Currently eligible towns:
Maybe Amtrak serves or passes through some already?
Those of you in or near any of the towns listed (by state)?
EAS is a hold over from the regulated airline era when they had entire directed service airlines. I believe North Central Airlines was a directed service carrier and one reason they flew those large prop planes. Post deregulation Congress started to wring their proverbial hands as rural routes were abandoned and they came up with EAS. From what I understand today a lot of the EAS routes are just leg extensions of the existing hub and spoke system. Tiny airlines compete for the EAS contracts but Congress put a rule that an EAS airplane can only have x number of seats. So a lot of the planes are large and quite roomy inside there is a youtube video below you can see how ridiculous EAS has become. I don’t think they cancelled the service they only halted it with the government shutdown. They should cancel EAS completely.
They should shut down Amtrak LD service first. EAS serves more of the out-of-the-way places than LD trains do. Without it, there wouldn’t be any airline service north of the Bay City area, except for Marquette, MI. That’s a swath of almost 500 miles.
Traverse City is the third busiest airport in Michigan. Detroit and Grand Rapids are the first two.
NONE in South Carolina.
Amtrak currently serves (stops in) ELEVEN cities or towns in South Carolina.
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It also serves 3 of the 5 “cities” in Pennsylvania.
Anyway, since this thread has devolved into the normal political BS, let me I guess try to get it back on track.
One of the issues with EAS service is it doesn’t factor in certain other situations like it should. Decatur IL, for example gets EAS service. The issue that I take from that, is Champaign, Bloomington, and Springfield are all less than 50 miles away, and all have commercial air service. Non of those other cities gets EAS service, so the government is actually hurting the airlines cost in the three cities that get it based on merit.
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Good point! Decatur is so close by. It makes no sense. Willard Field in Champaign used to have more services years ago. Now only American.
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I live in Dodge City, KS with two daily United flights to Denver. Garden City, KS is 45 miles away and has two daily American flights to Dallas. We also have Amtrak service, the daily SW Limited; which arrives eastbound at 11:45 pm and westbound at 5:45 am. Not very convenient. I have travelled for business to Chicago, and the trip was excellent. Just wish there was more frequency of service for both airports and Amtrak.
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So without EAS, only Amtrak at not very convenient times.
So… what brings ya ta Dodge?
Altoona, PA, where I grew up, has EAS. It is roughly a two-hour drive to Pittsburgh. Johnstown, which usually beat up Altoona High in football, has EAS; it is about a 1.5-hour drive to Pittsburgh. Even when Allegheny Airlines served Altoona and Johnstown with DC-3s, Martin 404s, and Convair 440s, many people drove to Pittsburgh for better air service, i.e. more frequent schedules, more non-stop destinations, and better airplanes.
The best option would be to continue EAS for some of the remote communities in Alaska, as well as other remote spots, that are more than a two-to-three-hour drive to an airport with frequent air service to the nation’s major air hubs.
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If that is an issue, doesn’t the responsibility rest with the State for fixing that? Michigan is not scraping along financially by any means.
I can understand Alaska. Look at the EAS map below though. Most of these routes in the lower 48 are a waste of money.
We do, people in Michigan pay federal taxes.
Unlike Amtrak, these services are provided at times when residents can use them. They also are used by a wider cross section of the population. People can’t depend on Amtrak because Amtrak isn’t dependable.
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Evidently the state of Michigan disagrees with you since they are paying for Amtrak service and are a member of an Amtrak provided state compact.
Regardless, I don’t think EAS is an entitlement program. I think it should be ended across all lower 48. To me it looks like a program with extensive political grift as well which is another concern I have with it.
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Marshall Dillon still there?
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Do you have any knowledge or basis for saying that?
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The late Ted Stevens of Alaska was a huge supporter of EAS. Then again Alaska is the biggest state in the nation and literally has cities that are further apart than some major metropolitan areas in the contiguous 48. There’s literally places in Alaska you can’t drive to that are part of the continent part of the state. There’s no road to Nome at all.
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