Airline tickets are greatly underpriced and don't cover the cost of the service. All the gimmicks like "Free Flyer Miles" need to be done away with too. Every trip needs to be paid for and the price of a ticket must cover ALL the costs.
TRAINS ONLINE
PARIS - France's state-owned railway SNCF would be interested in operating a high-speed rail network in the United States, the French newspaper Les Echos reported Thursday, according to Reuters.In France's experience, high-speed rail systems are most efficient when they link large cities 600 to 900 miles apart, the newspaper quoted SNCF International President Jean-Pierre Loubinoux as saying.Such conditions exist on the U.S. East coast, in California, and in Texas and Florida. "We could have more than a track, we could have a network," Loubinoux said. "If there is the possibility (of operating this network), we would definitely study it with great interest."
I guess the SNCF think they could do it. Go for it!!
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
schlimmMr. SP does make an important point. Whether or not we can tolerate airline service (largely no choice) that there is, of course, the enormous subsidy in physical plant (airports, ATC) and operating expenses (airports, ATC workers, etc.)that the airlines are getting . Even so, most are laying off workers like crazy (check Dallas for American layoffs) and service declines while losses mount. I suppose the accountant types are fine with disposable contract workers (no loyalty to employees, let them go if costs mount just like closing a door). Or if worse comes to worse, let the legacy carriers (remember Pan Am, TWA, Eastern, etc.?) go out of business and replace them with more "low cost, start up" airlines. Great! Look how short most of their lifespans are. Even Southwest (hardly a start up - 37 years old) is having some troubles (3 straight quarterly losses). IMHO, that's no way to run an airline transport net any more than Amtrak is the way to run passenger service.
If the above quote represents the position of the mainstream passenger train advocacy community, and I am by no means singling out Mr. Schlimm as that argument is pretty much mainstream among the bricks-and-morter community with whom I have contact, the days of Amtrak are pretty much over and done with.
I will grant you all of the problems with the airlines -- intrusive security checks, poor service, airline workers losing their jobs. Lets say that Amtrak and passenger travel have minimal security checks (for now), great service (?), and Amtrak workers have secure jobs. Sam1 might chime in that no one is entitled to a secure job, or at least not at the cost of government subsidy, but for the sake of discussion, let's assume all the good things of Amtrak are worth some level of subsidy.
Airlines are to Amtrak in passenger miles in the ratio of 100:1. Let's leave aside whether all the money spent on airports and air traffic control, etc, etc constitutes a direct subsidy or whether the ticket tax and the av-gas tax constitute taxes or user fees and so on. Let's just say that we are going to ramp up the Amtrak subsidy of about 1.5 billion/year to replace what the airlines are doing.
We are talking about subsidizing Amtrak at the rate of 150 billion per year. That's right, about 3-4 times the amount of the current Federal Highway budget. There are people in the advocacy community who would have no problem with spending 150 billion/year on rail if that is what it would take, and an added dollar a gallon in gas tax would raise that amount of money, if it could be spent only on passenger rail, and I know some people in the bricks-and-morter community who think that would be an absolutely great idea.
But 150 billion/year on trains is not gonna happen. Not . . . gonna.
The notion behind the Vision report is that someone had the bright idea that 150 billion/year is completely unrealistic, but about 10 billion/year could somehow be snuck into the budget. That 10 billion/year would pay for infrastructure improvements to bring Amtrak from 1 percent of airline travel to 10 percent of airline travel. And that money didn't account for any subsidy. Everyone in the advocacy community was hootin' and hollerin' that someone was finally listening to us and we are going to get all kinds of trains. I don't think that 10 billion/year for the next 40 years is going to happen either.
The community is going to have to get over picking at the airline industry or the highway and auto situation and get our own house in order before anything is going to get off dead center with trains. The 8 billion we are getting out of ARRA needs to be spent wisely, and the first person to suggest any of it to be spent on new Superliner sleeprs will be further evidence of what I am warning about.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Entrenched positions. NOBODY I know of would support a rail net at the tune of $150 Bil/year. I never suggested that Amtrak (or some other rail net) could or should replace the air transport net. That is a rahter misleading and silly reductio ad absurdum (straw man) argument. We clearly need road, rail and air, but in a more sensible balance than currently exists. And the point of my and others' pointing out the financial difficulties in the air business is to show that even as lousy as Amtrak is, transportation nets really don't work very well as "free markets." I actually believe it would be better to phase out Amtrak and phase in other methods of getting up-to-date rail passenger surface transport, probably largely parallel to the major freight lines.
BTW, the FAA alone typically has a budget of $14-16.7 Bil., much of it covered by ticket tax. Airport improvements have averaged $13 Bil./yr., funded primarily by capital improvement bonds. Though only some of these nearly $30 Bil. in costs come out of the airlines pockets, they still are having trouble even breaking even. So clearly it costs a lot of subsidy to keep our essential air transport system operating. I'm only saying some larger subsidy to have a decent up-to ~1000 mile passenger rail net is also needed. We surely don't need more Superliner sleepers.
schlimm Entrenched positions. NOBODY I know of would support a rail net at the tune of $150 Bil/year. I never suggested that Amtrak (or some other rail net) could or should replace the air transport net. That is a rahter misleading and silly reductio ad absurdum (straw man) argument. We clearly need road, rail and air, but in a more sensible balance than currently exists. And the point of my and others' pointing out the financial difficulties in the air business is to show that even as lousy as Amtrak is, transportation nets really don't work very well as "free markets." I actually believe it would be better to phase out Amtrak and phase in other methods of getting up-to-date rail passenger surface transport, probably largely parallel to the major freight lines.
Strawman argument? Nobody you know advocating such a position? I do in fact know people who advocate just that -- European level of gas taxation with all of the proceeds earmarked for passenger rail of some form or another.
What is the sensible balance? Is the Vision Report proposal with a 90%/10% split between air and rail, with air and rail getting comparable levels of Federal funding a sensible balance? Does a a 90%/10% split between air and rail do anything meaningful of alleviating the problems associated with air?
What is misleading or silly about anything I have said? Europe has a 25%/25%/25%/25% split between air, rail, bus, and boats. Their government support of passenger trains is about at the level of our highway program, with of course, orders of magnitude fewer passenger miles.
schlimm BTW, the FAA alone typically has a budget of $14-16.7 Bil., much of it covered by ticket tax. Airport improvements have averaged $13 Bil./yr., funded primarily by capital improvement bonds. Though only some of these nearly $30 Bil. in costs come out of the airlines pockets, they still are having trouble even breaking even. So clearly it costs a lot of subsidy to keep our essential air transport system operating. I'm only saying some larger subsidy to have a decent up-to ~1000 mile passenger rail net is also needed. We surely don't need more Superliner sleepers.
In FY08 the FAA required a General Fund transfer of approximately $2.7 billion to cover the difference between its budgeted costs and the receipts generated by ticket taxes and other revenues. This gap (19 per cent) reflects the numbers for previous years.
Approximately 26 per cent of take-offs and landings controlled by the FAA involved the airlines, whilst 35 per cent of center traffic was attributable to airline traffic. Contrary to popular belief, the airlines do not make up the majority of controlled air traffic movements in the U.S. The biggest user is general aviation in all of its forms.
The controlled movements are a pretty good indication of the percentage of all air facilities, i.e. airways, airports, buildings, etc. used by commercial carriers. Of course, in some locations, e.g. LaGuardia, Kennedy, DFW, a higher percentage of the traffic is commercial air, but in many other locations, e.g. Austin, Dallas Love Field, El Paso, the percentage of traffic attributable to commercial air carriers is lower than the national average.
On a prorated basis, the amount of the federal transfer attributable to commercial airline operations was in the neighborhood of $826 million. In addition, the Essential Air Services Program required a General Fund transfer of approximately $141 million, whilst the TSA required a transfer of approximately $1.6 billion to close the gap between the security fees paid by airline passengers and the cost of providing airport screening. All up the general fund transferred approximately $2.6 billion for FAA activities used by the commercial airlines that were not covered by fees and taxes. This amounted to an average federal subsidy per airline traveler of $3.92 or .45 cents per passenger mile. For comparative purpose, Amtrak's got an average system subsidy of $48.50 per passenger and 22.61 cents per passenger mile.
The cost of constructing airports in the United States has been covered for the most part through the issuance of tax free, municipal bonds. They are usually issued by an airport authority. The bonds are serviced from landing fees, vendor revenues, fees and investments.
The ability to finance airport construction with tax free bonds means that the costs are lower than they would have been had the airport authorities been required to issue fully taxable bonds. These lower costs can be passed on to the airlines, as well as all users, in the form of lower landing fees. However, the spread between fully taxable bonds and tax free bonds, depending on when they were issued, is not as significant as might be imagined. Moreover, what a commercial operator saves in lower landing fees, as well as other fees, would be made up in part by the higher taxes paid on higher than otherwise taxable income.
Paul M.:
"What's misleading or silly about anything I have said? Europe has a 25%/25%/25%/25% split between air, rail, bus, and boats. Their government support of passenger trains is about at the level of our highway program, with of course, orders of magnitude fewer passenger miles."
I wonder about the accuracy of the split you cite. That sounds awfully high for boats. What's the split here?
According to the European Commission for 2003 the split on market shares of passenger transport was rail and rail-based transit 6.9%, buses 8.6%, air 1.6% and autos 78.2%. No figures given for boats and ships.
The Feds' estimate of vehicle miles in the US is 933 Bil. On funding the 2004 total national US spending on highways was $147.5 Bil., $33 Bil from the Feds. Also in 2004, total US spending on "transit" was $39.5 Bil., only $7 Bil. was from the Feds, $11 Bil. system generated.
Figures are from http://www.irfnet.eu/media/press_release/statistics/erfeuropean_road_statistics_2008_booklet_150x210mm_v08_press_passenger_transport.pdf
under http://www.irfnet.eu/en/2008-road-statistics/
In terms of the general notion of a transportation crisis and rights to mobility and lifeline transportation services talked about on this thread, the societies with much heavier rail usage have much lower per capita passenger miles. In the US, we travel more than anyone. Does this mean we get more done? Have more suburban sprawl? Have a more spread out country? Some combination of factors?
But the numbers show that 1) other societies rely on cars as their major mode, 2) Europe has trains, but it is the minority common-carrier mode to air and buses, 3) US has common carrier transportation, but it is mainly airlines.
I had seen numbers that water borne passenger travel is a significant market in Europe, and I can come up with passenger boardings but cannot find the passenger miles.
Those percentages pretty much reflect my family's travel patterns. For our wedding, my aunt flew from Florida to Eastsound--and stayed one night, because my cousin was getting married two days later back in Florida. The hotel where I worked here on Orcas Island catered many weddings; guests from the east coast or midwest were comon, and they almost always traveled by air.
In three and a half years working at the hotel here, I met only a few people who traveled here by train, or indeed had ever been on Amtrak. There was a constant stream of seasonal and short-term employees in and out of there, and they were about the only people I know who would travel by long distances bus. However, there is an airport shuttle bus between the San Juan Islands Ferry and SeaTac that was frequently used by those traveling without cars.
So, again, I know how the numbers add up. I am familiar with Amtrak, and know how the costs don't add up. But Amtrak is necessary, because we keep finding that segments outside the corridor system need expansion of service, and so the system must be preserved. For example, Des Moines seems to have realized that they are not in a "corridor," (see other thread) and highways are getting clogged. Orbitz shows fares of $1,026 for non-stop Des Moines to Chicago; there is a low fare of $224 but it's to Madison, WI...
We will soon see that one train a day to cities like Minneapolis Denver and Des Moines is not sufficient.
"Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood." Daniel Burnham
Correction--I see that Minneapolis is on the HSR map. Let's say that Denver is a city that might want some more service, like to Cheyenne / Portland or to Las Vegas / Los Angeles??
Your figures sound similar to the ones I got for Europe 2003, except air seems to have grown a lot in just a couple of years. I am curious then what you were previously referring to in the 25/25/25/25% split? I doubt boats would account for much passenger traffic. Even on the Rhine, Danube, Elbe or Mosel, where there are extensive tourist river lines, the load seems much less than on even only the parallel rail lines, let alone the other lines.
I have among my bookmarks the Web site http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/energy_transport/figures/pocketbook/2006_en.htm
which has a document (click on Statistical Pocketbook 2006 Transport)
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/energy_transport/figures/pocketbook/doc/2006/2006_transport_en.pdf
that has a modal market share chart on p 30. Yes, what I have reported about the share for water borne passenger transport is way to high, I may have been thinking of another site. On the other hand, the charts show that air has had a comparable market share to rail for a very long time although air has been growing.
I suppose that Europe has the kind of "balanced" transportation system the advocacy community here has been asking for. The chart on p 30 has a different scale for auto passenger miles because in Europe as here, auto is orders of magnitude bigger than any common carrier mode.
This "balance" is that if you want a common carrier alternative to driving, instead of pretty much having one as in the US, the airlines, with buses a distant second and Amtrak a far distant third choice, in Europe you have three common carrier choices: buses, airplanes second but growing, and rail, all with pretty much an even split. Based on what I had seen in the Vision Report appendices, providing the rail choice to air travel is expensive in terms of public funding, with subsidy rates per passenger mile comparable to our much smaller Amtrak.
The other part of European "balance" is the strong market share of buses. My guess is that intercity bus is subsidized in a way that buses in the US are not, in order to get that much patronage. Many European countries have Postal Buses -- you see this big hunting horn emblem on the side of intercity buses, which is the emblem on mail boxes, carried over from the day when letter carriers rode horses. So just as the Post Office is regarded as one of these necessary services to be run at a loss, intercity buses are part of the post office.
There is a passenger train advocacy community which kinda, sorta supports the idea of public transportation in all forms in the US, but I don't see much passion on this Web site for Federal subsidy of intercity passenger buses. The advocacy community draws heavily on rail fans, who frankly, are not thrilled about the prospect of taking long journeys on buses. I don't think Europe has anything at all like the more-than-one-overnight continent-spanning Empire Builder, although if you add in Asiatic Russia, there is the Trans Siberian Express.
In terms of public policy choices, Europeans have long felt themselves vulnerable in terms of lack of domestic oil and in some cases coal supplies, and there is a long Mercantilist tradition predating Adam Smith among European countries about avoiding imports. Europe perhaps avoids importing oil by having the high gasoline tax and the large subsidized rail network, but the policy may be carried well beyond the economic break-even point. Similarly in Japan, they try to grow their own rice on a patchwork of small plots, where it would be much cheaper to import rice from Arkansas, USA.
France is both oil-poor and coal-poor, and back in the day they had de Glehn four-cylinder compounds and later Andre Chapelon building those nifty higher thermal efficiency steamers. The US back in the day had abundant coal and oil (until the 1970's) and built such affronts to CO2 emission such as the Big Boy and other high-power, lower thermal efficiency, let's burn tons of coal to make tractive effort machines. Today France is 80 percent nuclear electric power whereas in the US we dither about the moral implications of nuclear power, mire it in environmental regulation, and build natural gas fired plants. One thing you have to admire, perhaps, about France, is that it is a much more technocractic meritocratic society driven by their elite schools, and when they, the leadership class trained in those schools, decides to get something done, they go ahead and do it. Many in the advocacy community would like to see this "get it done" attitude on these shores with trains and admire the French for "not wasting money as we do on the military", but the French are also not deterred by environmental protesters in rubber boats and are not shy about blowing one up "to send a message."
If Europe has, say, a 10 percent market share on trains, 10 percent is mere window dressing if you are serious of cutting back on oil imports or saving the environment from Global Warming. They get much more bang-for-the-buck from their high gasoline taxes. Their cars are smaller, but they also drive much faster, and I don't see they use much less auto fuel per passenger mile, but it seems they have half the passenger miles per capita than the US. The main effect of their policies is that they simply get around less, with implications for here if the worry is that people will not be able to get around here in the US.
I don't see European levels of trains here because I don't see willingness for European levels of expenditure on something with marginal payback in terms of the environmental effects, imported oil, and Global Warming. I think we need to look hard at the costs of intercity rail instead of simply throwing money at it. Yes, I heard, knowing the cost of everything and the value of nothing, but when the value is outside the market economy of what people are willing to pay, the cost goes ever upward.
I agree with much of what you say in your thoughtful posting. Buses of various types seem fairly plentiful in some parts of Europe. The postal buses (I recall those yellow buses with the hunting horn on the side also), I think are a relic. But some private concerns (not sure how much subsidy they get) have gotten pretty big (the Eurolines consortium, Deutsche-Touring, National Express, etc.) with nice, roomy, almost luxurious coaches, often cheaper prices, though usually not as fast as rail. The discount airline have also made longer distance travel within Europe and even within some countries pretty fast and cheap. In May I flew on good ol' British Air, Frankfurt to London for $13.00 + taxes, total $74 - much cheaper than the Eurostar under the channel. Clearly they have found a mix of all three depending on factors like distance and city vs. more rural areas to work. Europeans drive shorter distances (each country is pretty small) than we do and they use transit much more because it is usually quicker and cheaper than auto commuting, parking being terrible. London has a punitive charge for driving into the city on weekdays. In Germany, at least, but I think this is true in France as well, around 1/2 or more of autos are Diesel. Germans drive fast, but mostly on Autobahns and even there traffic (and some speed zones) limit the formerly unlimited speed. Nothing like seeing a Benz or BMW flashing its lights at you from behind in your mirror and then whizzing by at 120+ mph.
Water traffic is an important concern. In touring Scotland, we took about as many ferry trips as train trips.
Washington State Ferries carries as many passengers per year as Amtrak (about 25 million). And the condition of the system is about as dire as Amtrak. See Seattle Times June 26:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/ronjudd/2009385642_trailmix26.html
First, I must defend the Amtrak and ferry workers. The Times article says the worker at the terminal here looked at Mr. Judd as if he were from outer space. Well, I am sure she knew who he was and that whatever she said would end up in the Seattle Times. Mr. Judd, whose photo accompanies all his by-lines, is a resident and journalist, and certainly should not need to ask what is wrong with the ferry system.
Now, I know you all actually think I'm from outer space, going off about cold fusion and orbiting cabooses... But once public infrastructure is gone, things are hard to replace. People in Washington State seem to believe that our ferries are vital and they will be saved by the government. People in Washington D. C. seem to believe health care is vital and can be saved by the government. That is certainly not how we are treating Amtrak.
Maglev Water traffic is an important concern. In touring Scotland, we took about as many ferry trips as train trips. Washington State Ferries carries as many passengers per year as Amtrak (about 25 million). And the condition of the system is about as dire as Amtrak. See Seattle Times June 26: "Waiting for a ferry at Orcas Island and pondering our incompetence" http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/ronjudd/2009385642_trailmix26.html First, I must defend the Amtrak and ferry workers. The Times article says the worker at the terminal here looked at Mr. Judd as if he were from outer space. Well, I am sure she knew who he was and that whatever she said would end up in the Seattle Times. Mr. Judd, whose photo accompanies all his by-lines, is a resident and journalist, and certainly should not need to ask what is wrong with the ferry system. Now, I know you all actually think I'm from outer space, going off about cold fusion and orbiting cabooses... But once public infrastructure is gone, things are hard to replace. People in Washington State seem to believe that our ferries are vital and they will be saved by the government. People in Washington D. C. seem to believe health care is vital and can be saved by the government. That is certainly not how we are treating Amtrak.
Compare that with BC Ferries, which is proud to serve decent food on modern ships (according to members of the local Ferry Advisory Council). And Via Rail, which is supported by CN dispatching (see this August Trains, p. 38), in contrast to Amtrak.
Much has been said about the subsidy Amtrak gets. A bit was also mentioned about the subsidies the airlines get.
Another industry recieving a subsidy is the trucking industry. The highways are paid for by the public yet the trucking industry uses them at very little cost. When a highway needs repair I have never seen a trucking company paying for or making the repair. When the winter snows need plowed to clear the highway I never have seen a trucking company plow doing it. All the costs are paid for by the public.
The illegal and over weight trucks are the cause of most of the damage to the highways. Maybe the trucking industry needs to pay 75% of the cost to build and maintain the highways instead of the public.
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