Former Massachusetts Governor and Amtrak Vice-Chairman Michael Dukakis stressed the need to modernize the American railway system at a meeting of the Ethical Society of Boston Sunday morning.
“This country cannot build the future it wants for itself unless it invests a modest and consistent amount of money in a high-speed railway system,” Dukakis told an audience of approximately 70 people in the Longy School in Cambridge, where the society holds its weekly meetings.
“We’d better get going on building first-class railroads or we’re going to have a tough time moving into the 21st century and beyond,” he said.
Dukakis said one of the benefits of high-speed railroads is the reduction of air and highway congestion and pollution. Implementation of such service “would take 90 million motorists off the road every day” and would eliminate the need for flights traveling fewer than 350 miles, which account for nearly a third of total air traffic, Dukakis said.
Dukakis pointed out that improving our railways would also help the country’s floundering economy. “We’re in the middle of a recession,” he said. “If you want to stimulate the economy, invest in infrastructure.”
The United States currently spends $350 million on its national railroad company, Amtrak, Dukakis explained. In contrast, Italy, one-fifth the size of America, spends $10 billion a year on its inner-city rail system. Germany and France similarly set aside 25 to 30 percent, or about $3.5 billion, of their national budgets for their railroads.
The money foreign countries invest in their railroads has produced far better service than American rail service, Dukakis said. France’s high-speed train, the TGV, brings travelers from Paris to Marseilles — the same distance as Boston to Richmond, Va. — in three hours. Japan has been running high-speed trains since 1960, and now that its “bullet trains” race along at 190 miles per hour, commuters can travel from Tokyo to Kyoto in two hours. The “bullet trains” run every 12 minutes during weekday business hours.
The American government spends $50 billion a year on highways and airports. If the railway industry received just 10 percent of that money, Dukakis said, it would have sufficient funding to buy the equipment it needs to set up a similarly successful railway system. Since existing track can be used once it is reinforced, the project would not be prohibitively expensive. In fact, Dukakis said, Amtrak could set up service in the Midwest for $4 billion, and install Miami-Tampa-Orlando lines for $700 million.
“We can give the same capacity highways do for one-tenth of the cost,” Dukakis said.
Dukakis would like to see high-speed trains connecting every major city in America. He has already overseen the beginning of such a network: Amtrak’s Acela trains, which now make high-speed travel possible between Washington and Boston.
“There is no question Americans will use this service if we provide it for them,” Dukakis said, citing packed Acela trains for evidence. “I say, give them reasonably decent rail service, and they’ll come — by the thousands.”