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Amtrak, transit targeted for cuts in GOP platform
If we can fund highways at 44 Billion and Airlines 15 Billion per year, we can find money for Poor Old Amtrak. Stop funding the Airlines and highways System too, then people will have Big Wake-up call of the True cost of Airplanes and highways cost to maintain and building stuff. 99% of people would have a baby over true cost of things.
Poor policy as the price of fuel goes up, unfair competion with airlines, railroads serve many communities that one can not reach by air … granted, there has to be a better way to cover costs but elininating it, no way.
Even if he was to cut all Amtrak money, I still can’t vote for another four years of nobama.
We (passenger rail advocates) have had over 40 years to get the message out and have failed miserably. Until highway and airline funding are used as a barometer expect more of the same.
Its probably a good thing the Republicans are targeting Amtrak. Support for Amtrak and Amtrak itself seem to thrive while under attack. Could be a refreshing change over the last three and one half years of Democrat control and a stagnant Amtrak.
Actually Amtrak needs to be strengthened. We need a multimodal passenger transportaton system. Amtrak is an essential part. Around our important cities we have run out of space for roads and bridges and out of space for more airline routes. One railroad track carries as many people as 6 lanes of traffic. We can’t afford to let go of Amtrak.
If politicians mislead folks this much about something most take for granted; transportation, Amtrak in particular, it’s safe to say they are not truthful on about everything else.
The subsidy figures used against Amtrak are all skewered. A story on CNN found here http://www.narprail.org/news/narp-blog/2071 quotes the editor of “Airline Passenger Experience” magazine as saying “Passengers are not willing to pay the TRUE COST of airfare” which indicates what we already know; that aviation passengers don’t pay the full cost as Amtrak is being unfairly asked to do through the fare box.
From NARP’s site this excellent note- The $50 per passenger statement masks great complexity. If you divide Amtrak’s $1.461 billion federal grant last year by its 30.17 million riders, the result is $48.43 per Amtrak passenger. But this ignores the significant role that Amtrak plays as host to commuter railroads where it owns infrastructure, including the Northeast Corridor and the Chicago and Los Angeles terminals. Last year, an average of 831,000 passengers per weekday depended on commuter rail services that used Amtrak-owned infrastructure, dispatching, shared operations, or rode commuter trains operated or maintained by Amtrak under contracts with local or regional agencies.
Which brings that so called subsidy to about $4.42. Its a sad state a country cant spend money on public transportation like Amtrak for its citizens, something stellar private companies like Union Pacific stopped doing because they could not make a profit when infrastructure/maintenance is figured in.
I would like to see the likes of MegaBus and Bolt Bus or the Airlines if they had to pay the true cost of highway and aviation infrastructure. They would not be in business.
1:Amtrak for some reason is thought of by the GOP as a business. It is not a business, it is a vital public service. 2:Bring back the jobs to the USA from the other countries and maybe the taxes the many more American workers pay can help fund these projects and help rectify the money supply problem.
I wonder what would happen to many businesses in larger cities owned by Republicans (and others) if their minimum-wage workforce (unable to afford an auto) was no longer able to get to work because mass transit was downsized or eliminated?
And, explain to me, but how is putting thousands of people at Amtrak out of work going to “improve” the economy? In a time when jobs are hard to come by (I know from personal experience)? And what about taking away transportation options at a time when Amtrak’s ridership continues to surge due to $4+ a gallon gas? Go ahead and vote for Romney and see how much the country goes backward in four years!
Typical political garbage. Romney will not address this until after the election and then it will be another stick it to the middle class citizen maneuver. The well to do pals of his all can afford to fly first class but we would be stuck in coach with no other options. As a senior citizen, driving cross country is both a physical and financial hardship. AMTRAK affords my disabled wife and my self an excellent means to travel and see America. I guess he figures that putting all the AMTRAK employees out of work is his way of creating jobs. I say, keep some of the hundreds of billions of dollars in foriegn aid here for Americans to use.
Just a short rebuttal about AMTRAK sucking billions from the government for years. AMTRAK would have to have been in business for incalculable numbers of years to even begin to come up to the amount of dollars we have spread throughout the world like our “friends” in Pakistan and such other countries. Ask the class 1 railroads why they got out of passenger service necessitating the creation of AMTRAK.
Lunatics in Florida.
In all this talk about privatizing Amtrak one question is never asked. If you stop funding it does this mean you are repealing its founding legislation? If you do that could the freight railroads then decide that they will not host ANY passenger trains? My understanding from the press (Trains and other outlets) is that the only reason the freight railroads are hosting them now is due to legislation. That would then leave only the Northeast Corridor and areas around several metropolitan areas where the track is owned by a governmental entity available for passenger rail. Some freight railroads might allow private companies to run but I suspect the “rental fee” for use of track, etc would be very high; especially if you want any sort of priority over freight. That would spell the end of any sort of long distance train travel I suspect by not being affordable for either the company trying to run it or any potential passengers.
I find it interesting that Washington provides “appropriations” for air traffic controllers and “investments” for the Interstate Highway system, but “subsidies” for Amtrak.
The reality is, ALL forms of transportation are subsidized in one form or another - Amtrak just happens to be the convenient whipping boy for Romney’s crowd.
This will become a battle in the next congress if Romney is elected. Precious efforts in the Republican-dominated house have failed to get a majority.
Forty years on, and Amtrak has yet to turn a profit. We made the decision long ago to support our addiction to private transportation and air travel. It’s time to cut this money sucking hole loose and let it do what it should have done in 1970 - be picked up by private corporations and rail companies, or fade into oblivion.
The country will not “get its fiscal house in order” by gutting Amtrak. It’s a miniscule part of the budget.
As to privatizing, let’s remember that it was the private sector’s failure that led to the creation of Amtrak.
Why repeat that debacle?
Say Eugene Small of Texas “Why do I have to pay for all the Interstate roads that exist in Texas”? I worked in the DFW and Austin area often and yet I never once encountered a toll road so every ride I took on those interstates cost me zero. That is not much of a rate of return for using the interstate highway system. If the road is to earn a full rate of return then everyone should be paying tolls to ride I-35 through Dallas not just driving through whenever they want to.
The odd thing is Houston . Austin , Dallas and Forth Worth have all put in rail public transportation and the systems are expanding with heavy ridership and yet someone from Texas complains about paying for someone else’s public transportation ride outside of Texas.