Listening to the President on Transportation

These words point in a new direction for transportation policy, one that bodes well for energy security and climatic stability. We stand ready to work with the President to flesh out the vision, and hope it will include bold proposals like the National Association of Railroad Passenger's map of new intercity rail lines, construction of which would double the nation's passenger rail capacity and put the mileage almost on par with our world-class 47,000-mile Interstate Highway System.

Boardman said in an interview that shortly after leaving the top spot at the Federal Railroad Administration last Thanksgiving to take over Amtrak, he discovered that the passenger rail system is in worse shape than he thought, and that some people in Amtrak headquarters in Washington are, in effect, burnout cases. He would not be specific about numbers, saying he has still made no final decisions about how many people will have to leave because they cannot make the transition from survival to growth.

"There are a whole host of people here who don’t know whether to believe," he said. "People are going to have to get on the train. We will make some judgments very soon."