Lawsuit threat got Amtrak to disclose

Amtrak resisted for more than a year before making its bridge-inspection information public and yielded only when threatened with a federal lawsuit.

The Inquirer filed a Freedom of Information Act request for the inspection reports and repair priorities in June 2008 after initial requests for the data were turned down.

Four months later, Amtrak provided copies of the reports, but with most of the pertinent information blanked out, including all findings regarding the condition of the bridges. Proposed fixes, projected costs, and priorities assigned each project were also redacted from the repair list.

Those were internal documents and part of the agency's deliberative process, Amtrak argued, and disclosure would "discourage candid communications."

In its appeal, The Inquirer argued that the public, which travels on the railroad and provides $1.5 billion a year in subsidies, is entitled to know as much as possible about the safety of the system and its capital needs. The newspaper noted that similar information about highway bridges is public.

In January, Amtrak vice president and general counsel Eleanor Acheson denied the appeal. In addition to the previous justifications, she said terrorists might strike Amtrak bridges if they discovered the "vulnerabilities."

The Inquirer retained lawyer Glenn Manochi of Lightman & Manochi to challenge the decision in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia.

Manochi prepared a lawsuit, detailing as "baseless" the railroad's arguments. He noted that bridge-inspection reports are factual documents mandated by law, not internal documents that can be shielded from the public. And he disputed Amtrak's security claims, citing the U.S. Department of Transportation's conclusion that the public's right to know about the safety of highway bridges outweighs any perceived security threat.

On July 24, seven days after Manochi sent a copy of the lawsuit to Amtrak president Joseph Boardman, Amtrak released the documents.

- Paul Nussbaum