ms. quinn, please, thank you. >> good afternoon. thank you. thank you members of the committee, including senator collins for inviting me here today and addressing this important topic. i would also like to join my panel members here in thanking you for passing the fy 18 appropriations bill, in which you demonstrated a strong support for passenger networks. my name is patricia quinn, i am the executive director of the northern new england passenger rail authority. we are a quasi-government agency formed for the purpose of restoring passenger rail to the state of maine after a 30 year hiatus. those efforts were successful and since 2001, we have worked in partnership with amtrak and our host railroads. just as a background, the downeaster makes five roundtrips a day between portland and boston. we operate over 143 miles of route corridor that is controlled by three host railroads. it runs through three different states and serves 12 communities. we transport about 500,000 people a year, which i

. >> ms. quinn your last comment actually is a great segue to a question that i want to ask mr. gardner. mr. gardner, although it's a little bit off the focus of this hearing, i would be remiss if i did not tell you that i have heard from a number of amtrak passenger coalitions across the country that have voiced concerns about some of the policy changes that amtrak has recently embraced in order to generate savings. and i certainly understand the need for a businessm mentality o be brought to operations and congress has directed amtrak to work to make the entire national network financially more sustainable. but we have also said we want you to do that without compromising service. so the issue that i most want to bring to your attention is these coalitions of passenger groups feel excluded from the process. and what i would like to get from you today is a commitment that you will increase your outreach to passenger coalitions before making fundamental changes in your operations and routes. >> yes, chairman collins, we do endeavor to do that and in fact we have, for a number of