WASHINGTON POST: Perhaps sparked by highway congestion or the hassle of air travel, Amtrak’s passenger rail service has been the nation’s fastest growing mode of transportation, according to a new report that urges Congress to push forward with coordinated national rail plan.
The government-subsidized railway carried a record 31.2 million people last year, a 55 percent increase since 1997, according to a study by the Brookings-Rockefeller Project on State and Metropolitan Innovation.
Amtrak turns a profit on only four of its more than 40 routes, the study showed, all of them in the Northeast corridor, a shortcoming that raised the hackles of some Republicans in the last Congress… (more)
