Amtrak

We're pleased to welcome Stephen Smith as a new contributor to Streetsblog Capitol Hill. We'll be running Stephen's work on a regular basis, and you can catch more of his writing at his home blog, Market Urbanism.

A new Republican proposal would eliminate federal subsidies to Amtrak; kill New Starts, the primary federal transit funding program; and make painful cuts to dozens of other federal programs. It’s a plan by the Republican Study Committee, which is trying to keep alive House Speaker John Boehner’s campaign pledge to reduce the budget by $100 million. Boehner himself has been backing off from the pledge, given the popularity of many of the programs the Study Committee is now proposing to axe.

Mayor Bloomberg teamed up with two Democratic members of Congress yesterday to blast the Senate for its vote in favor of forcing Amtrak to allow guns and ammunition in passengers' checked baggage.

Sen. Tom Coburn's (R-OK) attempt to curb federal investment in bicycle and pedestrian paths, as well as other "transportation enhancements," was defeated on the Senate floor today -- but it managed to pick up two unlikely Democratic supporters in the process.

High-speed rail is one of the Obama administration's most prized policy goals, with $13 billion getting earmarked in the coming year alone to help break ground on up to 11 proposed regional corridors. But what will the U.S. get for its money? A lively Senate hearing yesterday attempted to answer that question.

When President Obama announced his plan for a national  high-speed rail network earlier this year, one of the people invited to attend was the Republican mayor of a city you've most likely never heard of -- Meridian, Mississippi. And one of the rail routes, running from Atlanta to New Orleans, went right through Meridian.

The five-year Amtrak authorization that Congress passed last week includes a nice inter-modal touch. It states in no uncertain terms that funding can be spent on making trains accessible for bikes:

The Washington Post today has a piece summing up Joe Biden's ties to Amtrak. There's not a lot of new material in the story (Biden takes the train between Delaware and DC, he has a pro-rail record in the Senate, his son serves on the Amtrak board, etc.), but what caught our attention was a quote from David Johnson of the National Association of Railroad Passengers.

Like Joe Biden, Barack Obama also mentioned Amtrak in his acceptance speech to the Democratic National Convention, but only in reference to his running mate's preferred mode of transportation.