This discussion has derailed!
Time to move on!
NKP guy oltmannd (& friends), With all due respect, of course I "get it." I simply don't agree with you at all. Nada. Period. I don't agree with any of your points or assertions. I think this topic, and all the others here on related topics, remind me of the abortion debate, in that since 1973 I've never yet met one person who changed his mind on that subject because he was persuaded by some letter to the editor. No need to be disagreeable; we just disagree.
oltmannd (& friends),
With all due respect, of course I "get it." I simply don't agree with you at all. Nada. Period. I don't agree with any of your points or assertions.
I think this topic, and all the others here on related topics, remind me of the abortion debate, in that since 1973 I've never yet met one person who changed his mind on that subject because he was persuaded by some letter to the editor.
No need to be disagreeable; we just disagree.
Seconded, though I would go further than you. So, if the libertarians, bus companies and freight railroads are successful in ending Amtrak, it will be up to the individual states to make it possible to travel between, say, Chicago and the West Coast? What if Illinois and most other states agree to fund such a train, and a tax-paying Illinois citizen wants to travel to Denver, but Colorado has declined to join? Will the train hold that person hostage, or must they jump off in Denver Butch Cassidy style? I can't believe anyone is seriously offering this as a national transportation policy for a developed country, this is the policy of Third World countries, of Bantustans that want to say that way.
Sam1 NKP guy: Same topic, but different thread name. Funny, but the biggest enemies of Amtrak, long-distance trains included, are right here in this forum. I suggest that the general public knows little and cares less about Amtrak, if they think of it at all. Long distance trains and the much-vaunted corridor trains beloved by many here, are all the same to the general public. I think John Q. Public is more favorably disposed to Amtrak than many contributors here. How infinitely sad and discouraging to this railfan. And if Amtrak dies from lack of support, a whole bunch of people here can write in FOR YEARS on what Amtrak should have done better. Imagine! Arguing with each other for years.....just like we do on so many picayune topics. Maybe THEN the bean-counters among us will be happy, but I doubt it. If Amtrak dies something will take its place, especially in the relatively short, high density corridors. If there is a market for a service, someone will fill it. This is fundamental economics. Look at all the airlines (Eastern, Pan American, etc.) that have died. Their place has been taken because there was and is a demand for air service in the markets that they served.
NKP guy: Same topic, but different thread name. Funny, but the biggest enemies of Amtrak, long-distance trains included, are right here in this forum. I suggest that the general public knows little and cares less about Amtrak, if they think of it at all. Long distance trains and the much-vaunted corridor trains beloved by many here, are all the same to the general public. I think John Q. Public is more favorably disposed to Amtrak than many contributors here. How infinitely sad and discouraging to this railfan. And if Amtrak dies from lack of support, a whole bunch of people here can write in FOR YEARS on what Amtrak should have done better. Imagine! Arguing with each other for years.....just like we do on so many picayune topics. Maybe THEN the bean-counters among us will be happy, but I doubt it.
Same topic, but different thread name.
Funny, but the biggest enemies of Amtrak, long-distance trains included, are right here in this forum. I suggest that the general public knows little and cares less about Amtrak, if they think of it at all. Long distance trains and the much-vaunted corridor trains beloved by many here, are all the same to the general public.
I think John Q. Public is more favorably disposed to Amtrak than many contributors here. How infinitely sad and discouraging to this railfan.
And if Amtrak dies from lack of support, a whole bunch of people here can write in FOR YEARS on what Amtrak should have done better. Imagine! Arguing with each other for years.....just like we do on so many picayune topics. Maybe THEN the bean-counters among us will be happy, but I doubt it.
If Amtrak dies something will take its place, especially in the relatively short, high density corridors. If there is a market for a service, someone will fill it. This is fundamental economics.
Look at all the airlines (Eastern, Pan American, etc.) that have died. Their place has been taken because there was and is a demand for air service in the markets that they served.
I don't agree. Amtrak dies and there will be no national passenger train operating entity. There will only the states and what they can manage on their own or with neighbors.
Amtrak COULD be a leader in coordinating new corridor service, like getting the Richmond to Raleigh segment up and going. They should have been doing this all along. It's their job. Mostly they have abdicated this responsibility. It's not too late to get in the game, but they'd need some really strong leaders with loose reins.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
NKP guy Same topic, but different thread name. Funny, but the biggest enemies of Amtrak, long-distance trains included, are right here in this forum. I suggest that the general public knows little and cares less about Amtrak, if they think of it at all. Long distance trains and the much-vaunted corridor trains beloved by many here, are all the same to the general public. I think John Q. Public is more favorably disposed to Amtrak than many contributors here. How infinitely sad and discouraging to this railfan. And if Amtrak dies from lack of support, a whole bunch of people here can write in FOR YEARS on what Amtrak should have done better. Imagine! Arguing with each other for years.....just like we do on so many picayune topics. Maybe THEN the bean-counters among us will be happy, but I doubt it.
You don't get it.
There are only a handful of places in the country that John Q Public knows what Amtrak is and does. The largest is the along the NEC and it's branches. Amtrak is relevant to the lives of people there. Everyone in NJ knows where Amtrak goes and what Acela is, even if they don't ride, for example. The other main places are the California corridors and the the Chicago hub corridors. Outside of that, if Amtrak went away, almost nobody would even notice.
Add to that Amtrak's subsidy per passenger mile for the LD trains is obscene - and the butt of many jokes.
Add to that Amtrak is bloated with personnel - just benchmark them against just about anything. It's pretty obvious they don't do much bench-marking on their own....
The conclusion is that Amtrak needs to start behaving like a real, ongoing passenger travel BUSINESS. Not that they will ever operate in the black, but that they need to start heading there instead of sitting on the sidelines, whimpering, "Woe is me! If I only had more money!"
SUPPORT for Amtrak has two tracks: One is political and the other is accountability. Too bad NARP et. al. only seem to see the first.
DwightBranch Sam1: I don't know where the $150 billion comes from. Among other places it can be found in the second sentence of the CBO document I linked to above: The nation’s network of highways plays a vital role in theU.S. economy; private commercial activity and people’sdaily lives depend on that transportation infrastructure.In 2007, the public sector spent $146 billion to build,operate, and maintain highways in the United States. About three-quarters of that total was provided by stateand local governments.
Sam1: I don't know where the $150 billion comes from.
I don't know where the $150 billion comes from.
Among other places it can be found in the second sentence of the CBO document I linked to above:
The nation’s network of highways plays a vital role in theU.S. economy; private commercial activity and people’sdaily lives depend on that transportation infrastructure.In 2007, the public sector spent $146 billion to build,operate, and maintain highways in the United States. About three-quarters of that total was provided by stateand local governments.
Your original post stated; "although that hides the subsidies in the form of around $150 Billion per year in highway spending, only about half of which is paid for by fuel taxes...." That's what threw me off and caused me to address the issues of subsidies. Presumably it should have said the total highway spend bill is approximately $146 billion.
That the nation sends approximately $146 billion on highways at all levels is not a mystery or unknown to people who track transport costs. What the nation spends on its highways and the difference between the spend and user fee collections are very different.
I had been "called out" on that other thread for being one of those enemies of Amtrak.
Two years ago, there was money allocated and a plan in place to bring the Talgo train to Madison, Wisconsin. Two years ago, that plan was changed from the long-standing expectation, to place the Madison, Wisconsin train station at East Wilson Street instead of by the Dane County Regional Airport about 8 miles away from Downtown.
The plan was changed because the Honorable David Cieslewicz, Mayor of Madison and charter member of 1000 Friends, an environmental/anti-urban sprawl advocacy group went on a rail tour in Spain in support of the Talgo plan and was impressed how downtown-to-downtown train service facilitated people living without cars, which had been a long-term vision of his for Madison with his streetcar and other proposals. I have long reasoned in posts on this site that the fuel savings or environmental benefits of direct substitution of train for auto trips was minor in relation to their cost, and for trains to be realize their full social benefit, they would have to be used in transformation of life-style patterns.
When the plan was announced, the Governor of Wisconsin, the Secretary of Transportation, and the Mayor of Madison stood shoulder-to-shoulder at a press conference. Our local passenger train advocacy group loudly and publically expressed dismay at this decision, even going as far as to stage a Tea-party like scene at a town hall in June, 2010 at the Middleton Public Library, where WisDOT representative Donna Brown tried to explain the plan to a very contentious crowd of passenger train advocacy people.
In the aftermath of this, I e-mailed the officers of that group, gently suggesting that the "window of opportunity" before the November 2010 election was small and that we should set aside our differences to "stand shoulder-to-shoulder" with the then Governor, Secretary of Transportation and city Mayor to go all out in support of the Downtown station to get this thing done. When I advanced the Mayor standing for the Downtown station as being a move towards a car-free society, our past group president e-mailed that he liked his suburban house and car and wanted the rail park-and-ride in place of the Downtown station.
For those around here who are taking me to task for disrespecting the local advocacy group and other advocacy people and for never having a constructive suggestion or plan, do people want to see copies of my e-mails, where I was pleading with my colleagues to close ranks, express solidarity with the political leaders who supported the train, and move forward with the Downtown train station?
Maybe if the Madison, WI train project had broken ground, the new Wisconsin Governor would not have been able to reject it and then maybe not. All I knew is that there was a very short window of opportunity, I said as much to whoever would listen to me at the time, so don't lecture me about what is funny, what is sad, what is picayune, and who is an enemy of trains.
If GM "killed the electric car", what am I doing standing next to an EV-1, a half a block from the WSOR tracks?
Sam1 I don't know where the $150 billion comes from.
What is in the public good is in the eyes of the beholder. Obviously, in a representative republic, if the majority of the people's representatives believe it is in the public good, it will happen.
Given passenger rail's paltry ridership numbers in relation to the total number of people moving about the United States in the modes of transport available to them, claiming that passenger rail is in the public good is a bit of a stretch.
I have never argued for duplicate roadways anymore than I would argue for dual electric transmission and distribution systems, i.e. duplicate poles and wires, although Lubbock gave it a go. What I have argued for is that each mode of transport should pay the full note without any subsidies. That includes subsidies for rail, air, and highways.
Highways are not intended as profit centers. They are common access areas that are paid for directly or indirectly by the users. Whether the users pay their share has been and probably will continue to be debated far into the future.
I don't know where the $150 billion comes from. In FY10 the federal government transferred approximately $14.7 billion from the General Fund to the Federal Highway Trust Fund (HTF); $4.95 billion was counter transferred from the HTF to the mass transit, bikeways, etc.; $1.2 billion was transferred from the HTF to other funds, e.g. Land and Water Conservation Fund; and 569 million was transferred from fuel and fees to the General Fund. Thus, the net transfer to the HTF was approximately $8 billion or roughly $38 per licensed motorists as per 2009 numbers.
Based on IRS tax return data for 2009, approximately 46 per cent of those filing a federal income tax return had a federal income tax liability. This means that they pay taxes to the federal government. Thus, to the extent that motorists had a tax liability, they pay the $38 to the General Fund that was subsequently transferred to the HTF. Moreover, in Texas, 25 per cent of the gasoline and diesel taxes go to public education.
Although these numbers are somewhat dated, here is some data from the United States Department of Transportation National Transportation Statistical Handbook that sheds some interesting light on subsidies:
Table 2: Net Federal Subsidies to Passenger Transportation by Mode FY 1990 - 2003. The 2003 numbers are incomplete. In 2002 the Net Federal Subsidy to Transportation in 2000 Chained Dollars was $8.2 billion. $-4.2 billion was transferred from the HTF to other modes of transport or to the general fund. "Net federal subsidy is estimated as federal outlays minus federal receipts from transportation taxes and user fees. Actual outlays and receipts are used in the calculation. Negative numbers show user charge payments to the federal government in excess of cost responsibility." $4.0 billion went to commercial and general aviation; $7.3 billion went to public transit, and $1.1 billion went to railroads. Presumably most of this money went to Amtrak.
Table 4: Net Federal Subsidies Per Thousand Passenger Miles by Mode FY 1990 - 2002: All modes was $1.63; highway was $-95; commercial aviation was $5.87 (total air was not available for 2002, but in 2001 it was $5.77); public transit was $151.36; and passenger rail was $199.90.
Admittedly, the numbers are old. However, my calculations from current data show essentially the same relationships. The notion that highway users are heavily subsidized by the feds is incorrect. It is also incorrect for Texas.
No matter how often I present these statistics a significant number of people deny them. It cannot be so they claim, without adding a shred of data to support their contention.
Show me the math that indicates bankrupty costs are a large subsidy to the railroads. the land grants were paid off prior to WWII by the reduced rate of haulage for government freight in place at that time. How would you justify the WWII and beyond, ticket and waybil tax of 15% at one time. I am sure right of way taxes don't figure into your analysis.
Remember the 1955 study on the interstates found that few of the routes not already built could be built as toll roads, and they used around $0.12/vehicle mile as the test. That is why the interstates were built using funds from all existing roads, around 3,700,000 then in existence to build a 40,000 some mile network. It was a classic cross-subsidy arrangement. Even still accidents cost the government alone around $0.02/vm on the interstate.
If you add everything up you get a cross subsidy for the interstates of around $0.08 for capital and $0.02 for accidents outside of your insurance. If you expanded even the current Amtrak style operations by increasing the number of revenue cars per train you can easily best that number, including capital costs linked to the long distance trains and a proportional share of overhead.
Sam1 Maintaining a secondary system, i.e. passenger trains, for a low probability failure rate is cost prohibitive. It would be akin to having a fail proof electrical system. Only the very rich could afford the service. SAM1; The placing of all our eggs in one basket IMHO is very foolish. The Iceland volcano almost brought northern European air traffic to a stand still. just an unanticipated calming of that volcano allowed air service to resume. but northern Europe with some adaptation was able to use its fine rail system to get persons around. I wonder who has done an economic analysis of the economic damage done by the volcano and how much the rail system saved ? The Spain - France border choke point was the exception but hopefully that will be a fogotten problem in a few years. What will texas do if one of the central american volcanos blows or some pacific volcano blows and the winds take the ash over your state and maybe the whole southwest for weeks or even months? Granted RRs would have problems but a stopped train isn't an enginless airplane glider. the gliders have happened more than once.i . The Essential Air Services program is a sweetener for rural representatives. Yes and the transportation bill restored to previous levels all services. so $500 / passenger Macon - Atlanta ( a 1;10 drive to airport even in rush hour traffic ). The long distance trains lose on the order of $750 million per year or approximately 75 per cent of Amtrak's operating loss. Yes and the silver service route study shows that if more equipment was available the loss would be less. will not pretend to apply to other routes other than crescent which is in same report. as henry 6 says there is not enough service. station costs should be almost the same but spread out over more passengers ( trains ) . wonder what per pass costs of terminals ar at bos, nyp, phl, wash, lax ?? As the population of the country grows, there are Texas corridors that may become viable, but it won't happen for 25 to 50 years. By then I will be long gone. someof the corridors you mentioned were predicted to not have enough passengers. southern california was the most denied by opponents. Here is another consistent point: Whatever the country has or has not done with respect to federal subsidies for railways, highways, airways, waterways, etc. is irrelevant. The key question is where are we, and what is the best way forward. 100% in agreement
Maintaining a secondary system, i.e. passenger trains, for a low probability failure rate is cost prohibitive. It would be akin to having a fail proof electrical system. Only the very rich could afford the service.
SAM1; The placing of all our eggs in one basket IMHO is very foolish. The Iceland volcano almost brought northern European air traffic to a stand still. just an unanticipated calming of that volcano allowed air service to resume. but northern Europe with some adaptation was able to use its fine rail system to get persons around. I wonder who has done an economic analysis of the economic damage done by the volcano and how much the rail system saved ? The Spain - France border choke point was the exception but hopefully that will be a fogotten problem in a few years.
What will texas do if one of the central american volcanos blows or some pacific volcano blows and the winds take the ash over your state and maybe the whole southwest for weeks or even months? Granted RRs would have problems but a stopped train isn't an enginless airplane glider. the gliders have happened more than once.i
. The Essential Air Services program is a sweetener for rural representatives.
Yes and the transportation bill restored to previous levels all services. so $500 / passenger Macon - Atlanta ( a 1;10 drive to airport even in rush hour traffic ).
The long distance trains lose on the order of $750 million per year or approximately 75 per cent of Amtrak's operating loss.
Yes and the silver service route study shows that if more equipment was available the loss would be less. will not pretend to apply to other routes other than crescent which is in same report. as henry 6 says there is not enough service. station costs should be almost the same but spread out over more passengers ( trains ) . wonder what per pass costs of terminals ar at bos, nyp, phl, wash, lax ??
As the population of the country grows, there are Texas corridors that may become viable, but it won't happen for 25 to 50 years. By then I will be long gone.
someof the corridors you mentioned were predicted to not have enough passengers. southern california was the most denied by opponents.
Here is another consistent point: Whatever the country has or has not done with respect to federal subsidies for railways, highways, airways, waterways, etc. is irrelevant. The key question is where are we, and what is the best way forward.
100% in agreement
Amtrak, like all other forms of public transportation (and the highway system is very much a form of public transportation) is a "public good," something which society as a whole needs but which cannot be provided at a profit to a private firm. Here is a good discussion of public goods (in the context of highway spending, but it applies to rail transportation as well) I posted in the closed thread, from the US Congressional Budget Office:
The public sector provides most highway infrastructure for several reasons that tend to limit the role of the private sector. First, such infrastructure displays, at least to some degree, important characteristics of “public goods.” Such goods are usually not profitable for the private sector to produce, because once they have been produced, they are available to anyone who wants to use them; as a result,they are often provided by the public sector. Second,because such infrastructure is costly to build, though less expensive to operate and maintain, having competing highway networks is not practical. As a result, such “natural monopolies” are often either provided directly by the government or regulated by it. Third, the benefits of highways—promoting commerce, for instance—may extend beyond the places where they are built and beyond the people who use them directly. All three of those characteristics of highway infrastructure tend to limit the incentives for the private sector to provide it. The private sector, on its own, would provide less of that type of infrastructure than is socially beneficial.
Economists have talked about public goods for centuries. Adam Smith's "third duty of the sovereign" in his The Wealth of Nations, after internal and external security (police and armies) is
the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain; because the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society.
In sum, public transportation is something that cannot and will not be provided at the initiative of private for-profit firms, for a profit, and so if we want the benefits of mobility we, society as a whole, through our government, must provide it ourselves. But Sam1 does not recognize public goods, in regard to Amtrak she has stated repeatedly that it must be able to completely pay for itself through farebox recovery only (although that hides the subsidies in the form of around $150 Billion per year in highway spending, only about half of which is paid for by fuel taxes).
Now, I favor long distance passenger trains, and I can justify them from the standpoint of their being a public good, because they provide transportation to those who otherwise could not travel. Contrary to what some are arguing here, traveling by plane or car from say, a small town in central Illinois to Denver is not possible for many, due to the cost (including the need for a ride to the airport and parking fees). I can tell you that a round trip on the CZ is around $150, and it drops you minutes from your destination, whereas flying between O'Hare and DIA is around $500 and requires that you put two people out for two nice two hour-plus drives to the airport and back. From the stand point of a public good however we can justify a train like the CZ that doesn't pay for itself through farebox recovery alone.
YOu have answered some of my arguments but not all. First, I will rebut your rebut. Before you assume that tourists have the same low percentage as the population, you should check on this, but I would agree the percentage would be only slightly higher, say about 5%. But sitll this is significant. As far the three percent, the trains they ride are important to them, and they are USA citiznes and pay taxes. Much the same could be said about National Parks, on a yearly basis. But if three per cent use the trains each year, it is likely that half of the three per cent use them only say once every ten years. So the overall population that uses the long distance trains is higher on a long term basis than 3%. Examples are the high school or college graduate on a once in a lifetime trip, the honeymoon couple, the elderly couple moving to a retirement home. It may be that in a ten year period, 10% or 15% of the USA population have used trains outside of corridors once or more.
You are overconfident about air emergencies. No one predicted the WTC-Penetagon event and predictions of Katrina's severity were way off. From my point of view, if Minetta had not been so anti-Antrak, Gunn would have turned to him or the-President Bush to overrule the New Orleans mayor and 1000 lives would ahve been saved.
The handicapaped and elderly do not need service to every community as long every commujity is within read of an Amtrak station by a relatively short bus or private car or taxi ride. Spending 12 hours continous on a train can be a pleasure. Spending it an automobile or bus f or an elderly or disabled person can be a horror. But nnoe or two or possiblyi three hours is tolerable.
Now, back to economics. I should have just written "citizen" but "citizen passenger." Joe uses a corridor and buys an 800 dollar monhtly. The subsidy for his monthly is 100 dollars. He gets a subsidy of 5000 dollar yearlyi from taxpayers. John uses a long distance train once a year to visit relatives. Take the worst case, the Sunset Limited. He buys a round trip for 1200 dollars. The subsidy for him is 1600 dollars. If you are going to subsidize Joe for his business travel, necessary to avoid huge expenditures for land and construcdtion for new airports and highways, I think it is only fair to subsidize John for his vacation travel. "All work and no play makes Sam a dull boy."
Still to be discussed are the losses to the economy and increased corridor operation costs. Dificult to evaluate.
I have answered your (Klepper) points regarding long distance passenger trains. You are correct in one respect. My views have been consistant.
In the 50s and 60s commercial airplanes were much more susceptible to grounding for a day or two than is true today. Today groundings are rare thanks to advanced navigation capabilities, as well as weather forecasting, etc. Last year the nation's airlines were on time 82% of the time. Most of the delays were caused by air traffic control issues, some of which were weather related or missed connections, thereby requiring a hold on some of the connecting flights. Maintaining a secondary system, i.e. passenger trains, for a low probability failure rate is cost prohibitive. It would be akin to having a fail proof electrical system. Only the very rich could afford the service.
Supporting the long distance trains because a rural states Congressman would not otherwise support federal funding of corridor passenger train services is a theory. No one knows whether they would pull their votes. Moreover, politics is a horse trading exercise. Those in favor of having the federal government support corridors could offer rural representatives a sweetener. It is done all the time. The Essential Air Services program is a sweetener for rural representatives.
If one of the justifications for the long distance trains is to provide commercial transport for potentially handicapped persons, i.e. mobility, medical, etc., is valid, then the government should, as I have stated, provide train service to every community in the United States with a population above a defined threshold. The cost would be enormous just in Texas.
Approximately three to five per cent of the U.S. population uses passenger trains for intercity travel of more than 50 miles. It is hard to imagine that the percentage of overseas visitors using them exceeds this figure. The exceptions NEC, California, and Illinois corridors may be exceptions. As noted in previous posts, I ride the long distance trains an average of five to seven times per year. I have been doing it for more than 60 years. Over the last 20 years, I have met just two overseas couples on one of Amtrak's long distance trains. The first was a British Columbia couple that I met on the Sunset Limited. The other was a French couple on the Texas Eagle. That gave me an opportunity to practice my French. If there is a market for overseas visitors desiring to see the country, let private operators respond to it with an appropriately priced tourist trains.
The long distance trains lose on the order of $750 million per year or approximately 75 per cent of Amtrak's operating loss. On a fully allocated basis, when taking into consideration the capital costs associated with the NEC, the cost per passenger mile for the long distance trains is only a penny or two higher than the cost per passenger mile for the NEC, as per a previous post. However, if Amtrak could shed the long distance trains, along with the implementation of a modest fare increase in the corridors, as well as modern management and labor practices, it might be able to cover its operating costs. As noted in another post, had the money lost on the long distance trains been invested at the average U.S. Treasury 10 year note rate since Amtrak's inception, it would have amounted to more than $115 billion thanks to compounding.
Your correct. Railroad passenger service, at least in the United States, is not operated on a level playing field. It requires a federal subsidy per passenger mile or vehicle mile traveled that is 20 times greater than the federal subsidies for highways and airways.
Your notions regarding highways and airways are unique. I don't find them to be plausible arguments. Moreover, you miss all of the subsidies that have been paid by the federal, state, and local governments to the railroads since 1830. Included in these costs are the costs to the government and taxpayers of bankruptcy proceedings. Every major railroad in the United States has gone through bankruptcy, as has been true for all the legacy airlines. My guess is that the NPV of these subsidies, because of the time value of money, is worth more than all the federal subsidies that have been embedded in the nation's highways, waterways, airways, etc.
No matter how I answer your points, you will not be satisfied. That's fine. It is your choice. But I am likely to continue my central theme: Passenger trains make sense in relatively short, high density corridors, where expansion of the airways and highways is cost prohibitive. Today that appears to be the NEC, California, and Illinois corridors. As the population of the country grows, there are Texas corridors that may become viable, but it won't happen for 25 to 50 years. By then I will be long gone.
I don't consider that statement controversial at all however I believe the day when our government is capable of building a new right of way system like the interstate highway system is behind us. Such a project would be strangled by the bureaucracy.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
This isn't going to be a popular statement, but one of the biggest obstacles to a decent passenger service in the US (outside of the NEC, at least) is the dependence of the operator, whether Amtrak or some private outfit, on the freight railroads: incompatible objectives.
C&NW, CA&E, MILW, CGW and IC fan
Dave, your #1 answer is a big reason rail passenger services died. Railroads could not afford the upkeep of a good passenger train much less service for when the snow flies and the roads are closed or when storms preclude flying into or out of the weather. Equipment became scarece and service faltered that even when somoeone boarded a train it was not a quality ride. No. Rail passenger service has to be dedicated to providing rail passenger service or else, let them slip off and fly away if that's what they really want. Do it right, do it so it attacts clients all the time, do it so that it is a transportation service and not just running trains because Congress says they should run.
RIDEWITHMEHENRY is the name for our almost monthly day of riding trains and transit in either the NYCity or Philadelphia areas including all commuter lines, Amtrak, subways, light rail and trolleys, bus and ferries when warranted. No fees, just let us know you want to join the ride and pay your fares. Ask to be on our email list or find us on FB as RIDEWITHMEHENRY (all caps) to get descriptions of each outing.
Sam and I often disagree, but one place we DO agree is that there is a very limited market for spending 12 hours or more on a train, and one train a day or three trains a week is not useful transportation.
Your desire for private toll roads is becoming much more common than most of us are comfortable with.
Amtrak should use their limited funds to upgrade the high density interstate corridors and run long distance trains only where it makes economic sense to connect multiple corridors. More states should fund commuter trains within their own borders around and between their own cities.
I have answered Sam1's critique of long-distance passenger trains many times, and he does not answer specifically the points I r aise, but simply points out the same arguments time and time again.
Long distance trains benefit the USA:
1. Emergency backup long distance transportation when airlines are grounded.
2. Tieing the needed corridors into a Naitonal system that can be supported by the entire population, without a Kansas farmer saying: "Why should I support investment in rban area corridors when they own't even let me have my one train a day that just maybe I may want to use for a vacation trip."
3. Handicapped and elderly access to the vast continental USA for people who cannot fly for medical reasons.
4. Internal and external tourism. Just and New York would have to shut down if all its subsidized rail servides quit (subways, commuter trains, and Amtrak's NEC and Empire Corridor), there are hotels, restaurants, and rental-car agencies that would quit if long distance trains were to quit. Indeed, the loss to the economy and the additional expenses for the remaining corridors might well surpass the savings by eliminating long distance trains!
Again, concerning economics, I make two important points, which Sam1 so far had not answered:
The corridor trains show high ridership because they are primarily used by business travelers, most ofo whom take between 50 and 500 trips a day on the particular corridor they use. These corridors demands investment and possiblyi subsidization because the alternative in land taking and construction for highways and airports would cost far more today. The long distance trains are patronized mainly by twice a year vacationers and tourists. Their share of the operating subsidy and the investments is far lower on a per-citizen (rather than on a per journey) basis.
Railroad passenger service is not operated on a level playing field. Government intervention in the form of both over-regulation and massive investment in competing modes for over 90 years had made the subsidies and the government investment necessary.
Turn Amtrak over to privatization? Shure, but auction off the Interstates in pieces to become profitable toll roads the same time. Stop subsidies to short-haul airlines disguised the FAA budget, and privatize airports.
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