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Title: AMTRAK'S PERSPECTIVE
Accession Number: 00748189
Record Type: Component
Availability: Find a library where document is available Abstract: These remarks address what the author considers fundamental about the debate over Amtrak: an inability to focus on some contradictory decisions about Amtrak and its place in the United States. Is Amtrak a mode of transportation or is it a business? Amtrak has lots of characteristics that indicate it is a mode of transportation, but Congress says, "You are a business and you are going to be out of the subsidy business by 2002." What the author suggests is that Congress created something almost by accident without fully understanding the import of it, and that we have not realized the benefit of it for a variety of reasons and we have become enmeshed in an ideological struggle. What Congress created is a public benefit corporation that is a mix of both a mode of transportation and a business. What is needed now is help in the process of defining some real facts about Amtrak. Why isn't there any research? There is a National Cooperative Highway Research Program, a Strategic Highway Research Program, a fully funded transit research program, but not a single thing that looks like a robust research program that looks at Amtrak's role as a mode in the American transportation system. There is a failure here and it has to be addressed.
Supplemental Notes: Distribution, posting, or copying of this PDF is strictly prohibited without written permission of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academy of Sciences. Unless otherwise indicated, all materials in this PDF are copyrighted by the National Academy of Sciences. Copyright © National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
Monograph Accession #: 00748171
Language: English
Corporate Authors: Transportation Research Board 500 Fifth Street, NW Authors: Downs, T MPagination: p. 63-66
Publication Date: 1998-3
Serial: Conference:
National Conference on Critical Issues for the Future of Intercity Passenger Rail
Location:
Washington, D.C. Media Type: Digital/other
TRT Terms: Identifier Terms: Subject Areas: Highways; Operations and Traffic Management; Passenger Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Railroads; Research
Files: TRIS, TRB
Created Date: Apr 14 1998 12:00AM
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