There has been much back-slapping, high-fiving and brace-snapping over the news that PennDOT and the Norfolk Southern railroad have reached an agreement to expand passenger train service in Western Pennsylvania.
But a major something continues to not quite compute with this touted public-private partnership.
As the Post-Gazette reported it last month:
“The state said it would invest more than $200 million in infrastructure and safety improvements that will be constructed and maintained by Norfolk Southern to support the expanded passenger operation.
“The improvements and construction, including upgraded rail lines, passenger platforms, sidings and communication signals, following recommendations from a Norfolk Southern operational feasibility study.
“PennDOT said it would redirect state Multimodal Transportation Fund dollars to help pay for the project, as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law’s funding is intended to replace train sets on the Amtrak passenger-rail network.
“In addition, the department said it anticipates applying for additional federal funds to support station and platform improvements along the route.”
The deal is expected to be finalized by the end of the year. And once the physical improvements are made, it will allow Amtrak to add, in about three years, a second daily passenger train route between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg.
Norfolk Southern owns the rail route that Amtrak passenger trains share.
The agreement, first revealed to be in the works in February, is heralded as the culmination of a decade-plus lobbying effort to add the additional train trips.
“This is an excellent example of the positive solutions that government and business can engineer by working side-by-side toward the same goal,” Mike McClellan, Norfolk Southern’s chief strategy officer, told the P-G. “Together, we are able to expand passenger rail access, while preserving a critical artery of our nation’s supply chain.”
OK …
But there’s an inconvenient – and hardly insignificant – fact that appears to have been forgotten over the last few months:
The taxpayer-funded upgrades won’t necessarily improve the laughable travel time of this route. As WESA Radio reported at the time:
“The train ride between [Pittsburgh and Harrisburg] takes nearly 5 ½ hours. The additional passenger service would not affect the duration of the trip, according to PennDOT.”
One can drive from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg in about three hours.
While another trip would be added in the deal, the real goal here appears to be more about taxpayers enhancing the ability of Norfolk Southern, a publicly traded private corporation, to conduct its business.
Of course, the rah-rah-sis-boom-bah-ers for passenger rail are all a ga-ga over the development. One of the steadfast cheerleaders – Western Pennsylvanians for Passenger Rail – sees the move “as a catalyst for economic development, community revitalizations and improved connectivity.”
Would that it were. But it won’t, as ample scholarly research has shown over the decades. (To wit, and just one of many conclusions, can be found at: https://transportation.house.gov/imo/media/doc/O’Toole%20Testimony.pdf)
And as Frank Gamrat, executive director of the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy, succinctly reminded three years ago (in a Tribune-Review story):
“Taxpayers should not have to prop up a service that is dwindling in importance in the 21st century.”
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
