By DEBORAH E. LANS
HUDSON—To paraphrase Johnny Cash, will we still hear the lonesome train whistle in the future?
In 2022 the Amtrak station in Hudson was the third busiest in the state, after New York City and Albany. It served more than 208,000 passengers. That may change.
The proposed House Fiscal Year 2024 Transportation, Housing and Urban Development budget would cut federal funding of Amtrak by nearly two-thirds, or about $1.6 billion; roughly $1 billion of the cuts would affect the Northeast Corridor, which includes the service at Hudson.
The House adjourned earlier this month without acting on the bill, and the Senate is unlikely to enact as harsh a budget, but the proposal is deeply concerning to many locally. Indeed, the acronym for the bill is THUD, and that’s how it’s landing in the county.
Michael Chameides, chair of the Transportation Committee of the County’s Board of Supervisors, put it this way: “Passenger rail service is important to Hudson and Columbia County. It’s a valuable economic engine that connects our community to Rensselaer, New York City, and towns along the Hudson. I’d like to see investments in Amtrak to increase service, and I oppose attempts to reduce opportunities for people to travel to Hudson by rail.”
A coalition of rail passenger advocates, including the Empire State Passengers Association, has written to congressional representatives to protest that the proposed cuts would reduce the Northeast Corridor budget by 92% compared to Fiscal Year 2023, disrupting a vital commuter network and the connections between rural and urban communities.
The effects of the cuts would be far-reaching. As Professor Eban Goodstein, an economist who directs Bard’s Center for Environmental Policy, explains: “In general, train travel will beat car travel in terms of global warming pollution; on average, about three times less pollution is generated per mile travelled per person.” Put another way, trains produce only about one-third the carbon emissions of the average passenger vehicle.
The U.S. Department of Energy quantifies the difference by saying that traveling on an Amtrak train is 46% more energy efficient than driving and 34% more efficient than flying.
Trains are also considered more efficient than driving. It has been calculated that a single train can carry 50,000 people in an hour, whereas a freeway lane can move only 2,500 in that same time, relying on multiple vehicles.
Trains also defer the deterioration of communities’ infrastructure, by reducing wear and tear on roads and highways.
Train travel is also safer. The New York State Department of Transportation reports that in 2018 (the latest year studied) there were only 41 rail fatalities statewide, compared to 943 highway fatalities.
The Republican House Appropriations Committee describes the THUD bill as “preventing the Democrats’ wasteful spending” by, among other things, clawing back spending on transportation awarding in the Inflation Reduction Act.
But others view the “wasteful spending” explanation as a pretext. The Rail Passengers Association (RPA) President Jim Matthews said in a prepared statement: “This proposed budget does not take the task of governing seriously, ignoring the needs of hundreds of Amtrak-served communities in favor of scoring cheap political points.”
As Mr. Matthews points out: “These cuts are all the more infuriating coming at the same time as we’re seeing unprecedented interest in adding and upgrading passenger rail service from cities and towns across America.”
RPA’s Vice President of Government Affairs echoed the theme, writing that “this is not an effort at governing. [House Republicans] aren’t concerned with meeting the needs of the American public and the 500-plus towns on the Amtrak network that rely on it, especially in rural America.”
Locally, Congressional candidate Josh Riley said to the Columbia Paper: “We should make Amtrak safer and more reliable for the communities across Upstate New York that depend on it. Instead, Marc Molinaro’s party bosses in Washington are pushing massive cuts that would make it worse. What the hell are they thinking?”
For his part, Congressman Molinaro (R-19th) said to The Columbia Paper: “I have concerns about the way the bill is written and I’m still reviewing it.”
Nostalgia, practicalities, environmental and safety concerns aside, for many, train travel, even from Hudson to New York City, also means adventure. In the 1920s Austerlitz native Edna St. Vincent Millay closed her poem “Travel” by writing, “there isn’t a train I wouldn’t take, no matter where it’s going.” What will the poets of the 2020s write?
