Amtrak Funding - Proposed Omnibus Bill FY18

LD trains look to be safe for rest of the year if this passes.

Here is the Amtrak funding in the FY2018 omnibus bill just unveiled:

- Northeast Corridor Account - $650,000,000
- National Network Account - $1,291,600,000 including PTC funding.

Gateway not directly funded, but some of the money from the NEC capital funding increase can be used for projects toward that purpose and reportedly there are some potential other transportation sources/grants within the bill they could try to apply for as well.

lordsigma wrote:

Gateway not directly funded...

This is because most of the rest of the country and the media see Gateway as a NY/NJ project only. The two 100+ year old tunnels are at capacity and were damaged in 2012 by Superstorm Sandy. Every single passenger that travels by rail on the NEC is impacted. This means every single Acela, Northeast Regional, Keystone, Cardinal, Crescent, Palmetto, Carolinian and Silver Service train! This is 48.6% of Amtrak total ridership. No capital funding for Gateway? I guess we'll just wait until the tunnels to fail to see what the politicians do about it.

USAToday.com

Amtrak gets nearly $2 billion in federal spending bill, despite Trump criticism and accidents

WASHINGTON — Amtrak gets nearly $2 billion in federal funding, rather than a steep cut that President Trump proposed, under a broad spending measure released Wednesday.

Trump had proposed cutting $630 million from the national passenger railroad’s federal subsidies for the year that started Oct. 1, out of $1.4 billion provided the previous year.

“Amtrak’s long-distance trains do not serve a vital transportation purpose and are a vestige of when train service was the only viable transcontinental transportation option,” Trump’s budget said.

But the spending bill provides $1.3 billion for the long-distance network. The bill also provides $650 million to Amtrak for the Northeast Corridor, the popular route which runs from Washington, D.C., to Boston.
...

R&DB wrote:lordsigma wrote:

Gateway not directly funded...

This is because most of the rest of the country and the media see Gateway as a NY/NJ project only. The two 100+ year old tunnels are at capacity and were damaged in 2012 by Superstorm Sandy. Every single passenger that travels by rail on the NEC is impacted. This means every single Acela, Northeast Regional, Keystone, Cardinal, Crescent, Palmetto, Carolinian and Silver Service train! This is 48.6% of Amtrak total ridership. No capital funding for Gateway? I guess we'll just wait until the tunnels to fail to see what the politicians do about it.

It might get to the point where New Jersey has to say "f-it" and foot the bill themselves. Without the tunnels North Jersey takes a huge economic hit.

I think there are very intelligent arguments to be made that, although the tunnels are a national problem, they're 10pct national and 90pct local. If the tunnel goes down tomorrow, it affects very little of my business and only my friends living in Jersey and commuting to Manhattan. Further, it's not the first time a politician has played favorites and decided that the locals are not his or her friends and "forgotten" about them. It's a bit ironic, because usually the rural parts of a state complain that the big city voters/pols don't care about them. In this case, the pols don't care about the big city and their voters instead.

“Amtrak’s long-distance trains do not serve a vital transportation purpose and are a vestige of when train service was the only viable transcontinental transportation option,” Trump’s budget said.

Probably "over the head" of the Gannett "Cub Reporter", but I'd have to say the LD's brought in $2B this FY. Yes, they are a vestige, but a rather profitable one for Amtrak, and, as pork barrels go, relatively inexpensive.

silverliner266 wrote:It might get to the point where New Jersey has to say "f-it" and foot the bill themselves. Without the tunnels North Jersey takes a huge economic hit.

While NJ should probably pay somewhat more, the reality is more complicated. Closing the tunnels will make the road crossings completely traffic clogged, as if they are not already clogged enough. Anyone who thinks that Long Island and the city will not be hit because of inability to deliver goods via trucks or take out trash and such is deluding themselves. Longer term the bigger loss probably accrues to NJ, but anyone thinking that NY will be spared needs to reassess their understanding of the interconnectedness of the region.

There's also the argument about who's paying tax where. NJ residents working in NY pay NYS Income Tax. They get a credit in NJ for any income taxes they pay in NY. Once upon a time, they also paid a non-resident tax in NYC, but I think that went away. There is still, of course, an economic benefit to NJ, even though they are paying income tax in NY, as they can afford to shop and pay other taxes in NJ. But the economic benefit to NJ is diluted by the fact that income tax is paid to NY, not NJ.

But as I'm wont to say, we're not incometax.net LOL.

It's going to be up to Schumer, Booker, Gillibrand, and Menendez, et al, along with Cuomo and whoever the NJ governor is now can come up with money in some way shape or form.

In the meanwhile, Amtrak should pare down the plan. They've got $650m this year for the NEC. They've got bridges to replace on the NEC east, Portal in NJ, other infrastructure (Potomac tunnels?) needs, and the North River tunnels. They don't have money for "nice to haves" in the plan, such as Penn South.

I'm thinking what is needed is TIF (tax incremental) financing/bonds. Put a surcharge on NEC tickets. In the Auto Train thread, we're talking about bumping the price of a ticket by $5. Would that kill passenger counts on the NEC? PATH has been put in overall charge of the project; it's notorious for its patronage and waste, but can it be used to help finance?

Jeff Smith » Fri Mar 23, 2018 9:33 am

Jeff, per your post:
I think there is also a NYC income tax.
The question here is whether the Gateway project should be funded by the federal budget. Since the North River tunnels are part of the NEC and operated by Amtrak (National Railroad Passenger Cooperation), I believe congress is obligated to fund it.
Since the tunnels are also used by NJ Transit they should of course share in the funding. From my calculations on the Gateway Tunnel topic, NJT runs about 41% of the traffic through the tunnels. But every state from MA to VA benefits from the NEC. So I don't think NJT should be responsible for the full 41%.
I noted your comment on PATH. They should have absolutely NO input to Gateway! They do not administer and do not use the NEC.
The tunnels were first opened in 1910 and damaged by Superstorm Sandy in 2012. They have become to essential to the operation of the NEC which carries 48.6% of Amtrak's passengers nationwide. Can you imagine what would happen to the economy if we were to lose all those trains due to tunnel failure? Gateway will take about 10 years to build. I think it needs to be funded NOW so it can be started.

Agree that it should be funded now.

It is definitely a regional economic engine. One of W's ideas in year's gone by was to spin off the NEC to the states that run it, VA-MA. You may or may not like W, or even that idea based on the effect it would have had, but I wonder if upgrades would have happened by now. I always hear talk about a single agency that would coordinate all passenger traffic, commuter included.

Re: NYC: that's a RESIDENT income tax. I mentioned non-resident. It was something like 1/2%.

These are just thoughts out loud. But the more I think of it, the more I think they should do TIF Bonds to get this done.

More background: FOXNews.com

No comments on the source plzthxbai!

What's in Congress' spending bill? 5 things to know about the omnibus package

Gateway project
...
Despite opposition from Trump, a project to build a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River could get some funding through this bill.

The Gateway project has garnered bipartisan support among many New York and New Jersey lawmakers, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and New Jersey Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen, a Republican who chairs the House Appropriations Committee.

The House spending bill initially allocated $900 million for the project, according to NJ Advance Media. The spending bill removed the earmark that protected funding for the project, but a Schumer aide said it should still get significant funding.

The Gateway Project could receive as much as $540 million, the New York Post reported.

New York and New Jersey have committed to picking up half of the estimated $11 billion cost.
...

The costs of the new spending bill are too high at a time we should be reducing spending. We should have cut off the least profitable Amtrak routes and reinvested for the future on the profitable routes. This bill just increased spending overall which was wrong. We should have cut overall spending. That isn’t to say we should have eliminated the Gateway project in itself, but Amtrak had enough losses elsewhere that profitable routes should be kept and reinvested which included Gateway and the Avelia Liberty projects and corridor improvements. But national long haul rail routes and PTC investments on those lines to match are just too costly to maintain and should have been eliminated. More efficient spending on profitable routes was key.

Jeff, if you look at the last several posts in the Gateway Tunnel topic, my calculations of who should fund how much of the project was flawed. But we need to build this NOW!

http://www.nj.com/politics/index.ssf/20 ... _gate.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

WASHINGTON -- Funds in the federal spending bill for Amtrak and a special account controlled by the governors of New Jersey and New York will provide $540 million for the Gateway Tunnel even though the project is not mentioned by name in legislation funding the federal government through Sept. 30.

"The $540 million is firm," Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said at a press conference Thursday after the House approved the $1.3 trillion spending bill.

While the House initially approved $900 million for Gateway, which includes a new tunnel under the Hudson River and a new Portal Bridge over the Hackensack River, funding was in doubt after President Donald Trump threatened to shut down the government rather than approve any federal funding for the project.

Schumer said $380 million was added to an Amtrak account for capital improvements along the Northeast Corridor, with Gateway being the "number one" project.

Other funds will be given to Govs. Phil Murphy and Andrew Cuomo to spend and "they're going to use it for Gateway," Schumer said.
...

adamj023 » Fri Mar 23, 2018 1:02 pm,
The bill is huge because of many democrat and republican earmarks that serve relatively few taxpayers. Amtrak long distance trains are not the problem, politicians are. They can not seem to prioritize for the majority of the population. Perhaps we could have reduced Planned Parenthood's 1/2 billion earmark? They have fewer customers than Amtrak's 31 million a year riders.