Quigley, Lipinski, Durbin Make Call for Commuter Rail Safety Funding
CHICAGO — Today, U.S. Representatives Mike Quigley (IL-05), Dan Lipinski (IL-03) and U.S. Senator Dick Durbin held a press conference at Metra's LaSalle Street Station urging Congress to help fund implementation of positive train control (PTC) for commuter rails in light of the rapidly approaching deadline.
"Implementing positive train control is vitally important to ensuring that our national rail system provides the utmost level of safety for the millions of passengers that use our passenger railroads each year. But the scary thing is that our nation's commuter railroads are much farther behind on implementation than Amtrak," said Rep. Quigley. "Congress has mandated this important rail safety technology but has refused to fund it. With the deadline for implementation just months away, it's time for Congress to help our commuter railroads employ positive train control and prevent the kind of tragedies we saw on Amtrak last month."
"Representing a district with a vast number of passenger and freight rail lines, I have always made rail safety a top priority on the Railroad Subcommittee," said Rep. Lipinski. "That is why back in 2008 I included language in a bill to create the Rail Safety Technology Grant program to help railroads install life-saving positive train control more quickly. Unfortunately, Congress never fully-funded this program and commuter railroads like Metra have not been able to implement PTC. That is why I have joined with Rep. Quigley on a bill to reauthorize the grant program and to work together so that Metra can get federal help to install this critical safety technology."
"Metra has more track than any commuter rail system in the country and 150,000 passengers daily. Positive Train Control is critical to the safety of these passengers. But Metra – like other commuter rails across this nation – is behind in installing this technology. Our attempts to secure federal funding for PTC have been rejected along party lines and efforts to pass a long-term transportation bill that supports mass transit have met a similar fate. We've had 33 extensions to surface transportation programs in the past 6 years. Isn't it time we put an end to this? Let's stop watching our infrastructure crumble, stop passing extensions, and start working toward a real solution. Stagnant funding and start-and-stop extensions aren't much better than letting the authority lapse. The longer we wait to invest in our infrastructure, the more it costs to repair and replace it in the future. And with this uncertainty, the harder it is for Metra to plan for critical upgrades like PTC. We can plan ahead. We can avoid the consequences," Senator Durbin said.
"The commuter and freight rail industries have spent billions of dollars to date on PTC implementation, and although progress has been substantial, much remains to be done before PTC can be safely implemented nationwide," said Metra Chairman Martin Oberman. "Metra supports any Congressional efforts to assist the railroads with this enormous and complex undertaking."
The transportation spending bill passed by the House of Representatives this year does not include any funding for PTC. The attempt to restore funding, supported by Reps. Quigley and Lipinski, failed along party lines. The Senate bill only fared slightly better – $15 million was included in the spending bill that came out of committee two weeks ago. An amendment, supported by Sen. Durbin, that would have increased funding for PTC, also failed to garner Republican support.
It has been more than a month since Congress passed a two-month stop-gap measure to keep the country's major transportation and infrastructure programs running through July. Without action from Congress, thousands of projects to improve our nation's roads, bridges, highways and mass transit will be slowed down or stopped.
The President proposed a six-year, $478 billion bill that increases overall transportation investment by 45 percent. It gives states, transit agencies, and businesses the certainty they need with a 6-year bill. Under that plan, Illinois would receive an additional $575 million each year to invest in repairing and modernizing our infrastructure.
When the 2008 Rail Safety Improvement Act mandated PTC implementation by 2015, there was no off-the-shelf technology capable of achieving these safety objectives for all railroads. Our nation's railroads have had to develop it, and they've had to do that with little help from the federal government. In fact, Congress has included funding for PTC in the nation's annual budget in only one year since it was mandated. 71 percent of commuter railroads will not achieve full PTC implementation before the statutory deadline of December 2015. Without federal funding for PTC, these already cash-strapped commuter railroads will begin being fined by the Federal Railroad Administration when they do not meet the deadline.
Implementing PTC in Chicago is a more complex task because so many railroads operate in the city and share tracks. Therefore, everyone's PTC systems need to talk to each other: freight, passenger and commuter. PTC implementation is expected to cost Metra more than $350 million. To date, Metra has allocated $133 million towards their PTC capital costs. Metra is relying on anticipated state and federal funds to provide the remaining dollars. However, given the uncertainty in both Washington, D.C. and the Illinois State Capital, those sources remain unclear. They are currently targeting 2019 for PTC to be fully implemented and interoperable, although PTC should be running on the UP and BNSF lines before that time.
Rep. Quigley has a long record of advocating for implementation of positive train control safety technology. Most recently, Rep. Quigley introduced legislation to provide much needed funding to implement PTC. The Reassuring Adequate Investment in Lifesaving Systems or the RAILS Act, which he introduced along with Rep. Lipinski in March, reauthorizes the Railroad Safety Technology Grants Program to provide critical funding for train safety technologies. The bill would provide $200 million for each of the next five years for positive train control safety technologies, rail integrity inspection systems, a system for electronic communication regarding hazardous material rail shipments, and other new rail safety items. On the House Appropriations Committee, Rep. Quigley has also offered amendments to increase PTC funding and helped make $80 million in the FY14 omnibus available to fund the Railroad Safety Technology Grants Program.
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