Amtrak to be Number One

[John WR]

I'm not sure I agree with your assessment of benefits to different kinds of drivers, Erik.  Certainly the long distance trucker does get a benefit.  He earns his living by driving a truck over an interstate highway.  But what about the person traveling by car when there is no public transit alternative?  We cannot measure a visit to a family member in dollars and cents as we can with the trucker but there is certainly a benefit.  Or the driver may be attending college or may need health care and have no other way to get there.  Certainly there are benefits there too but I don't know how to compare then.  

One thing is clear to me, though.  Heavy trucks cause more damage to interstates than cars do.  

[erikem]

John,

My comment about who benefits was in regards to a rural Interstate Highway (limited access, no traffic lights, grades limited to 4%, roadbed capable of handling heavy trucks) as opposed to a "plain" highway (few limitations on access, traffic lights and stop signs, steep grades) which would provide most of the benefits to a rural driver as provided by an interstate. The Interstate is much more expensive to build than a "plain" highway.

- Erik

[Paul Milenkovic]

John WR

Paul,  

I believe that all transportation modes should be placed on a level playing field.  

The problem is that the playing field is not level and it never has been level.  As Sam has pointed out, when it comes to roads all layers of government have simply taken money from whatever sources they had and used it in various ways.  This continues.  It means that what the individual road user pays is not related to the amount of road use he or she gets.   

I can understand why this happened and I don't want to be a harsh critic of elected officials who do it.  For example, a couple of years ago there was a severe snow storm.  My town sent plows out to plow the Garden State Parkway, a toll road.  In an ideal world Parkway management would have taken care of this but they didn't and the storm was severe, so severe that people actually died in it.  So elected officials did what they had to do in the face of a life threatening emergency.  In addition all kinds of costs for law enforcement such as police salaries and pensions and court salaries and benefits are strongly related to road operation but they come from other taxes unrelated to road use.  Then there are the costs of pollution.  That is the way it is and always has been.  

If we are going to hold Amtrak accountable then it seems to me we need to develop techniques to quantiy exactly how much of a subsidy we give to roads.  If we did that then we could hold Amtrak to the same standard.  

If we first knew how much roads actually cost we could actually have car owners pay the true cost of operating their cars.  If we did that there is no question in my mind that many would make rational decisions about whether to use public or private transportation.  And that would be as it should be.  

John

This is like the joke about the kid with the optimistic disposition given a room full of straw for Christmas.  The kid was not dissuaded by this mistreatment, shouting, "I am getting a pony!  I am getting a pony!"  There has to be (subsidies) to highways not taken into account!  There has to be (subsidies) to highways not taken into account!

Someone on this forum, someone who is interested in a favorable comparison of Amtrak to highways costs, selects a subset of the highway system and draws a boundary around a set of costs (accidents) that are usually disregarded or regarded as a private instead of a public cost, and comes up with a number.

That number shows that Amtrak is still about 2-3 times more expensive in the subsidy rate per passenger mile as a highway alternative.  And furthermore, there are other commentators here who are saying we are overstating the cost of providing highways to rural areas, that more of the cost of the (rural) Interstates should go in the trucking ledger, that cheaper types of highways than interstates can be constructed for low usage routes. 

To the extent that trucks may be the biggest expense in maintaining long-distance highways, this is an argument for building up our freight railroads and not burdening them with the Amtrak long-distance trains.  Maybe taking trucks of the highways (no offense to our OTR forum members) is a more cost effective use of the rails to achieving congestion relief, cost savings, and reduced fuel consumption?

I am not advocating for the Amtrak subsidy to be cut to 500 million per year.  What I am saying is be careful getting what you wish for when you advocate for Amtrak based on "a level playing field."  Someone like Congressman Mica would be all too happy to listen to what you are saying and give you a level playing field of 500 million for Amtrak.

If the advocacy community is content with Amtrak representing "the best of all possible worlds" in how they operate trains and provide trains service, be happy with the about 1.5 billion per year that Amtrak gets to provide about 6 billion passenger miles per year.  Be happy that the Congressman Mica's of the world huff and puff about this state of affairs, but they are not able to blown this rickety house down (yet).

Go ahead and celebrate the Vision Report, that a consortium of state DOT people propose spending half a trillion dollars as 10 billion over 50 years on trains as reason to cheer, sit there as 8 billion dollars pops out of the Stimulus and that the chances of a second 8 billion coming out of the Federal budget in the next 10 years are about zero.

My position remains that the high rate of subsidy of Amtrak along with the lack of evidence of "economy of scale" for Amtrak or other passenger train systems is a serious impediment to growing Amtrak to making a more meaningful contribution to the transportation picture.  It is my opinion that paying more attention to what it is that makes passenger trains so expensive is important to advancing the cause of more passenger trains.

[oltmannd]

Paul Milenkovic

Someone on this forum, someone who is interested in a favorable comparison of Amtrak to highways costs, selects a subset of the highway system and draws a boundary around a set of costs (accidents) that are usually disregarded or regarded as a private instead of a public cost, and comes up with a number.

That number shows that Amtrak is still about 2-3 times more expensive in the subsidy rate per passenger mile as a highway alternative.  And furthermore, there are other commentators here who are saying we are overstating the cost of providing highways to rural areas, that more of the cost of the (rural) Interstates should go in the trucking ledger, that cheaper types of highways than interstates can be constructed for low usage routes. 

This is EXACTLY why Amtrak needs to do better.

If you cry "level the playing field" and someone does (and the methodology will never satisfy everyone, just "most everyone"), AND the the results show Amtrak's subsidy to LD trains is 300% too high - as is likely is, then all you will have left is righteous indignation.  

The trains will disappear.   

[John WR]

Paul,  

I am not an advocate for anything.  I'm just a guy trying to make some sense of a transportation system that is irrational in many ways.  

I'm not sure what you mean by "advocacy community."  The closest I can think of is NARP.  Is that what you mean?  If it is what about the "advocacy community" for cars like the American Automobile Association.  If people can join AAA shouldn't they be equally free to join NARP?  

You suggest taking trucks of our highways as a cost effective way to cut highway costs.  We can't legally do that.   My state, New Jersey, tried to exclude trucks from State Route 31, a 1930's 2 lane road, which with SR 202 connects I 95 in Ewing (just north of Trenton) to I 287 (just north of Flemington).  The 2 lane part runs for about 20 miles and it is the only way to connect with these two Interstates.  A lot of truckers take it because the alternative, the New Jersey Turnpike, is a toll road.  The truckers went to court and won; as long as New Jersey allowed trucks making local deliveries to use the road the state has to allow all trucks to use the road.   

It does seem to me that before we get in high dudgeon about Amtrak subsides being more more that road subsidies we should have evidence that in fact Amtrak does get a higher subsidy.  If the facts are that road subsidies are such convoluted things that we cannot even agree on what they are, well then there just is not a showing that Amtrak subsidies are higher.  And the reason a person like Representative Mica has to resort to his "Holy Jihad" argument is because even he with the Congressional Research Staff to assist him cannot come up with those facts.  

You say you want to pay more attention to what makes passenger trains so expensive.  I take you at your word; you are not looking to get rid of passenger trains; rather you want to better understand the economics of them.  I'm not an economist and I don't pretend to understand the economics of railroad operations.  However, based on what I read in the newspapers the single most economically successful part of Amtrak is also the most expensive:  Acela.  Perhaps there is a lesson in that.  

You begin with a charming story about a child who wants a pony and go on to talk about drawing a boundary around highways costs.  But of course my point is that neither you nor I nor anyone as far as I know has really been able to draw a boundary around highway costs.  That is the difficulty.  

John

[dakotafred]

I've long thought it should be obvious to a fool that the LD passenger train cannot compete with the auto for convenience (90 percent of the intercity market) or with the jet for economy (most of the other 10 percent).

We've had the Empire Builder, et al., for the last 40 years because of a kind of mystical tie between America and the railroads that built it that isn't going away anytime soon.

Heathens like Florida's Mica rage against Amtrak in vain, so why can't the green-eyeshade types among us -- alleged friends of the passenger train -- get over it?

If America can't afford $1.5 billion a year for its spiritual relationship with LD passenger trains -- in light of $3.5-trillion budgets, largely devoted to other forms of welfare -- then too bad for us; we have become a pitiful shadow of our former selves. 

[blownout cylinder]

This has been a political thread all along, guys. 

Time to lock it up ....