The airline industry is in big trouble, with delays, crowded planes, airport security hassles and, above all, fuel prices making it an increasingly unpleasant and expensive way to travel. Driving is also becoming more and more problematic for economic — i.e. gas and tolls (see yesterday’s editorial about Thruway toll hike) — as well as environmental reasons. One would think that our leaders in Washington and Albany would be seriously talking about rail at this point, but no. What will it take?

Public opinion polls have consistently shown that a majority of Americans favor increased funding to make Amtrak a national railroad in more than name only. That’s true of Democrats and Republicans, people of all age and education levels and residents of all parts of the United States. But with antipathy from conservatives in the White House and Congress — who for some reason think rail alone of all transportation modes doesn’t deserve to be subsidized — Amtrak has struggled just to get enough money to survive each year.

The prospects in New York state aren’t any more encouraging. Gov. Pataki’s $185 million plan for high-speed rail foundered over disputes with Amtrak and was eventually abandoned. A badly needed second track between Albany and Schenectady, which would alleviate a bad bottleneck, was approved and designed but never built. A commuter rail demonstration project for service between Saratoga and Albany via Schenectady was funded by the federal government, but political interference from then-Rep. John Sweeney killed it. How many Capital Region residents would ride such a train now? How much of a boon would it, and alleviation of the bottleneck, be to Schenectady’s reviving downtown, and the bigger, better rail station that will soon be built here? It would be nice to find out.

For awhile it looked as if we might. Plans for the commuter rail project were resurrected a few years ago under John Egan, who was put in charge of a Senate High-Speed Rail Task Force by Sen. Joseph Bruno. Commuter rail was part of an ambitious but realistic plan the task force put forth for improving rail service in the state. Unfortunately, the whole thing died on the vine after Egan was named commissioner of General Services by Eliot Spitzer.

Another of the task force’s proposals was a cheaper alternative to the second track: a siding to get one train out of the way as another came through. But in a $124 billion budget that includes a record $1.8 billion increase for education and $170 million for pork-barrel spending by individual legislators, a pathetic $7 million couldn’t even be found for that.

With the world rapidly changing, trains’ advantages over cars and planes are becoming more apparent. It’s time to stop treating them like a quaint relic of the past, and make them a key part of our transportation system.