March 8, 2006

The Honorable Shelley Taub, Chairperson
Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation
Michigan House of Representatives
Lansing, Michigan

Re: Testimony of Michael J. Whims

Honorable Chairperson and Subcommittee Members:

My name is Michael J. Whims and I am Chairman of the Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers. I am a resident of Royal Oak, Michigan.

The Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers (MARP) is a statewide member based non-profit organization representing Michigan rail passengers for the past 33 years. Our mission is to educate the public and officials about the benefits of Michigan’s passenger rail service and connecting intercity bus and transit services, and to work toward improving and expanding this service to meet the public’s transportation needs.

The purpose of my testimony today is to provide an interim report of a statewide rail passenger survey that MARP is conducting, which is designed to understand better who takes Michigan’s two state-funded trains, and why they are using the trains as a travel mode.

The passenger survey is a written survey being conducted by MARP Executive Committee members at selected stations along the Blue Water and Pere Marquette routes. Passengers are informed that we are conducting the survey to help MARP in its mission. The survey takes less than 2 minutes for passengers to complete. We plan to conduct 1,200 surveys this spring, at four stations.

Tabulation has been completed for 300 surveys taken at the Flint station along the Blue Water route and 300 surveys taken at the Holland station along the Pere Marquette route. Surveying has been conducted throughout the week to get a representative sampling of weekday and weekend riders. We are currently conducting surveys at Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids.

Although the project is not finished, there are some trends that appear to be consistently evident from the 600 completed surveys already. I would like to share those with the Subcommittee this morning.

Each passenger is asked to provide a residence zip code. A total of 174 zip codes were reported by the 600 passengers surveyed at Flint and Holland. Of these, 68 were out-of-state or foreign zip codes, representing over 15% of the passengers surveyed.

The in-state zip codes show a wide geographic draw of ridership, well beyond the metro area of each station. Passengers come from beyond the “thumb” area for the Flint station and as far as from Traverse City for the Holland station.

A key question posed by the survey is the primary purpose for this travel. The single greatest reason given was for family gatherings and visits, accounting for over one-third of the total responses. Vacations / sight-seeing trips, and business / student commuting trips account for about 30% each. Shopping trips account for about 5% of the travel.

The interim results discussed in my testimony today are only a part of the overall information being gathered. MARP will be happy to share the full results of our survey when completed this spring. Because of the consistency of results being seen between Flint and Holland, we expect to continue to find at the other surveyed stations that a significant percentage of out-of-state residents are using Michigan’s trains. This is despite the fact that the train schedules are designed for Chicago-bound day trips. These out-of-state passengers bring revenue to Michigan businesses. Michigan should promote this travel more through Midwest marketing efforts and improved train scheduling.

Again, because of consistency of reported travel purpose already seen, we expect similar results at the other surveyed stations. The split appears to be fairly even between trips taken that unite families, those taken for personal enhancement, and those taken for personal enjoyment. The ever-increasing ridership attests to a growing public desire to use Michigan’s trains for this meaningful travel. To do this, passengers want and expect fully-funded passenger rail service.

On behalf of MARP, I wish to thank Chairperson Taub and Subcommittee members for the opportunity to speak today. I will be happy to answer questions.

Respectfully,

Michael J. Whims
Chairman
Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers

Terry Donnelly

Michigan Association of Railroad Passenger (MARP) Treasurer and U.P. Coordinator Terrence F. Donnelly died Friday, July 15, 2005 at his home in Harvey, Mich. after a lengthy illness. He was 73 years old.

Terry was an active member and past president of the Michigan Association of Railroad Passengers, where he currently served as treasurer. This past March he received a lifetime achievement award for his work with MARP.

Terry is survived by: his wife, Pavie; his brother, John Joseph (Ann Nee) Donnelly of Three Rivers; a sister, Joan Therese (Richard) Sampson of Three Rivers; a sister-in-law, Shirley LaBonte of Marquette; a brother-in-law, Edward “Bob” (Mary) Rasmussen of Iron Mountain; several nieces, nephews, and cousins. He was preceded in death by his parents; a brother, Joseph Michael Donnelly; and a brother-in-law, Bernie LaBonte.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated at St. Louis the King Catholic Church in Harvey on Friday, July 22, at 12:30 pm with Rev. Ben Paris, pastor, as celebrant. The family will receive relatives and friends at a reception in the parish hall following mass. Burial will be made in the Holy Cross Cemetery with John Johnson, and nephews, Brendan Donnelly, Dan, Mike, and Rick Sampson, Tim and Greg LaBonte serving as pallbearers.

Memorials may be directed to Public Radio 90 or the Marquette County Humane Society.

More obituary information is available online at The Fassbender Funeral Home, Marquette, which is handling funeral arrangements. Memorial tributes can be made online. The funeral home phone number is (906) 228-3040.

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The U.S. Dept. of Transportation office of the Inspector General released its Congressionally-mandated annual report on Amtrak Nov. 22, 2004.

In the report, USDOT Inspector General Kenneth Mead is critical of plans to continue operating Amtrak in its current manner.

“Unsustainably large operating losses, poor on-time performance, and increasing levels of deferred infrastructure and fleet investment are a clarion call to the need for significant changes in Amtrak’s strategy,” Mead wrote in a memo accompanying the report. “Continued deferral brings Amtrak closer to a major point of failure on the system but no one knows where or when such a failure will occur.”

A copy of the report is available on the USDOT website.

The National Association of Rail Passengers issued a press release critical of the D.O.T. report Nov. 22. It is located at http://www.narprail.org/r04.htm.

Check MARP’s news page for the national and local media’s news perspective on the report.