You don’t need to tell me about the financial sense that corporate aircraft make. I am a retired pilot. I quite regularly talk back to the television when the grandstanding politicians insinuate that corporate flight departments exist only to massage the CEO’s ego. If their argument was “wouldn’t a King Air be more economical than a Gulfstream?” then they might have a point, but the high end aircraft were purchased when times were good. The CEO of B of A makes considerably more than a million dollars a year.
The point that I was making is that when he was chased out of the airplane, he chose the train over commercial aviation or automobile. The Amtrak station is closer to B of A HQ than the airport is. Union Station in DC is within walking distance of the Capitol building. You can walk into the Amtrak station 15 minutes before departure and they don’t treat you like a prison visitor between the front door and the train.
There was a short blurb on our local news last evening about now is the time to be purchasing ROW for the HSR as the downturn in the economy has brought real estate prices to the lowest in twenty years. Farmers in the Central Valley are being hit particulary hard as there property values are declining the most. Maybe the taxpayers can save some money on the proposed HSR system by starting now. What a great stimulus program for the state of California. The Governator will lay off 20,000 state workers on Friday if there is not a budget in place.
Quick quip about New Jersey: part of the reason they pay more than they get out of the Highway Trust Fund is that the residents blocked construction of significant portions of I-95, especially through New the New Brunswick area, and tried to block I-287 south of I-87 for decades.
At the same time, New Jersey was paying the Erie Lackawanna to keep their money-hemorrhaging commuter service far earlier than nearly any other state.
They were sons of our Realtor who was good friends with my cousin. They did a good job, when they showed up… The county was fairly rural in the 1960s and there were quite a few dirt roads, but most were county roads. There are still a few left, but not many. The county has been very progressive with road improvements.
They do tend to drive fast around here. It’s pretty normal to go 70-75 on the urban interstates regardless of the limit.
The “unbuilt” I-95 portion and delayed Northern portion of I-287 are a drop in the bucket compared to the interstate miles in most other states.
So, Federal fuel tax money flowed (and flows!) out of the state while the state has to pick up the whole tab for commuter rail. Meanwhile, the tax money flows INTO GA in part because the state WON’T fund alternatives.
So, which is it? Is the federal fuel tax fairly distributed? I think it is. So, why not fund rail projects the same way?
The United States is a collection of political entities called states. Some started as crown colonies; others were charter colonies. The boundaries are the result of many historical antecedents. Many of them were formed by natural demarcation lines and points. They are what they are and they are likely to remain so. They have nothing to do with whether a federal spend is for a national or regional project.
Would Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio go together to fund a regional rail system if they were located in separate political entities? They might. One thing is for sure. No one really knows. But there are many indicators in Texas or whatever you want to call it that cooperation is alive and healthy.
A lack of cooperation in the Philadelphia area was cited as a failure of regionalism. It overlooks numerous areas were cross political boundary regionalism is doing very well. The Port Authority of NY and NJ is an example of a self-sustaining regional agency that has been around since 1921. So is the NEC for that matter. Amtrak (federal) owns 363 miles of the 457 miles of track between Washington and Boston. The remainder is owned by New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts through political subsets. Another example is the Dallas Area Rapid Transit system, which cuts across numerous political boundaries. It works very well.
For those who think that the airlines get a free ride at the nation’s airports, a look at the Port Authority’s 2009 budget should be a revelation. The regional airports are projected to earn a profit of $330 million, of which $328 million will be used to absorb the losses of PATH. It is a commuter rail operation between New Jersey and lower Manhattan.
I too lived in New York from 1964 to 1969. That was then. This is now. The same app
In principle I agree with you. However my view is tempered by the “stimulus” legislation that is loaded with non- stimulative pork that was just passed by Congress. I now say let’s get as many Federal dollars as we can for infrastructure improvements and direct operating subsidies for passenger rail whether it be LD, HSR, regional or transit. I’d much rather see my tax dollars spent that way than to fund organizations the likes of Acorn!
OK, you are against cross-subsidy as as general principle, and I agree with you. However, earlier in the same post you said:
“For those who think that the airlines get a free ride at the nation’s airports, a look at the Port Authority’s 2009 budget should be a revelation. The regional airports are projected to earn a profit of $330 million, of which $328 million will be used to absorb the losses of PATH. It is a commuter rail operation between New Jersey and lower Manhattan.”
Do you support overcharging the airport users the $328 mil to support those New Jersey commuters?. Money for other commuter rail operations is raised by regional sales taxes or property taxes in various locations. What about those situations? As a matter of principle, I would prefer those operations were funded completely by their users, but the voters don’t agree with me. So be it.
Yet, when it comes to Amtrak, somehow the standard changes and it becomes 100% farebox financed operating costs. I just don’t understand the logic here.
As an aside, I happen to be from the only contigious state that has never had Amtrak service. Nevertheless, if we are going to subsidize, I can appreciate that a place exists for Amtrak provided transportation, but I suspect that place ends roughly at the Mississippi River and does not reoccur until you get to the West Coast.
OK, you are against cross-subsidy as as general principle, and I agree with you. However, earlier in the same post you said:
“For those who think that the airlines get a free ride at the nation’s airports, a look at the Port Authority’s 2009 budget should be a revelation. The regional airports are projected to earn a profit of $330 million, of which $328 million will be used to absorb the losses of PATH. It is a commuter rail operation between New Jersey and lower Manhattan.”
Do you support overcharging the airport users the $328 mil to support those New Jersey commuters?. Money for other commuter rail operations is raised by regional sales taxes or property taxes in various locations. What about those situations? As a matter of principle, I would prefer those operations were funded completely by their users, but the voters don’t agree with me. So be it.
Yet, when it comes to Amtrak, somehow the standard changes and it becomes 100% farebox financed operating costs. I just don’t understand the logic here.
As an aside, I happen to be from the only contigious state that has never had Amtrak service. Nevertheless, if we are going to subsidize, I can appreciate that a place exists for Amtrak provided transportation, but I suspect that place ends roughly at the Mississippi River and does not reoccur until you get to the West Coast.
OK, you are against cross-subsidy as as general principle, and I agree with you. However, earlier in the same post you said:
“For those who think that the airlines get a free ride at the nation’s airports, a look at the Port Authority’s 2009 budget should be a revelation. The regional airports are projected to earn a profit of $330 million, of which $328 million will be used to absorb the losses of PATH. It is a commuter rail operation between New Jersey and lower Manhattan.”
Do you support overcharging the airport users the $328 mil to support those New Jersey commuters?. Money for other commuter rail operations is raised by regional sales taxes or property taxes in various locations. What about those situations? As a matter of principle, I would prefer those operations were funded completely by their users, but the voters don’t agree with me. So be it.
Yet, when it comes to Amtrak, somehow the standard changes and it becomes 100% farebox financed operating costs. I just don’t understand the logic here.
As an aside, I happen to be from the only contigious state that has never had Amtrak service. Nevertheless, if we are going to subsidize, I can appreciate that a place exists for Amtrak provided transportation, but I suspect that place ends roughly at the Mississippi River and does not reoccur until you get to the West Coast.
You are confusing the trip with the network supporting the trip.
The interstate highway network, which you say is “national” is not used that way at all. It is almost entirely used locally or regionally. It’s really a bunch of overlaid regional networks - which is exactly what that DOT map of rail corridors is!
Using your definition of “national”, if I connect my regional rail lines with enough LD routes, those regional routes become part of national system, whether anybody much uses them “nationally” or not.
If I build a bunch of overlaid regional rail networks that serve 75% of the population. How is that fundamentally different from building a bunch of overlaid regional highway networks?
(Regionalism is myth. IF the best you can come up with PANYNJ and DRPA, then you’re pretty much proving my point!)
People who categorize opposing points of view with words like nonsense, absurd, silly, etc. have run out of logic and hard data. The same applies to ascribing confusion to a person with an opposing point of view.
The Interstate Highway System, which is a part of the national highway system, was designed as a national highway transport system. How is used has nothing to do with whether the federal government should fund a regional passenger rail system.
The only way a project like that doesn’t get FTA dollars is if the it doesn’t make the cut on cost/benefit. You’re not telling me Austin didn’t ask for any outside funding, I hope. And, yes, municipalities are still free to construct whatever boondoggle they care to and fund it however they like.
Fair enough. Unfair word - “nonsense”. I haven’t run out of arguement, just patience.
I still don’t see the rationale for a difference in funding for the Interstate highway network versus the USDOT rail passenger corridor map. Both have a national network map?. Both serve the vast majority of the nation. What’s different?
What defines National? Is it the map (design)? Is it how it’s used (trip characterization)? Is it who pays for it’s constuction (a tautology?)? Something else?
The airlines were never asked to pay for the radar that controls all flights within US airspace instead the military paid for the installation of the radar system that controls all US airspace. The same is true for most of the rest of the world the radar systems were paid out of military budgets or considerate governments. And I dare to say the radar systems cost much more than Amtraks annual budgets. But by letting the military pay for it is a way of diverting its actual costs from the eyes of probing taxpayers. Even though the biggest beneficiary of the radar system is the ATC system that controls all civilian aircraft in US airspace. And not to mention all of the satellites in orbit that control the GPS that also pinpoint civil and military aircraft. It is only in recent years this was opened up to widespread use by the RRs etc. Me thinks the Airlines have a pretty free ride in this regard.
If you check out http://www.oig.dot.gov/item.jsp?id=694 you will see that the Inspector General is asking the FAA to pay for replacement radars and it seems that the FAA is trying to weasel out. So, part of what you say may be correct, that the FAA network may include radars paid by the military, but the statement that the FAA was never asked to pay for radar is simply not so because they are being asked right now. Whether they actually go ahead and pay for new radar or not is another matter.
Suppose the FAA will get a free ride on military radar. Airlines are to Amtrak passenger miles in the ratio of 100:1. If a billion/year is spent on Amtrak, that would mean that the military would have to be spending 100 billion/year on radars for civilian airspace or for any use in the Continental US, and no one has budget authority to spend 100 billion/year on radars of any ty
We have come a long way from the encounter in North Carolina! To go further off-topic:
Al, I agree that the repair of those 40-odd Superliners should be a priority. Too often we hear a tale of someone unable to get a reservation on the date desired and so on. Also as this winter has illustrated in the Chicago hub, there is precious little slack in car availability to cope with any system irregularity. I’m not sure just what the final number for Amtrak in the pending economic recovery bill turned out to be (I’m like most Congressmen in that regard) , but the money specifically can not be used for operating expenses; so hopefully some of it will find its way to Beech Grove.
Which brings me to the Northeast Corridor. Yes, it moves a very significant number of the total passengers in the system and apparently runs at an operating profit, but it seems to be a black hole that eats large sums of system and equipment upgrades.
Consider the following rail distances:
New York to Washington - 226 miles, Chicago to St. Louis 284 miles, St. Louis to KC 283 miles, Chicago to Port Huron 319 miles. I could throw in a couple of the west coast examples, but that is enough. These are all regional services of roughly the same distance, but the states are required to underwrite the operation of all except the Northeast Corridor. The Corridor runs at an operating profit so it does not require state subsidy on a daily basis, but it requires periodic injections of large capital expenditures.
It seems to me that allowing the states of the Northeast to avoid direct Amtrak support but requiring Illinois, North Carolina, Michigan and so on to do so is fundamentally inequitable.