I hear talk and see newspaper articles that say Amtrak hasn’t been budgeted any federal money for 2006. Are the feds trying to rid the government of the railroad or have they just not budgeted any money to Amtrak Yet?
I think that someone should step up and take over the service if the rumor about no budgeting is true. Out here in Montana, the train is the only other mode of land transportation after cars, we have no major bus lines!
There was an Op-Ed piece in the NYTimes about this earlier this week, from transportation secretary Norman Mineta. Best to read it, but the idea seemed to be they want to make it more of a partnership with states, modeled after some of the profitable regional commuter train operations. The government doesn’t feel like Amtrak as currently set up is spending its allocation on the right things.
The budget game is just a ploy to get the thing on people’s radar screen. He claims they are not intending to do away with it.
Mike
For some weird reason, the Executive Branch has decided that the states would be the best ones to run an interstate transportation service.
Cutting a program’s budget to zero sounds a lot like “doing away with it”–Amtrak costs almost as much in a year as we spent last week on the Iraq war!
And nobody will step up and take over Amtrak if it isn’t the government–businesses are supposed to make money, and nobody makes money running passengers!
I certainly hope not. Despite your unfortunately worded title (Scam-trak?), Amtrak performs a vital service here in the Northeast.
Wayne
Yes, the piece I cited said trains carry as many passengers between NYC and Washington as the airlines do.
I think the issue probably has to do with the cross-country routes. Lots of maintenance and operating cost relative to ridership on those.
Mike
My weekly e-mail from “Trains.com” has an article from Tuesday, February 15th discussing Sec. Mineta’s announcement in Chicago Union Terminal about the lack of funding, how much has been spent on Amtrak since its beginning, and the need for the states to pay for rail service. You should be able to read the article on this web site, probably under a “news” section.
Michigan is already paying for Amtrak to be here. If Amtrak does get shut down the NEC will get taken over and countine service. and I’d appcate it if you didn’t call it Scam-trak
Donald Trump needs to step in and buy it
I hope not!But I dislike the Scam-Track part.why?