Northeast business groups are getting behind Amtrak.
More than 50 chambers of commerce and other business groups on the East Coast, including in Rhode Island, joined together Wednesday to lobby Congress to fully fund the railroad's $1.8 billion budget request.
The Bush administration has sent Congress a $900 million request for Amtrak. Amtrak President David Gunn said that amount would eventually force a shutdown of the system. The railroad urgently needs capital investments, he said, warning that "time is running out" for some of its aging infrastructure.
The newly formed Amtrak Business Coalition sent a letter Wednesday to congressional appropriations leaders urging them to meet Amtrak's full funding request for fiscal year 2005.
The group announced its efforts at a boarding gate in Union Station as passengers disembarked trains in the background. Union Station was the third busiest station in the Amtrak system last year, behind Penn Station in New York and 30th St. Station in Philadelphia.
John D. Porcari, a member of the transportation committee of the Greater Washington Board of Trade -- and a former Maryland transportation secretary -- called Amtrak the "lifeblood" of the northeast's economy. He said the railroad served more than six million riders and employed nearly 4,000 people in Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia.
"If Amtrak were not to run tomorrow morning, imagine the incredible congestion we would experience throughout the Northeast Corridor," said Sen. Paul Sarbanes, D-Md. "You'd have absolute gridlock."
Gunn, who took over Amtrak in May 2002, said the rail service has been neglected and "desperately" needs cash. Tracks, rail ties and power cables need replacing or upgrading. At one point, Gunn said, a 12,000-volt cable installed in the 1930s was powering the rail system's entire northeast corridor.
There are also three bridges in Connecticut that need repair -- though they're not in danger of collapse, Gunn said.
The Amtrak Business Coalition has members in Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia.
