Building A More Integrated Transportation Network

Since the 9-11 tragedy, United, National and US Airways have all declared bankruptcy, and the other majors are frantically scrambling to find a new business model through cutting service, using smaller aircraft, and revising their route structures. As we talk about reviving the ailing economy through tax cuts, one of the underpinnings of the economic productivity boom of the last forty years has become destabilized.

The impact in terms of accessibility is profound. Many cities lost between a quarter and half of all flights in the last year, with more cuts on the horizon. Reduced schedules at big cities led to longer waits at hub airports. The airports, which are also economic generators for their metropolitan areas, are in danger of default themselves, as bankrupt airlines renege on lease agreements and ask Congress to cut the fees and taxes that support airport construction and security.

The attack on Iraq has exacerbated the situation, leading to heightened concern about security, and causing many pleasure travelers to cancel trips while business travelers teleconference instead. It looks like our short war has led to a long period of instability, with the travel and tourism industry being the next domino to fall. Hotel vacancies are approaching 25 percent, and a study last fall by the United States Conference of Mayors and Travel Business Roundtable reported $30 billion in losses to metropolitan economies in 2001 and 2002 from reduced travel and tourism.

Now, however, the very viability of the transportation system is threatened. The failure of the network-based airlines is cutting small and medium-sized cities out of the loop and diminishing the overall strength of the network. The Interstate Highway System is at capacity and failing in its role as a long-distance travel system connecting major metropolitan areas. The rail network is shrinking as well, as the railroads defer investments to only those needed to carry high-value cargo. This threatens overall economic productivity, as advances in transportation have been key to such innovations as just in time manufacturing and advanced logistics.

The root of the problem is that our transportation system was never designed as an integrated air-rail-highway system where one mode could provide service should another fail. Air-rail connections have long been a compelling feature of travel in Europe and Japan but exist at only a few airports in the U.S., and the lack of freight-transfer facilities have long been the Achilles heel of the just-in-time manufacturing system.

We have learned the value of redundancy in networks time after time, with recent examples being Amtrak's role in the Northeast Corridor after post September 11 shut down of our aviation system. Sadly, convenient options are available only in the Boston-Washington Corridor and in a few corridors on the West Coast.

Simply returning to the days of regulation and propping up the airlines by subsidizing air service isn't the solution. Nor is a dramatic increase in taxes to add new highway lanes the answer.

Instead we need to unlock the hidden capacity in our transportation networks to trigger the next wave of productivity improvements. We need careful balancing of further deregulation and targeted infrastructure investment, not elimination of user fees that pay for vital transportation facilities and needed airport security.

We need to view airports as "travel ports", where one can access air service for longer distance flights and high-speed commuter and intercity rail and bus service for shorter trips. We can do the same thing with freight by eliminating key chokepoints that prevent the use of rail freight for higher value time-sensitive cargo, and that obstruct travel and transfer within metropolitan areas.

Regulatory barriers that prevent states from investing in integrated facilities must be eliminated, as must anti-trust barriers that inhibit airlines, bus systems and railroads from partnering to provide service. We also need to create an integrated trust fund to bring intercity rail and bus into airports, to create integrated freight transfer facilities, and to improve rail infrastructure.

This means replacing the Essential Air Service program -- which props up failing airline routes -- and the annual Amtrak appropriation fight with an Essential Transportation Service program. This would provide smaller communities with reliable transportation services – bus, rail or air -- without regard to the mode of travel. Many of Amtrak's long distance routes are primarily justified for national connectivity and not by high demand, just like essential air service. Let's eliminate the policy muddle.

Lastly, we need to create a stable source of funding for intercity rail service, primarily in the 100-to-400-mile market that is being abandoned by the airlines. Amtrak should cease being primarily a long distance operator, and should instead become primarily a short and medium distance carrier, networked with air for the longer trips at major hubs and with intercity bus for less dense corridors.

The legacy of 9/11 and the subsequent security regime need not be the collapse of the airline and tourism industries. The solution is an integrated transportation network serviced by robust partnerships between the air, rail, bus and highway providers. Rather, prompt action by President Bush and Congress can put in place a transportation network that will support a postwar economic boom.

Hank Dittmar is Co-Director of Reconnecting America, a nongovernmental effort to create a more interconnected and economically viable national transportation system. He is also Chair of the Congress for the New Urbanism.