Blog: America Needs Passenger Rail

Statement

By Anthony Foxx

When you're making the case for stable investment in American passenger rail, it helps to have with you the nation's greatest champion for passenger rail --Vice President Joe Biden.

The Vice President and I have been traveling up the East Coast this week as part of the GROW AMERICA Express to focus America's attention on our infrastructure, and to remind the American people that we are at a crucial crossroads.

We can choose to ignore the quality of our transportation infrastructure, currently ranked just 16th in the world, and watch a system that was once the envy of the world slip into further deficiency. Or we can choose to invest in a future where the United States is once again outpacing the rest of the world; where hundreds of millions of people can move about their communities, their states, and the country safely and without delays; and where the freight that fuels our nation's economy moves efficiently and competitively from farm and factory to local and global markets.

And, as Vice President Biden knows well, passenger rail is an important piece of our transportation puzzle.

America is growing. But our roads, rails, and runways don't automatically grow with our population. We're expecting 70 million more people over the next 30 years and a 45 percent spike in freight volume. And much of this growth will happen in the South --in places like my hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina, where we were this morning.

The question is, "How are we going to move all of this freight, and all of these folks?"

Well, it turns out, the American people are voting on this question with their train tickets. Amtrak has broken ridership records in 10 out of the past 11 years. The train service that runs between Charlotte and Raleigh carries 100,000 more riders today than it did only five years ago.

So, you have Amtrak ridership at an all-time high. You have, on top of that, more people riding public transportation than at any time in the past half-century.

And so, it makes sense that the NC DOT and Charlotte would have a vision to build a new Gateway Station that would be located closer to the city center and that would not only serve intercity passenger rail, but buses, and --one day-- a streetcar and new commuter rail service.

It makes sense that, as we speak, workers are executing a series of projects between Charlotte and Raleigh, funded by the Obama Administration's first-of-its-kind passenger rail program. Projects that will improve service for record numbers of riders and help prepare this corridor for the day when it will form the nexus of a powerful southeast passenger rail network running down from D.C. through Atlanta.

Sure, we can continue investing less in our passenger rail system than we should and watch our country's competitiveness slip lower and lower. Or, we can choose to build projects like the proposed Gateway Station that would bring our passenger train services into the 21st century. And create jobs. And grow our economy.

When push comes to shove --and that time is now-- we must make the choice that positions us for a brighter future. For us. For our children. And for generations of Americans to come.

I'm on the road this week --and the Vice President is with me-- because we know that we can make that choice. We can choose, for the first time, to dedicate funding for rail projects --for efforts that add service, lower trip times, improve safety, and improve stations.

All we need is for Congress to choose to GROW AMERICA.

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