TRANSPORTATION

Travelers use ground routes

By Raphael Lewis, Globe Staff, 9/15/2001

tranded and sky-wary travelers have flocked to Amtrak, Greyhound, and other ground transportation companies the last few days as airlines and airports tighten security systems that admitted at least 19 hijackers onto four jetliners Tuesday.

Amtrak, which is honoring airline tickets of those grounded during the chaos after the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, has seen a 50 percent increase in ticket sales nationwide, a spokesman said. Police and firefighters who wish to travel to New York to aid in the recovery efforts need only show identification to ride for free, officials said.

Increases have been particularly significant for trips of more than 400 miles, as seats rapidly disappear on cross-continental trains, said spokesman Martin Bodtmann.

Meanwhile, Greyhound, the country's biggest bus company, reports that business has quadrupled in many parts of the nation, and that the company has doubled the number of buses and drivers to meet demand.

Officials at Amtrak, Greyhound, and smaller bus companies said it was too early to determine how long the spike in ridership would last. Certainly, they said, it would continue until the nation's airports had fully opened and begun regular passenger service, which had yet to happen yesterday.

But some said a portion of the American traveling public may take quite a while before they're willing to ride a jet again.

''We are definitely prepared for this to last right through the weekend, and we have the capacity to handle it for much longer, if need be,'' said Greyhound spokeswoman Kristin Parsley. Greyhound, she added, has about 2,300 buses and 5,000 drivers on the roads.

Former Massachusetts Governor Michael S. Dukakis, the vice chair of Amtrak's board of directors, said Tuesday's tragedy and the ensuing transportation crisis have proven beyond a doubt that the United States has woefully underinvested in a high-speed rail network. ''I think our members of Congress have to address this issue, and not just because we're busting our backs to carry every last person we can in the short-run,'' Dukakis said. ''The events of the last few days have made it unmistakably clear that we cannot afford an overreliance on an already overtaxed air system. That means the relatively short trips, and even many of the long-distance runs, must shift to the rails, if our air system is to work.''

Currently, Amtrak, which has asked Congress for more than $12 billion dollars to create a network of high-speed rail corridors, operates six Acela Express bullet trains between Boston and Washington. Another two will arrive Sept. 29, Dukakis said, and the last two will hit the rails around New Year's.

Amtrak may soon find itself struggling to aid on a different front as well because of the hijackings: The federal government has prohibited passenger jets from carrying mail and cargo.

Amtrak began doing so within the past two years, a job that has already reaped handsome financial rewards for the cash-strapped national railroad, which must become fiscally independent of federal subsidies by 2003 or face possible disolution.

''We have a huge role to play,'' said Dukakis, ''and we're doing everything we can to make Congress understand that.''

This story ran on page A14 of the Boston Globe on 9/15/2001.
© Copyright 2001 Globe Newspaper Company.