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Derailing Amtrak

Excellent article from the Boston Globe that was reprinted at Common Dreams. Derailing Amtrak

Does this seem right to you?

Bush’s budget proposal includes $35 billion for highways, $14 billion for airports, and no operating subsidies for Amtrak.

Or this?

Other countries long ago boarded the express. Even Bush’s fellow Republicans can see that. In 2002 John Robert Smith said, “We literally spend more collecting road kill off the nation’s highways than we spend on the entire passenger rail system.”

We need a strong passenger rail system in America. It is as simple as that. And people want it:

This is despite the amazing fact that no matter how much Bush wants to kill Amtrak on the false premise that it must be self-sufficient (when airlines and automobile gasoline of course are not), people vote with their feet that they want rail. A record 25 million passengers took Amtrak trains last year. This was not just an East Coast commuter phenomenon. Ridership was up 14 percent in Iowa last year. Amtrak ridership is up 13 percent in car-crazy California.

Read the article. Call your representatives. etc. etc.