{"id":8144,"date":"2020-05-27T03:06:30","date_gmt":"2020-05-27T08:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=8144"},"modified":"2020-05-27T03:06:30","modified_gmt":"2020-05-27T08:06:30","slug":"amtrak-supplemental-funding-needed-to-maintain-minimum-service-levels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/?p=8144","title":{"rendered":"Amtrak Supplemental Funding Needed to Maintain Minimum Service Levels"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Amtrak\u00a0submitted a letter\u00a0to Congress\u00a0outlining an additional $1.475 billion in supplemental funding needed in FY 2021.\u00a0This\u00a0additional\u00a0funding\u00a0is necessary for Amtrak\u00a0to operate\u00a0minimum service levels across the\u00a0passenger rail\u00a0network\u00a0and continue capital investments for the future.\u00a0The funds would also support Amtrak\u2019s\u00a017\u00a0state partners on the National Network and\u00a0nine\u00a0commuter\u00a0and state\u00a0partners on the Northeast Corridor.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs the severity and duration of this pandemic and its economic fallout become clearer, we are seeking supplemental federal funding for the next fiscal year,\u201d said Amtrak President and CEO Bill Flynn in the letter.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To help offset the impact of revenue losses, Amtrak is taking significant steps to reduce its operating costs by approximately $500 million, including temporarily reducing train capacity across our system to match demand, restructuring our workforce, and controlling discretionary expenses. Yet even with these steps, Amtrak still requires additional federal investment in FY 2021.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt is clear that Amtrak faces daunting challenges in Fiscal Year 2021, which will require us to take action to protect our rail network, our critical capital assets, and the livelihoods of our employees,\u201d said Flynn in the letter. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With strong ridership and revenue levels in the first quarter of FY 2020, Amtrak was on track for another record-breaking year.\u00a0However,\u00a0Amtrak, like all other modes, has seen a dramatic decline in demand for service\u00a0since the pandemic, and is expecting ridership to\u00a0only\u00a0return\u00a0to\u00a0approximately\u00a050% in FY 2021. The $1.475 billion is in addition to\u00a0Amtrak\u2019s\u00a0$2.040 billion annual grant request\u00a0submitted to Congress earlier this year,\u00a0and without this support, Amtrak will be unable to\u00a0minimize the impacts to\u00a0service\u00a0and its workforce as\u00a0described in the letter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amtrak submitted a letter to Congress outlining an additional $1.475 billion in supplemental funding needed in FY 2021. This additional funding is necessary for Amtrak to operate <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8145,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5637,8222,10701,10700,5992,2203,4957,10169,10458,1210,4017,10195,10171,868,10182,1103],"tags":[1211,11678,2390,1024,3627,4419,8160,8596,5923,4588,10975,10702,2837,4265,11676,4062,3914,3301,5084,4741,3459,9762,6514,5296,10132,843,10925,1936,412,4472,5519,2899,10938,1685,639,2902,1212,5405,3711,1978,4415,1055,11677,4307,9923,6251,2718,1691,1658,7099],"class_list":["post-8144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-news","category-consumer-news","category-coronavirus","category-covid-19","category-economic-news","category-finance-news","category-global-politics","category-news","category-railroad","category-railroad-news","category-train-news","category-transport","category-transportation","category-transportation-news","category-travel","category-travel-news","tag-amtrak","tag-bill-flynn","tag-capital","tag-ceo","tag-commuter","tag-congress","tag-continue","tag-controlling","tag-corridor","tag-costs","tag-discretionary","tag-duration","tag-economic","tag-expenses","tag-fallout","tag-funding","tag-funds","tag-future","tag-impact","tag-investments","tag-letter","tag-levels","tag-losses","tag-maintain","tag-minimum","tag-national","tag-needed","tag-network","tag-news","tag-northeast","tag-operate","tag-operating","tag-pandemic","tag-passenger","tag-president","tag-rail","tag-railroad","tag-reduce","tag-restructuring","tag-revenue","tag-ridership","tag-service","tag-severity","tag-strong","tag-submitted","tag-supplemental","tag-train","tag-transport","tag-transportation","tag-workforce"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8144"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8146,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8144\/revisions\/8146"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planesintheair.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}