In July of 2017, the U.S. Department of Transportation published a final rule related to the Competitive Passenger Rail Pilot Program. Long before the creation of the Center for Transportation Advancement, our Deputy Director, Phil Bell, was advocating for a free market approach to the program, which was mandated by the 2015 FAST Act.

Below is an edited transcript of Phil’s testimony and a link to the full transcript of the entire day’s proceedings on September 7, 2016. Email us at phil@parkviewinstite.org with your thoughts on intercity passenger rail and your thoughts about how the free marketplace can improve it here in the U.S. We will read your best comments on an upcoming episode of the Advancing Transportation Podcast!

Edited Version of Phil’s Remarks:

___________________________________________________________________
HEARING OFFICER NISSENBAUM: Great. Thank you, Mr. Capon.

Next is Phil Bell.

MR. BELL: Give me a second here. Some places don’t exactly give you a ton of space to put your coat on like a passenger car does. I’ll get set so I look like I belong here.

Anyway, as I like to say, thank you so much for having me here. We’d only like to talk about three critical issues.

 Number one, as I’m sure a lot of folks here have considered participating in this program, we hope that in the final rulemaking bidders will be allowed to decide the routes that they’d like to bid on as opposed to the FRA or Amtrak designating one or two that could be competed for. And we say this because there are a lot of different organizations here that have worked and studied a large number of markets. Ed Ellis, for example, operates a wide variety across the country. Our organization, we’ve studied a fair amount as well.

If you allow the bidders to decide what routes they bid on and judge the process from there, that means you’ll get better form fits that are better able to connect into areas that will ultimately serve.

Second, I ask that you don’t restrict the bidders in terms of what their prior track record was. Although we do have a lot of folks here that have been from the rail industry, the industry itself has generally eschewed operating passenger rail service since the 1960s. Of course we’re all painfully aware of what happened. We had a lot of trains, then we got fewer, then we had Amtrak. So the more outside influence that we can get in, whether it be someone like Marriott, whether it be someone like a non-operator, along with someone like an Iowa Pacific or a Corridor Capital, that would be a big benefit to moving the process forward and also getting new ideas that will ultimately benefit passenger rail as a whole.

And, finally, we ask that you allow for bidding on inactive routes. Over the years Amtrak has

Discontinued, for a wide variety of reasons, a number of passenger trains. A couple of examples, the Texas Chief from Chicago to Houston or the old Montrealer, from Montreal to Washington. This could be a tremendous opportunity for Amtrak to expand their route structure if any of the bidders do choose to engage in operating inactive routes.

That’s all we have. We’re definitely thankful that the process is here, and we look forward to continuing.

HEARING OFFICER NISSENBAUM: Okay, thank you, Mr. Bell.

Full Transcript: