as well as some unique commuter agencies such as metrolink. such as septa, which are testaments to what i'm sharing with you right now. in fact, when we start our face-to-face, one-on-one meetings with these entity, we deliberately reached out to what we termed the poster children of ptc. and that was metrolink was our first meeting, because we wanted to know the most we could find out about the best. followed by burlington order and santa fe, based on what they reported they too, were a leader among the class 1. there was also an issue concerning money. not that anyone wouldn't accept a check coming into the offices, but there were only 22 entities of the 41 to-be compliant railroads that said they did not have money to fulfill their obligation to peopletc. one was in new mexico, the other one was in southern california. they were both unique circumstances. but we think what's going on right now with the most recent no fault process is the one that was issued the first quarter of this year. we might see a positive resolution to both of them.

madame chairwoman, thank you for including metrolink in this hearing. thank you. >> first of all mister leahy, congratulations to you to making such progress and such an effort in response to the crash that would have been prevented by ptc. i put up a chart of some of the crashes where lives would've been saved if ptc had been implemented and the effort you have made is truly commendable. >> thank you. >> mister batory, i was alarmed to hear you say today, i think this is accurate, that fewer than 25% of passenger miles are covered by ptc. did i understand you correctly? >> yes chairman, you did understand me correctly. there is a difference in the criteria as for the prerequisites that have to be fulfilled by the railroad industry in satisfying the december 31, 2018 deadline. the class i railroads must have 51% of their compliant route miles up and running by december 31, 2018. also, amtrak must do the same. amtrak primarily has its ownership other than that in michigan. everywhere else they operate as a tenant. but when you get into the commuter railr