Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act of 2015

Floor Speech

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Ms. KAPTUR. I thank Ranking Member Capuano for yielding me this time.

I want to thank the capable chairman of the committee, Mr. Shuster,
and the chairman and the ranking member of the full committee, Mr.
DeFazio, for bringing this important Passenger Rail Reform and
Investment Act before us.

Mr. Chairman, as the Representative of the busiest Amtrak station in
Ohio at Toledo and the Amtrak stations in Sandusky and Elyria-Lorain, I
rise to urge the passage of this important bill to continue and advance
passenger rail service across our Nation.

When I was born, the population of the United States was 146 million
people. Today, it surpasses 320 million. By 2020, our Nation's
population is projected to reach over half a billion people--over 500
million. As time moves forward, the necessity for passenger rail will
become clearer with each passing day.

Many of our major urban centers are clogged with traffic jams daily,
and the railroads across my region of our continent have severe freight
rail and passenger rail conflicts because they are forced to use the
same tracks. Imagine that we are living in the 21st century, and we are
still tethered to 19th century rail pathways.

Passenger rail travel in Ohio is booming despite these constraints--
up from 108,000 passengers in 2007 to 160,000 passengers in 2013. A
trend in my district has grown as well, with Toledo passengers on the
northwest Ohio corridor increasing from 53,000 to 77,000 over the same
time. Imagine the traffic jams if all of these individuals traveled by
car instead of rail.

It is not just the northeastern part of our Nation that needs added
attention to passenger rail service, as important as that is. It should
also include the Great Lakes Region. The corridor that stretches the
length of my district and connects our industrial heartland corridor
from Pittsburgh to Cleveland to Sandusky to Toledo to Gary to Chicago
needs special attention, too.

During an extended stretch last year, between July and September, the
Capitol Limited, which runs from Washington, D.C., to Chicago and
includes my northern Ohio stretch, completed only 2.7 percent of its
trips on time--2.7 percent out of 100 percent on time. The dramatic
increase of freight rail consistently bumps passenger service. We need
both, but what we have are these lengthy delays to passenger service
across our vast region.

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Ms. KAPTUR. Customers are understandably frustrated. Our region needs
customer-convenient hours and passenger-friendly arrivals and
departures. Our Great Lakes Region needs a capital investment plan,
too, for passenger service. We need evaluation for State-supported
routes. Our region needs expedited attention, methodology development,
and service planning to remedy growing congestion inefficiencies that
benefit no one, not the freight lines, not the passenger service, and
surely not the communities they are supposed to serve--nor connectivity
to inner city passenger rail service.

I appreciate the efforts of Chairman Shuster and of Ranking Member
DeFazio, as well as of Subcommittee Chair Denham and Ranking Member
Capuano, in working together to produce this bill.

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Ms. KAPTUR. I ask that our vast Midwest industrial heartland region
not be excluded for alternative passenger rail service pilot programs,
opportunities for rail investment, station improvements, and historic
preservation, nor for public-private partnerships that can advance
modern passenger rail in this vital corridor of our country.

I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Ranking Member, and I urge
the adoption of the Passenger Rail Reform and Investment Act.

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