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[quote]QUOTE: Originally posted by daveklepper Elderly and handicapped people cannot cross the continent by air or by bus and many could not afford to hire a driver and comfortable limousine. They can tolerate a bus or pay a taxi for a two hour ride to the closest Amtrak statioh, or maybe even four hours. Regarding open access, that is a different matter than the fact that highway and air do not pay real estate taxes and rail does. Don't confuse the two issues. Again, you talk about monopolistic freight pricing, but there is always highway and air freight transportation, so the monopoly isn't complete. I still maintain that this amounts to a vitual subsidy for the non-rail intercity public transportation. [/quote] Dave, Under the current Amtrak routes, there are plenty of places out West, both small and large, which do not have access to Amtrak, and for which it would take more than a few hours ride by bus or car to access the nearest Amtrak station. Most Amtrak routes run east-west, what if the elderly or handicapped person in question needs to go north-south or NE-SW/NW-SE? How do the elderly in Boise get to Phoenix via Amtrak? How do the elderly in Billings get to El Paso via Amtrak? The point is, there just isn't enough saturation of point to point rail lines, let alone enough populace to support passenger rail between these types of cities, that they absolutely have to travel by non-rail modes to get to these places. If so, and if such trips are okay for these people, why not the same for those who may currently have the Amtrak alternative? On the tax issue, because highways and airports are "owned" by cities, counties, and states, are you suggesting these entities tax themselves? Isn't that just taking money out of one pocket and putting it in another? Or are you suggesting what I have suggested, e.g. finding the true degree of user fees vs subsidies for these other modal infrastructures, and applying the same to railroads regardless of ownership? Like I've said before, if you are going to "equalize" the relative tax support structure among highways/airports/etc and railroads, then you better "equalize" the issue of rights of access among the various modes as well.
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