Air Travel Expert Tells Americans: "Take the Train"
US air travel's current strong recovery from the prolonged post-9/11 doldrums - a rebound already bringing with it more flight delays, congestion and security hassles -- should prompt an urgent reassessment of America's neglect of its rail system.
Austin, TX, (PRWEB) March 12, 2004--US air travel's current strong recovery
from the prolonged post-9/11 doldrums - a rebound already bringing with it more
flight delays, congestion and security hassles -- should prompt an urgent
reassessment of America's neglect of its rail system, travel expert David Rowell
told a Texas travel industry group this week.
"Air travel has become a
form of cruel and unusual punishment," Rowell, Seattle-based publisher of The
Travel Insider, a widely-read weekly for sophisticated travelers, told a meeting
of the Austin Business Travel Association. But he added that it is about to get
very much worse as passengers return to the air. America badly needs to review
its travel priorities and invest heavily in rail, he said.
Referring to a
recent Travel Insider study which showed air travellers now arrive at an airport
81 minutes before their flight is scheduled to depart, Rowell said, "The total
travel time for an air journey has lengthened substantially since 9/11. In those
same 81 minutes, a high speed train could take its passengers more than 125
miles."
Amtrak's main problem and the reason why it can't attain
profitability is its lack of services, according to Rowell. "In Europe, over 90%
of train routes have more than five trains a day. In the US, only 5% of Amtrak's
routes operate at this level, and 75% of the Amtrak network has only one train a
day." Rowell explained, "Amtrak's high fixed costs are simply not spread over
enough services and passengers to break even."
Rowell, who founded and
grew a large travel wholesale company in which air travel business predominated,
advocates a massive national investment into short distance (under 400 mile)
high speed rail links, connecting major population centers and offering a
service that would be faster, more convenient, less expensive, and safer than
flying or driving. "High speed rail would be very expensive," he said "but so
too are the alternatives. California is poised to adopt an ambitious $37 billion
high speed rail project, but it has been estimated this will be offset by a
saving of $87 billion that does not need to be spent on more freeways and
airports." He suggested that the Dallas - Houston - San Antonio - Austin -
Dallas triangle would be well suited for such high speed rail links, with trains
traveling up to 200 mph giving short journey times.
Other countries have
no hesitation in making massive investments to grow their rail networks.
Britain, a country with one sixth the US population, and already blessed with a
comprehensive rail system, is spending $15 billion on improvements. Australia
has just added another 1,000 miles of track. "America needs to catch up with the
resurgence of rail elsewhere in the world," Rowell said.
Rowell pointed
out the nation spends over $30 billion of federal money on highways every year,
while Amtrak struggles to get even $1 billion in funding. The result is a
crippled operation that is unable to provide the level of services to bring
people back to rail. "Amtrak can be saved only by visionary expansion, not by
further cuts in budgets and services. With steadily increasing energy costs, and
the continued security fears associated with air travel, we should focus on the
most energy efficient means of passenger transportation out there - rail. As for
security, no train could ever be driven into a building."
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2004/3/prweb110732.htm