in such cases.)

Of
course, there’s no guarantee that Amtrak management will opt to use any
new job-creation money to purchase GE trains — and the House jobs bill
faces a decidedly uncertain fate in the Senate. But given the punishing
layoffs
that GE Transportation made this year at its plant Erie, PA, one
wonders if local workers will begin to press the company about possible
re-hiring.

Late Update: It’s worth noting that the
stronger "buy American" rules apply across the board for construction
projects in the jobs bill, as Bloomberg reported this afternoon.

Amtrak IG Fred Weiderhold left earlier this month after 35 years at the rail corporation. (Photo: WSJ)

The
bipartisan congressional investigation focuses on a report commissioned
by Amtrak IG Fred Weiderhold several months before his June 18
departure. The report, prepared by the firm of Willkie Farr &
Gallagher, confirmed Weiderhold’s past contention that the IG’s
"independence and effectiveness are being substantially impaired" by
in-house policies at Amtrak.

But one particular charge in
the report caught Congress’ attention: that Amtrak managers prevented
Weiderhold from monitoring their use of economic stimulus money without
their approval.

As the oversight committee’s chairman, Rep.
Edolphus Towns (D-NY), and senior Republican, Rep. Darrell Issa (CA)
explained in a letter sent yesterday to Amtrak chairman Thomas Carper:

[T]he
legal analysis found that Amtrak management claims that all
expenditures of funds designated for the Inspector General must be
approved by Amtrak management. In other words, the Inspector General
may not use funds provided by Congress to investigate potential waste
and fraud in stimulus programs without the consent of the organization
being investigated. This is contrary to the clear intent of Congress
and is unacceptable.

In a statement released
yesterday, Amtrak noted that it had no opportunity to weigh in on the
Willkie Farr report and stated that "there was no relationship between
the timing of Mr. Weiderhold’s retirement and this report." Carper
added that the rail corporation "would like to maintain an open line of
communication
and are looking forward to cooperating fully" with the congressional inquiry.

Willkie Farr’s allegations of IG interference at Amtrak ranged beyond the stimulus law.
Weiderhold’s office began a review of New York’s Moynihan Station project
in March 2008, focusing on the apartment leased by the project manager
as well as "the use of lobbying firms and consultants in connection
with the project," the law firm’s report states.

But when
one of Weiderhold’s inspectors tried to get a copy the Moynihan project
manager’s personnel documents, senior managers would only give him "two
board meeting minutes, one which had been redacted," according to the
Willkie Farr report. (A copy of the 94-page report can be downloaded here.)

The oversight committee has not announced plans for any hearing on the Amtrak issues, but we’ll keep you posted.

Amtrak is back on the air with a new commercial that uses children's toys to make the point that taking a long distance trip via train is far less stressful and more enjoyable than either driving or flying.  While I personally never lined all my matchboxes up in three parallel lines to create a traffic jam in the living room, I guess it's a sign of the times.

The bulk of the commercial shows young boys playing with their toy cars and planes while uttering adult complaints about life trapped in car culture and airports.  The last couple seconds of the ad show another youngster happily playing with a model train zooming around happier toys and proclaiming, "The train has now arrived."  From there, a narrator takes over, "The train has arrived indeed.  Amtrak, enjoy the journey."

Personally, I laughed at one kid glumly wondering, "I wonder how much gas costs today" as his toy car pulled into a plastic gas station.  The chortle was matched followed shortly by another going "An extra bag costs WHAT?!?" as his plastic figurine put on a shocked face.

Over the past year we've seen a spate of advertisements about how wonderful traveling by bicycle is compared to car from health insurance companies, banks and others; so it's nice to see train service promoting itself likewise.  We'll know we arrive when well meaning celebrities shoot commercials about turning off your lights on trains instead of airplanes.

h/t Carfree USA

The five-year Amtrak authorization that Congress passed last week
includes a nice inter-modal touch. It states in no uncertain terms that
funding can be spent on making trains accessible for bikes:

NONMOTORIZED
TRANSPORTATION ACCESS AND STORAGE. — Grants under this chapter may be
used to provide access to rolling stock for nonmotorized
transportation, including bicycles, and recreational equipment, and to
provide storage capacity in trains for such transportation, equipment,
and other luggage, to ensure passenger safety.

Queens Congressman Anthony Weiner
got the language into the bill after prompting from Transportation
Alternatives. President Bush has not yet signed it into law, but
according to the Times, the White House has signaled that he will.

"In
the past, Amtrak has claimed that because the funding bill did not
explicitly say that the money may be spent on bikes that they couldn’t
make trains bike-accessible," says T.A.’s Noah Budnick. "Now it should
be clear to the most bureaucratic bureaucrat: Federal money for Amtrak
can be spent on bike-accessibility."

The bill does not mandate bike-accessibility, so riders will have to contact Amtrak to put it on its agenda. I know I’d like to bring a bike on board the next time I visit my grandmother in DC. A SmartBike location right at Union Station would also do the trick.

Photo of Caltrain bike car near Palo Alto: richardmasoner/Flickr

Johnson said an Obama-Biden victory wouldn't necessarily translate into an avalanche of federal funds for Amtrak. He noted that Al Gore was a big booster of passenger rail when he was in Congress "and yet some of the biggest cuts in service came during the Clinton-Gore administration." 

In 2000, President Bill Clinton proposed a $989 million funding package for Amtrak. According to the Post, the FY 2008 Amtrak allocation was around $1.3 billion.

Photo: relvax/Flickr

Like Joe Biden, Barack Obama also mentioned Amtrak in his acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention, but only in reference to his running mate’s preferred mode of transportation.

There were many, many things to be excited about yesterday, but any livable streets advocate anticipating a call to rebuild and expand our nation’s transit infrastructure, or for more investment in clean transportation and sustainable urban development, had to be a little disappointed. In fact, as the New York Observer notes, Obama barely mentioned infrastructure at all, and only then to promise "new roads." And as for energy policy:

As President, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal
technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I’ll help
our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the
future are built right here in America. I’ll make it easier for the
American people to afford these new cars. And I’ll invest 150 billion
dollars over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy
– wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an
investment that will lead to new industries and five million new jobs
that pay well and can’t ever be outsourced.

Are biofuels, more roads, and easier paths to car ownership really the "change" this country, or the planet, needs? Not even Al Gore or the "We" campaign, with its ubiquitous ads, mentioned altering development or driving habits.

So as Americans celebrate a long weekend of cheaper gas, we leave you with this: How do we do it? How do we seize the "Obama moment," as this call to action by OurFuture.org terms it, to make clean transportation, livable streets, smart growth and the kinds of issues that we care about a part of the national discussion on climate change and energy policy?

Until Tuesday … 

Photo: Barack Obama/Flickr