Transportation (March 2011)

The last passenger train departed Baker Street Station in Fort Wayne, Ind., more than two decades ago. When a major freight carrier abandoned one of its northeast Indiana lines, Amtrak had no choice but to reroute its Chicago-Pittsburgh-New York corridor.

America’s transportation system is the backbone of our economy. American businesses and families rely on a robust transportation system to move goods to market and to get them safely to their destinations. 

Beginning on Jan. 1, 1968, a revolutionary new safety device designed to protect passengers in high-speed collisions was required in every automobile sold in America. The device was a seatbelt. But the groundbreaking law requiring seatbelts for U.S. passenger vehicles had one exception: buses. Today, millions of Americans travel on buses every year because it often represents the most affordable option to visit friends and families across the country. Unless the bus owner voluntarily provides seat belts and stronger windows and roofs, which most do not, bus passengers have no choice but to travel without these basic safety protections most people take for granted. 

Recently, two strange Washington bedfellows — the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO — came together after President Obama’s State of the Union Address to say, “Whether it is building roads, bridges, high-speed broadband, energy systems and schools, these projects not only create jobs and demand for businesses, they are an investment in building the modern infrastructure our country needs to compete in a global economy.” I couldn’t agree more. 

The Transportation Security Administration, created after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, has unfortunately become the epitome of a federal bureaucracy spiraling out of control.