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[quote user="henry6"] Dave!  Your post above states exactly the problems with the US transportation policy: there isn't one and nobody understands the dependencies and independences of each mode.  While I know there is no zero point to go back to in order to redesign and replan, planners and the like have to mentally deesignate a date zero start planning, building and intergrating virtually from scratch, But they also need a good, down to earth, PR person who understands transportation and can explain in simple to understand terms to the populos! [/quote] The U.S. has a transportation policy.  It is a framework that has relied on the wisdom of the people, as well as the free market system, to determine the winners.  The highways and airways won out for a variety of reasons.  Many of them can be summed up as better technologies.  There was no conspiracy to destroy intercity passenger trains.  They could not compete effectively after WWII, although they gave it a good go.    If the United States has no transportation framework, how did it develop one of the best highway and airways systems in the world?   Looking forward I would keep the same framework, except that I would make sure all modes of transportation at priced fully at the point where the user pays for them, i.e. ticket counter, pump, etc.  If the nation did this (it won't because of politics), then passenger rail might have a chance in relatively short, high density markets.  But it would be challenged given its cost structures. In FY10 Amtrak passengers received a federal subsidy of 21.13 cents per passenger mile.  Airline passengers received a federal subsidy of 99/100s of one cent per passenger mile, whilst motorists (includes intercity bus operators) received a federal subsidy of 49/100s of one cent per vehicle mile traveled.  These were direct transfer payments from the federal government's general fund to Amtrak, FAA, and Highway Trust Fund or they were support services received from Homeland Security, Essential Air Services Program, etc.   All modes of transport, including Amtrak, receive some indirect state and local funds to help defray their costs, although in the case of the airlines and motorists, because of their large population base, they pay the local funds through sales taxes, property taxes, etc.  Amtrak's passengers pay the same taxes, but there are not enough of them to complete cover the state and local fund sources. Given the spread between the subsidies paid for intercity passenger rail and the subsidies paid for competing modes of transport, passenger rail would be challenged to compete in a free market, although with heavy restructuring it could be done.  But it could not stand on its own using the current methodologies. Those who argue for a strong, centralized transport plan, are overlooking the fact that these arrangements have failed in most parts of the world.  Statism is out of vogue because it does not work.
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