Train route shifts money with tourists

Unless your business is brief, the new Amtrak route to D.C. won’t help you much.

That’s a continuing disappointment to those who fought long and hard to persuade Amtrak to add the services of a second train along the Lynchburg-Washington corridor. And it will require a shift of emphasis to make the new route successful.

The new service launches next month.

Supporters had envisioned a schedule allowing travelers to journey by train to D.C. in the early morning, take care of business and return to Charlottesville (or Lynchburg) in the early evening. The new service was supposed to get passengers to the capital before 9.

Instead, a later departure time was selected, and passengers will reach Washington at around 11:30.

That’s fine if all you need are a business lunch and an afternoon meeting or two. Anything more complicated would require an expensive overnight stay. And, that being the case, local businessmen and women might just decide that it’s better to drive to D.C. in the early morning, get in a full day of business and drive home at night.

Ease of doing business for residents of the Charlottesville area was just part of the goal. Another was getting people out of their cars and into economically and environmentally efficient mass transit.

“I’m really worried that getting to D.C. at noon will put people back in their cars,” said Albemarle County Supervisor David Slutzky.

In fact, it turns out that business travel isn’t what Amtrak is interested in at all, although in originally announcing the earlier train business travel it is exactly what was targeted.

U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello, D-Ivy, says he was told by Amtrak recently, after pushing for the earlier schedule to be reinstated, that the rail line is first concerned about serving tourists who want more reliable access to Philadelphia, New York and other northern cities.

That sounds like Amtrak will be catering to through traffic — tourists from farther south wanting to get farther north — or to local residents traveling to those cities. In either case, then, passenger service will be taking money away from the Charlottesville community by taking tourists to other locales.

Instead, improved business travel would have served the local economy. More efficient commercial communication between business interests here and in D.C. could have reduced costs and stimulated growth.

The Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation has invested $43 million in infrastructure upgrades along the corridor, and will spend $10.6 million to subsidize the project over the next three years. That is money being spent that might not bring revenue back to Charlottesville and the other hometowns along the route.

Since the decision is made, many rail hopefuls say, the thing to do is make the best of it and support Amtrak’s tourist strategy. Any additional rail service is an improvement, they say.

They’re right about that, of course.

But we’re still disappointed.