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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper I find two important points missing from this thread and they are also missing from any consideration so far by Bush and Mineta: 1. There are USA citizens who need Amtrak to be full citizens. They are the elderly and handicapped who cannot drive and who cannot fly but, in my opinion, are still entitled to have access to the entire country. 2. Airlines and interstate highways do not pay real estate taxes. Railroads do, and fees from Amtrak in part do pay part of those taxes. If all the land occupied by airports and interstate highways (only interstates, not any other highways) were evalautated for real estate taxes on realistic terms by local communities and counties, the total yearly tax bill would probably top $10billion, not $2Billion. [/quote] Dave, You bring up two good points. Allow me to play devil's advocate... 1. What of the elderly and handicapped who currently not served by Amtrak? What about those elderly and handicapped who don't live anywhere near a railroad that could even support passenger rail? Conversely, if these elderly and handicapped can get around via highway oriented travel options, would not the same work for those who may currently utilize Amtrak? 2. It is the rail industry's choice to keep the ROW's under private closed access ownership. Anytime they want, they can give up that proprietary right to the public, and private/public consortium, or a tax-exempt private utility. Of course, if they do that then the transporter service providers must compete for each and every customer. It is the belief of rail industry leaders that the ability to extract monopolistic pricing from captive shippers under the property taxed closed access ROW system is preferable to having to compete for those same customers under a tax exempted open access ROW system. As everyone on this forum knows, I advocate the open access system, as it is my belief that profits would be enhanced by participating in a market based competitive situation via expanding customer volume, rather than limiting customers to those that can be exploited (and giving up the rest of the potential marktet to truckers, barge lines, and pipelines). That being said, it is still imperative to discuss why we need a government run passenger rail service if all other modes only support privately run passenger services (albeit with varying degrees of public support for infrastructure). If it is concluded by the powers that be that we need to keep the current proprietary closed access rail system while forcing these same entities to accept a government run passenger service, why wouldn't it be perferable to have the government transfer that right of access to any potential private passenger service provider who wants to take a shot at trying to make money on passenger trains? Maybe it's true that running LD passenger trains with 1930's logistics will not result in any private sector imcome potential, but then again who knows what could come about under private enterprise if those entities focus on the more logical applications of passenger rail service, namely the concepts of overnight trains and/or tourist trains.
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