Amtrak's Boardman supports Foxx's vision for national transportation system

Amtrak President and Chief Executive Officer Joe Boardman endorsed U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx's call last week to address the nation’s transportation infrastructure "deficit" and develop a national transportation plan that links the roads, rails and ports in an interconnected system.

"The Highway Trust Fund is dead," Boardman said in a prepared statement issued late last week. “It's financially unviable and built on an outmoded vision for mobility in the United States. We need to replace it with a surface transportation program for the 21st Century."

A federal surface transportation investment program should focus on national priorities, connectivity and economic growth in order to compete in a global economy, he said.

"We need a balanced program that can provide investment in any surface mode . . . to unshackle transportation planners, system users and other decision makers from simply chasing mode-restricted dollars and instead ask them to produce results that matter to the nation," Boardman said.

In a speech before the Transportation Research Board, Foxx outlined his vision for a transportation system that would meet the needs of the nation's infrastructure deficit, noting that the federal Highway Trust Fund is expected to run out of money as early as August.