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Long distance routes: Which to continue, which to cut?

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[quote user="John WR"] There is another argument for keeping current long distance trains, the argument Joe Boardman uses.  That argument is that Amtrak is the result of a contract between the Congress and the American people.  Related to that argument is that there are people in smaller cities and towns who need Amtrak because they have no alternative public transportation and the number of places with no alternative transportation is increasing.  This is not the argument that the places need Amtrak; that is a different argument.  It is an argument that many people need Amtrak, people who live in places to small to be profitable to private carriers.   Whether or not Amtrak routes that are not now part of our national passenger transportation system is a different question.   Whether or not individual routes should be dropped is a related question; however it needs to be considered in terms of the whole system.     Finally, there are many arguments both for and against Amtrak.  These arguments have varying degrees of validity and need to be considered individually.  [/quote] I don't know of a Texas community served by Amtrak that could not be served equally well or better by buses.  Moreover, I am skeptical that any of the communities served by Amtrak's long distance trains in other parts of the country could not be served by commercial buses, but I may be missing something. Perhaps there are some places  where the bus operator would have to be subsidized, but my guess is that they are few and far between. Amtrak was cobbled together by the Nixon Administration and sold to the peoples representatives. Calling it a contract with the American people is a stretch. I doubt many people knew the issues surrounding the creation of Amtrak or even cared. By the time Amtrak came into being most Americans had given up on passenger trains. Today, if my friends and former colleagues are any indication, most Americans, especially those who don't live in or near the corridors, i.e. NEC, California, Chicago, etc., don't know that Amtrak exists.   The best indicator of the importance of a service is the extent to which it is used.  As per Table I-42, National Transportation Statistics 2012, Long Distance Travel in the United States by Selected Trip Characteristics, only .08 per cent of all trips of more than 50 miles from home were by train. These numbers are for 2001.  Unfortunately, they are the latest numbers. However, more recent statistics showing the percentage of intercity trains miles to total intercity miles shows a similar picture. The percentage traveling by train may be a bit higher today, but probably not by much.
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