The high price of gasoline has brought a welcome revival of interest in alternatives to the automobile.
Our car culture has given Americans almost unlimited freedom to travel.
But it's also a major contributor to land-gobbling suburban sprawl, our
expanding waistlines and the pollution that causes climate change.
During the last year, gasoline and diesel prices spiked as tight global
oil supplies and high demand were exacerbated by instability in the
Middle East and a temporary shortage in refining capacity due to
Hurricane Katrina.
One of the few winners in this high-price energy landscape has been the
Downeaster. The Portland-to-Boston Amtrak line has been setting
ridership records every month. Nearly 330,000 passengers boarded the
train during the year ending in June. That's a 31 percent jump over
2005 and the biggest increase recorded anywhere on the Amtrak system.
So it's only appropriate that Gov. Baldacci issued an executive order
last week directing the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority
to work with the state on extending rail service to Brunswick and
Lewiston-Auburn, with the potential for seasonal links to other Maine
destinations.
The order also calls for investments along the Downeaster's existing
route, which runs through Old Orchard Beach, Saco and Wells.
Less welcome is the balloon floated this week by independent
gubernatorial candidate Barbara Merrill. Merrill has called for
Portland-to-Montreal rail service to be supported, in part, by the
proceeds of a rail-car casino.
Promoting such an unambiguous social benefit as mass transit by linking
it to such an equally unambiguous social ill like gambling is a
Faustian gambit that could hardly be less helpful. Half-baked ideas
like these are better left unoffered.
Americans' interest in mass transit has waxed and waned before. Prior
to the state investing big money in a series of rail-dependent
strategies, it ought to conduct a series of sober studies to determine
the costs and the benefits of expanded rail service with an eye to the
long-term.
The slight easing of gas prices and the discovery of new oil reserves
in the Gulf of Mexico should not be an excuse for the return of
irrational apathy about our economy's vulnerability to energy shocks.
If indeed energy prices were to stabilize at lower levels, it would
most certainly be fleeting reprieve from the inevitable day of
accounting.
We'd be wise to consider this opportunity to resurrect a viable alternative to the automobile.
