Mass clamor for mass transit

By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist

Michael Dukakis says he is not itching to be the next transportation secretary, but if Barack Obama wins the White House and needs a bullhorn for high-speed rail travel back on the Amtrak board of directors . . .

"Obama is starting to talk about it more and more," said the former Massachusetts governor, who, after his failed presidential bid in 1988, has become to mass transit what Jimmy Carter is to Habitat for Humanity. Dukakis was a Clinton appointee to the Amtrak board. Mass transit "ought to be an absolute key part of an economic platform. It's jobs, it's about a first-class future. The people are way ahead of the politicians on this."

Now, in all obviousness, this so far is less a case of the people having vision than being cattle-prodded out of sport utility vehicles by the oil shock. But after decades of howling at the moon, as lobbyists from Big Oil, automakers, airlines, and freight-rail bought off the politicians, advocates of passenger rail now see the sun rising. The headlines say everything.

Boston, for example, experienced a nearly 9 percent increase in subway use in the first quarter of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007, according to the American Public Transportation Association. It was the nation's biggest increase for a citywide subway system. In New York City, ridership on the subways, and commuter rail transit from Long Island, Connecticut, and New Jersey was up between 4.3 percent and 9 percent in April, compared with April of last year, according to The New York Times.

Amtrak Acela service in the Boston/New York/Washington Northeast Corridor grew 20 percent last year, according to the railroad. "And this is with slow trains" relative to Europe, Dukakis emphasized. The Boston-to-New York run goes at its top speed of 150 miles per hour for only 18 minutes because of antiquated rails and routing.

It is not just the Northeast Corridor that is clamoring for more rail. According to the American Public Transportation Association, light-rail streetcar usage is way up in cities like Baltimore, Minneapolis, St. Louis, and San Francisco. Commuter rail trips are up in Seattle by 28 percent. The Los Angeles Times last month reported that Metrolink commuter rail ridership from counties surrounding Los Angeles is up nearly 16 percent. The Winston-Salem Journal reported in May that Amtrak service in North Carolina was up over 20 percent.

Amtrak president and CEO Alexander Kummant is predicting at least 27 million passengers this year, which would break last year's record of 25.8 million. Editorial boards from Tampa to Lancaster to Duluth to Denver to Atlanta to Salt Lake City and many cities in between are calling for politicians to get on board for Amtrak. The rail service continues to gain riders despite the attempts by President Bush today and President Reagan in the 1980s to gut it. As a measure of what this purposeful neglect has cost us, The New York Times recently reported that in terms of passenger miles traveled, airlines grew from 17 times more than railroads to more than 100 times more. Highway travel grew from 330 times more than rail travel to more than 900 times more.

Dukakis said that in relative terms, it would take a modest investment to begin bringing high-speed intercity rail up to European and Asian standards. "You're talking $3 billion, which is what we're spending a week in Iraq," Dukakis said. "We're not talking, by the way, about 200 mile-per-hour rail. I'd be happy with 120 miles an hour."

Dukakis said he is hearing the mass clamor for mass transit in surprising places. One was at a talk he gave last fall at the Dole Institute of Politics at the University of Kansas. "It was billed as a conversation with Mike Dukakis, mostly on politics," he said. "At some point, I went into a five-minute riff on high-speed rail," Dukakis said. "The place burst into applause. I had to think, 'Where was I?' I was in Kansas, for God's sake. There isn't a part of the country that doesn't want more rail."

Derrick Z. Jackson can be reached at jackson@globe.com.

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