Who Rides Amtrak?

[jeaton]

1. The report was written with data from the mid-1990's.
2. The poor are not especially heavy users of any form of transpotation.
3. the author is a paid hack for elements of the highway construction business.

[eastside]

Here’s a finding which is consistent with my general observations in riding Amtrak trains. This is from the Cato Institute, which has a reputation as a free-market think-tank, which relied on data from the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey and Amtrak itself:

The poor are not especially heavy users of Amtrak. Three-fourths of Amtrak passengers have incomes above the national average. Travel on Amtrak by persons with incomes above $40,000 is the highest of any mode—3.5 times higher than on buses and nearly 1.5 times higher than on airlines. Nearly one-third of Amtrak passengers have household incomes of $75,000 or more, and 20 percent have incomes of $100,000 or more. Amtrak’s clientele is much more skewed toward higher incomes than the general population.

Full report

In effect, Amtrak is a subsidy to upper-income travellers and only incidentally provides transportation to the less-affluent.