For every five people in our country, there are four cars, trucks or motorcycles. But every day, gas is getting more expensive for those vehicles, setting record-high prices in big cities and small towns.

These record costs have forced many too many families to make choices they should never have to make — between filling their stomachs or their gas tanks. In fact, many families will be spending their entire stimulus tax rebate at the gas station, filling up their cars, instead of spending that money on their personal needs. Americans spent more than $300 billion on gasoline in 2006 to fuel those vehicles, or about $1,000 per person.

Americans deserve to keep that hard-earned money.

We must work to ease the burden on America’s families by ending market speculation and price-gouging from driving up the price of gas, pressuring OPEC to increase its production and investing in renewable energy.

But even if these efforts succeed, a longer-term problem remains: America is still unsustainably addicted to oil. Americans know that petroleum is a finite resource that will only become scarcer — and more expensive — as time goes on.

We need a travel option that breaks our dependence on oil and still meets our daily travel needs. Across the country, mass transit and passenger rail is it.

Where there are affordable, reliable and convenient intercity rail and transit service, people use them — and you can see that happening across the country right now.

Every day, more people travel through New York Penn Station than go through all three of the New York-New Jersey area’s major airports combined. Amtrak trains also carry more passengers between Washington and New York than all the airlines combined, and they do it on trains that hold nearly twice as many passengers and use 17 percent less fuel per passenger.

The month of May was the highest single month in Amtrak history in terms of ridership. Along the Northeast Corridor, one of the nation’s busiest passenger rail corridors, ridership on Amtrak’s regional train was up more than 12 percent.

Passenger rail reduces congestion on our roads and harm to our environment. Emissions from cars and trucks are one of the leading causes of global warming. By taking the train, we are protecting the planet.

Our nation’s increasing use of Amtrak demonstrates the need for our country to finally develop a world-class passenger rail system.

Former Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and I foresaw this need and wrote our Amtrak bill, The Passenger Rail Improvement and Investment Act, back in 2007. Our bill overwhelmingly passed both the Senate and House. Once it’s signed into law, it will help to fundamentally enhance Americans’ travel options.

Our bill would invest nearly $20 billion in America’s passenger rail system over the next six years when combined with a bond proposal that I hope the Finance Committee will act on this year. It would fully fund Amtrak and allow it to upgrade its equipment, improve its service and return the Northeast Corridor to a state of good repair. And it would create a sizable new intercity rail grant program to expand passenger service between more of our country’s towns and cities.

Time and again, rail has proven its worth in times of need.

On Sept. 11, 2001, when the nation’s air travel system was grounded, trains carried people across the country and safely home.

During Hurricane Katrina, a lack of adequate transportation stranded tens of thousands.

During Hurricane Rita, hundreds of thousands of people took to the highways while trying to escape the impending storm, causing gridlock across the region. An extensive rail system could have helped evacuate them, especially the most vulnerable.

Over the course of 36 years, since Amtrak rolled into service, we have only invested $30 billion in passenger rail. But just this year, the federal government will spend more than $39 billion building and repairing roads, more than $15 billion maintaining and expanding our airports — and little more than $1.5 billion on passenger rail.

In April, a French train set the world speed record for conventional rail trains, flying through the French countryside at more than 357 mph. Even before that, a passenger could take a train from Brussels to Paris — 200 miles — in just 85 minutes — with comfort and ease. It’s time to bring world-class passenger rail to America, provide relief to travelers and work seriously to wean ourselves off our addiction to oil.
 
Lautenberg is a member of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee.