Hello, Congress? Is Anyone Listening? Hello? Hello??
I really don’t know what it takes to penetrate some of the haze surrounding a lot of Congressional offices when it comes to the question of passenger rail and how to pay for it.
Some of that haze comes from conservative ideology, of course, and certainly a lot of it is cynical political pandering. But, unless they’re complete idiots – there are a few*, of course – savvy politicians, be they from the left or the right, are all interested in and are guided to some extent by what their constituents want. Their job, after all, is to represent us!
OK, so here’s something for those representatives to chew on: In a recent poll conducted in six mid-western and western states in which passenger rail is an issue for one reason or another – people identifying themselves as Republican, Democrat or Independent – favor keeping or expanding Amtrak Service. Click here for more information.
How many of those people support passenger rail? A full 70 percent … and those are voters!
Polls like this one, along with hard numbers showing Amtrak ridership steadily increasing and setting new records every year, should have an impact on how these representativesvote when it comes to funding Amtrak at levels that would permit improving and expanding passenger rail service in the U.S.
One would certainly think so, anyway.
*See Rep. John Mica (R-Florida), among others.
Yes, disappointing! I suspect, however, that whoever on his staff is assigned to transportation issues knows about NARP and has probably met with one of our Washington staff. Still, if you will email me with his name, I’ll make sure that one of our people in Washington specifically request a personal meeting with the congressman. And thanks for letting me know.
A couple of weeks ago I had the opportunity to chat with my representative one on one for about 20 minutes. I took the opportunity to thank him for his support of Amtrak and told him that I was a member of NARP. Disappointingly, though, he said that he had never heard of NARP.