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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal Who are you calling a liar? Myself and others are repeating the statistics that are well known and available to anyone who bothers to pull his or her head out of the sand and see the truth about Amtrak. Whether or not Amtrak's ridership is increasing or not is totally irrelevant to the miserably low market share. I don't care if it's 0.3%, 1.0%, 4.3%, or even 10%, it is still not enough to justify a national subsidy. Highways and airports are legitimate in their subsidization (if indeed there is such a thing as a legitimate subsidy) because a majority or plurality of the nation's population use them. If highways and airports only resulted in Amtrak-esque ridership numbers, we'd be calling for those subsidies to end too, but the fact is they do garner enough of a market share, so case closed. Most of us so-called "so-called railfans" would probably even support an increase in subsidies for passenger rail if it earned at least a 25% or 30% share in today's transportation climate, but the fact may be that the market niche necessary for such a share probably doesn't even exist, even with tax breaks and other incentives. And no, we don't want to start quadrupling the gas tax to force people to use passenger rail, because such a move would destroy the economy and we'd be left with double digit unemployment like France and Germany. Quadrupling the gas tax would not result in people switching to passenger rail, because the fundamentals needed for them to use it still would not exist, and the end result would only be to make peoples lives more miserable, without really aiding the cause of passenger rail. [/quote] Dave, With all respect, the initial statement that 99.7% of the public doesn't have access to or doesn't ride Amtrak, despite how much you want to spin it, is incorrect. Amtrak serves 85% of this country's metropolitan statistical areas. 500 cities v. 150-200 at most from any single airline. Just because you want that contention to be accurate doesn't mean it's so. [quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal Whether or not Amtrak's ridership is increasing or not is totally irrelevant to the miserably low market share. I don't care if it's 0.3%, 1.0%, 4.3%, or even 10%,"[/quote] How can INCREASING RIDERSHIP (!!!!!!!) be irrelevant? If you didn't know, Amtrak has a new private-industry background CEO. He's changing things. Therefore, if I understand you correctly, facts don't matter. The fact that Amtrak is seeing more passengers means nothing to you. You've disqualified yourself in this argument. [quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal Most of us so-called "so-called railfans" would probably even support an increase in subsidies for passenger rail if it earned at least a 25% or 30% share in today's transportation climate" [/quote] [quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by futuremodal If passenger rail can somehow be allowed to evolve into a transportation option that a plurality of all Americans will use, then and only then will we see if all the ascribed characteristics associated with the concept of passenger rail worldwide (e.g. can't make a profit, can't compete with airlines without high speed spending, can't compete with highways, et al) are fundamental truisms or simply steriotypical urban myths. [/quote] How can a system designed - and funded - to serve only a small part of the travelling public earn such a market share? The airline industry doesn't even have THAT big of a market share. It's more like 12% with automobiles being 85%. A lot of "railfans" - they're not real railfans if they hate trains - demand unreaslistic goals for Amtrak, since airlines don't even have a 20% share of the marketplace. Just how are subsidies deteremined? Before the Interstate highway system was developed, auto travel had a very small percentage of the market. Only after subsidies to build the high-speed highways did market share improve. If the airline system was as subsidized as Amtrak- if it received only a billion or so a year v. $15-30 billion - there would only be tri-weekly flights and many cities wouldn't have service. I imagine that kind of service would be bad-mouthed too. To build ridership and market share, you have to have service. To have service, you have to pay for it. And there's the blind spot of many "railfans" - they narrowly think only passenger rail has to pay for itself. They seem to ignore that taxpayer-built freeway they drive on to their favorite railfan site or the federally-funded aviation system and airport when they fly on the personal trips.
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