Most of us on this site oppose the subsidies to air and auto travel, as well. The real fact of the matter is that transportation is so distorted by subsidies that real competitiveness of one mode of transportation can’t be determined.

Here in the SF Bay Area, in the 30s and 40s, there was a large and vibrant rail system. In the 50s, the local governments decided that buses were better, and used subsidies for those to wipe out every railway except the SF Municipal Railway (aka MUNI). Even in the 50s, the golden age of the auto, the rail systems were popular with riders until government made it a “better deal” to ride the bus.

Now, many communities that had rail before, including my own, are looking back to it as a solution. The problem is, in the intervening decades, the entire area has become car-centered. Not only have people’s preferences changed, the very landscape did. One decision by government about what was “better” led to almost total dependence on the automobile.

Now, local governments are making the decision that rail is “better” and trying to wedge it into communities where it doesn’t fit. It’s the same damnable process, just going in a different direction.

Centralized planners deciding what is “good” is not going to create a robust transportation system. They don’t have the brainpower to do so, no small group of individuals does. Individuals looking out for their own self interest will, as proven by the success of rail in the NY-DC corridor, where it really IS the best option. In short, let the market work.

Why? I can’t accept that tax money needs to be spent on achieving this goal until I know why this goal is so important that it must occur through government intervention.

While you may find air or automobile travel more pleasant, you cannot arbitrarily decide that for anyone else. Do you seriously enjoy arriving two hours before a flight, removing your shoes, and having to trash your toothpaste all in the name of security, when you could just show up at the train station and climb aboard? Or perhaps you prefer the bag of peanuts the airlines serve to the full meals Amtrak serves on real china aboard the Empire Builder. Or maybe air travel is more pleasant because of the child-sized seats found on most aircraft, as opposed to Amtrak’s wider seats and private roomettes and bedrooms.

Oh, and while you sit stuck in traffic everyday on a congested road, look over at the train passing you as if you were standing still – wait, you ARE standing still. You see, people who would never carpool or take a bus will choose to leave the car at home for a seat on the train. You don’t have to join them, but every driver who takes the train reduces congestion on the roads you take to work – so we both win.

Did any of you actually read what I wrote? Amtrak is flawed, that is true but so are all other methods of transportation- financially speaking.

Quincy: Sure, it was aimed solely at Amtrak. Now how about some research into other modes of transportation and see what they REALLY cost. As for elected officials: The folks who have been trying to get rid of Amtrak are the same guys who got us into Iraq with foolish, narrow-minded thinking. Transportation in the US needs to be a three legged stool: Air-Rail-Road. Without one leg the stool WILL fall over.

Kevin and Chris: I AM paying for your airline tickets, its only fair you pay for my train travel, (the difference is you pay about a penny each of your taxes for Amtrak and I pay about a dollar to subsidize the airlines).

Gentlemen stop kidding yourselves. The airlines don’t really make money, (see my first). Add in the cost of the Air Traffic Controllers, the TSA security, the runways and the airports themselves and your $99 trip to Vegas just went up to about $990. The airlines are constantly flirting with fiancial disaster. They only have to worry about planes, fuel and employees. That’s it! The point you guys are failing to see is that ALL transportation modes ARE subsidized, most is hidden, Amtrak’s is not. It took only 12 people to ground our entire air network on 9/11, (one leg of the ‘stool’). Amtrak trains were running and I was aboard one on 9/14 while the airlines sat on their hands. Recently a snowstorm took out all flights in and out of Denver for three days while Amtrak continued to roll.

I really don’t have a problem with subsidizing TRAVEL, (all of it), in the United States. The airlines get theirs and Amtrak should as well. We need a BALANCED transportation system, one that compliments all modes of travel to all people and gentlemen that costs tax money, like it or not.

Mark

If Amtrak can offer a viable, profit making passenger service, they should (and will) do so. If they cannot they should not.

It’s such a simple concept I have a hard time understanding why so few others do.

There will be no strategic loss, or significant loss of passenger choice in those markets where customers actually choose to use the trains, such as metropolitcan commuter rail, and the northeast corridor; because those routes are viable and profitable. However, the airlines are able to provide long distance passenger service faster, cheaper, and better than rail service, and still make money at it where the rail service cannot; and long distance passenger rail should be allowed to fail because of it.

Maybe something better will arise out of that failure, or someone will devise a way to make it viable; but so long as the government artifically supports a failing enterprise, no better competitor will arise.

If no competition or replacement presents itself, it is because that service was not needed, or wanted, in the marketplace; and that’s the way the world works.

I live near a large city so all transportation options are available to me and I chose Amtrak, (not the airlines), whenever and wherever I can, as an American I should have that choice.

Mark,

I am not stopping you from forming your own private passenger railroad company and riding on your own private train if you want. What you do not have the right to do is force American taxpayers to pay for your preferred method of travel because your preferred method of travel is profitable in the free market.

Just because this one piece focuses solely on Amtrak, to the exclusion of other subsidies, does not imply that the author (or any other contributors to this site) support them. It means that the piece was focused on Amtrak.

Also, you say:

We don’t get to chose where our tax dollars go.

I’m afraid that, in reality, we often don’t. However, by design, we should, which is one of the reasons we elect representatives and one of the reasons this blog exists.

We don’t get to chose where our tax dollars go. I live near a large city so all transportation options are available to me and I chose Amtrak, (not the airlines), whenever and wherever I can, as an American I should have that choice.
Sincerely,
Mark