Hotline #730

The Senate returns on July 21 and likely will take up transportation appropriations soon. Any NARP member with a Senator on Appropriations should tell him or her that the House figures for Amtrak capital and the Northeast Corridor were unacceptable.

The Food and Drug Administration "generally approved" on July 15 Amtrak's program for long-term compliance with their earlier consent agreement. This week, the FDA told NARP that "once we engaged Amtrak, we found their people to be cooperative and responsive. We think the consent agreement is a good one and in the public interest."

Talks continue on the remaining rail labor disputes. If settlements are not reached, parties have until July 28 to submit a proposed contract. The Dispatchers, whose leaders reached a tentative agreement with Amtrak just before the strike began, rejected that agreement 88-18 this week. That dispute will go through the arbitration process from the June 26 legislation.

Little is known about transportation items in the new Democratic platform, but we do know the American Trucking Associations successfully lobbied against one proposed plank that called for increased gas taxes. As for vice presidential nominee Al Gore, when he was in the House in 1979, he led an effective fight for the Gore-Fowler amendment to prevent discontinuance of Amtrak routes.

The California Legislature approved a measure to set up a public-private center for transportation research that would devote at least half of the state's research funding to non-highway modes.

A puff piece on a new study of Northeast Corridor tiltrotor service appeared in yesterday's Washington Post, one of ten such superficial studies the FAA is funding. The Post failed to say the government is spending $40 billion on this; or that Defense Secretary Richard Cheney wants to kill it, despite Rep. James Oberstar's (D.-Minn.) defense of it. Supertrains author Joseph Vranich says tiltrotor will die on its own after much money is wasted. It is just as uncomfortable and almost as unsafe as helicopter travel and the politics of locating heliports in useful downtown spots are impossible.

ISTEA is having little local impact in Washington. Transportation Improvement Programs unveiled this week by the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) show suburbs using flexible Surface Transportation Program money just for highways, though the District of Columbia will use some of it for bicycles. Written comments COG receives by August 15 will be circulated with the Programs. A public hearing is set for September 2. Harriet Parcells of NARP protested COG's plan to approve the Programs just two weeks after that on September 16. Watch your area's process -- it may have similar dates and flaws!

On the other hand, COG could delay by up to a year Virginia plans to widen the Beltway. The state had wanted to speed up studies on the effect of the extra lanes on air quality.

The British government announced on July 14 a plan to privatize British Rail. It would create a separate publicly owned authority to control the infrastructure, as has been done in Sweden, but the British government eventually hopes to sell its infrastructure agency. Passenger and freight services would be divided among various franchises. However, because it may be difficult to sell franchises that now lose money, government subsidies may still be needed. The opposition Labour party said that rail service would be diminished and that the only improvement the public would see would be new paint on the trains.

Germany announced similar plans on July 15 for its two networks, the Deutsche Bundesbahn and the Deutsche Reichsbahn. Passenger, freight, and track units would appear by 2002, but the German government would not be as quick to sell them off.