Utah needs to support rails

Your recent excellent article (June 19) on the debate that is going on around the FrontRunner commuter rail service is not unlike debate around the United States over the need to redevelop and expand our rail systems to carry more people and freight.

We are facing a mobility crisis brought on by the burgeoning need for more transportation options and an economic crisis fueled by the increasing bite being taken from all of our wallets by the obvious cost of gasoline at the pump and the hidden impact of fuel cost add-ons to almost everything we consume.

But I find these lawmakers and other rail critics who decry the use of "subsidies" for new rail services to be nothing more than transportation hypocrites. Ask any of them when was the last time they criticized a highway project on those grounds. My guess is they won't be able to give you an answer. For all of their hot air and hand-wringing over subsidizing rail and transit projects, the fact is that Highways have not only been historically subsidized by federal and state dollars, those subsidies are heavily skewed toward highways and, to some degree, aviation. But support for rail and transit has been just as historically low to the point of being fractional in some states.

I dare say Utah is no exception.And we are paying the price for putting all of our transportation eggs in one basket.

Stu Nicholson

Public information officer

Ohio Rail Development Commission

Columbus, Ohio