NARP as well as many of the people posting to these forums claims that political support for Amtrak would dry up if the long distance trains were discontinued. Would it?
If the long distance trains were discontinued, which I have advocated, the NEC and State Supported and Other Short Distance Corridor Trains would still exist. Based on FY11 numbers, if Amtrak could have discontinued the long distance trains, it would have had an operating loss of $15.4 million in FY11, which is considerably smaller than its operating loss of $630.7 million before depreciation, interest, and miscellaneous charges. In actuality the savings would have been less during the year of discontinue and perhaps several years thereafter because of stranded costs.
Discontinuance of the long distance trains would leave 26 states with some Amtrak service, although Oklahoma, and Texas, with just the Heartland Flyer, may be just probables. Those 26 states have 52 senators, which would be enough to vote for federal support of a truncated Amtrak. Moreover, with a little horse trading, several of the senators from states losing Amtrak service might vote for it.
Whether the members of the House of Representatives retaining Amtrak service would vote for it, thereby ensuring its continued funding, is a bit more problematic. They would have the numbers (approximately 57 per cent of the members without Texas and Oklahoma), unless they had a large number of “down state” representatives that did not support it. North Texas representatives would probably support Amtrak if the Heartland Flyer is retained, but the valley representatives might not be so enthusiastic about it.
This strikes me as another reason to discontinue all transport subsidies in time, although I don’t believe it will happen because of the emotion laden politics surrounding the issue.
You may have a point. I find NARP generally “not helpful”. They are “Amtrak enablers”.
Rep Mica from FL might be a good example of someone who would support investment in passenger rail in a post LD train world. While he has generally been about as anti-Amtrak as you can get (even though his state has three trains a day!) he generally has been supportive of real improvement to the NEC. Although some claim this is a ruse… I suspect some find it confusing how one could be anti-Amtrak and pro-passenger rail.
I wonder what the voting record of the Senators in the effected states is and has been. Time to do some more digging…
Like i said before if we can spend 44 Billion on highways and 15 Billion Dollars a year on airplanes, we can find money for Poor Old Amtrak. When these other overseas Country spending 10 to 30 Billion a year. TSA is getting more money than Amtrak today.[2c]
Um…There are hours before the polls close in Florida, Don. We don’t know yet if Representative Mica will be reelected. Do you have some special inside knowledge?
I would hardly discontinue the long-distance trains. It is just that I wouldn’t give limited “capital exercise money” to brand-new state-of-the-art crew dorms and baggage cars.
The fact that we have advocacy people defending this is the core of the problem.
This is like the now retiring Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin) when he first ran for that office, for any office as he was a businessman. His opponent breathlessly accused him of charging the Defense Department more for a coffeecake than what he charged in his Kohl’s Supermarkets.
When confronted with this in a debate, he was prepared with a sample Kohls’ Supermarket coffee cake and a DOD cake. He explained, “The one in the supermarket sells for $4.95. The sell the other one to the Army for $15. But you can see that the one I sell to the Army is larger and serves many more people, so it is actually a somewhat better value.” Oops!
The Interstates are said to accomodate 1/4 total US passenger miles of 4 trillion/year or about 1 trillion passengeer miles per year. The airlines handle about 500 billion passenger miles/year. Amtrak, about 6 billion passenger miles per year.
Leaving aside gas taxes and general revenue and trucks and general aviation aircraft, the 44 billion for the Interstates provides 1 trillion passenger-mile “servings” of transportation or 4.4 cents/passenger mile. The 15 billion for the FAA serves 500 billion passenger miles or about 3 cents/passengeer mile.
Poor Old Amtrak gets 1.4 billion dollars to serve 6 billion passenger miles or about 23 cents per passenger mile. Notice that Amtrak costs multiples of the other services in terms of passenger-miles per subsidy dollar.
The European countries are, in rough numbers, spending about 30 billion dollars to serve half the
This is like the now retiring Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin) when he first ran for that office, for any office as he was a businessman. His opponent breathlessly accused him of charging the Defense Department more for a coffeecake than what he charged in his Kohl’s Supermarkets.
When confronted with this in a debate, he was prepared with a sample Kohls’ Supermarket coffee cake and a DOD cake. He explained, “The one in the supermarket sells for $4.95. The sell the other one to the Army for $15. But you can see that the one I sell to the Army is larger and serves many more people, so it is actually a somewhat better value.” Oops!
The Interstates are said to accomodate 1/4 total US passenger miles of 4 trillion/year or about 1 trillion passengeer miles per year. The airlines handle about 500 billion passenger miles/year. Amtrak, about 6 billion passenger miles per year.
Leaving aside gas taxes and general revenue and trucks and general aviation aircraft, the 44 billion for the Interstates provides 1 trillion passenger-mile “servings” of transportation or 4.4 cents/passenger mile. The 15 billion for the FAA serves 500 billion passenger miles or about 3 cents/passengeer mile.
Poor Old Amtrak gets 1.4 billion dollars to serve 6 billion passenger miles or about 23 cents per passenger mile. Notice that Amtrak costs multiples of the other services in terms of passenger-miles per subsidy dollar.
The European countries are, in rough numbers, spen
This is like the now retiring Senator Herb Kohl (D-Wisconsin) when he first ran for that office, for any office as he was a businessman. His opponent breathlessly accused him of charging the Defense Department more for a coffeecake than what he charged in his Kohl’s Supermarkets.
When confronted with this in a debate, he was prepared with a sample Kohls’ Supermarket coffee cake and a DOD cake. He explained, “The one in the supermarket sells for $4.95. The sell the other one to the Army for $15. But you can see that the one I sell to the Army is larger and serves many more people, so it is actually a somewhat better value.” Oops!
The Interstates are said to accomodate 1/4 total US passenger miles of 4 trillion/year or about 1 trillion passengeer miles per year. The airlines handle about 500 billion passenger miles/year. Amtrak, about 6 billion passenger miles per year.
Leaving aside gas taxes and general revenue and trucks and general aviation aircraft, the 44 billion for the Interstates provides 1 trillion passenger-mile “servings” of transportation or 4.4 cents/passenger mile. The 15 billion for the FAA serves 500 billion passenger miles or about 3 cents/passengeer mile.
Poor Old Amtrak gets 1.4 billion dollars to serve 6 billion passenger miles or about 23 cents per passenger mile. Notice that Amtrak costs multiples of the other services in terms of passenger-miles per subsidy dollar.
I would assume that Europe spends less on "interstate " type roads which needs to go in the equation also.
Number crunching be misleading when we are comparing apples and oranges. A plane going from point A to B serves 2 end points that the FAA provides traffic control and the cities provide airstrips for through bond issues (Your 15 billion total I assume) and they are happy to do it. The train going between those two cities depending on the distance (say 300-600) miles stops at 5-10 towns inbetween. I live in Danvile, Kentucky and our 7 county area is about 100,000 people. Lexington, Kentucky to Knoxville, Tennessee a distance of 160 miles has no train, bus or air service.
I think you question is correct you have decide what is a fair expentiture on trains. I think trains need to cover their fuel, labor, food and maintainance costs. Then you need an annual equipment fund for engines and cars (500 million). Finally you need 2-5 billion fund for track, station improvements and maintainance.
Some how in North Carolina trains are being added, track is being improved, Norfork Southern seems happy and people are riding trains. Whatever they are doing we need to learn something.
According to mapquest, Danville Ky is 37 miles from the Lexington, Ky airport. The Lexington airport gets air service from Delta, Allegiant, US Air, United and American.
Trains NewsWire story today “Amtrak’s status quo likely to continue” says another congressmen will likely replace Rep. Mika as chair of the committee, but it does not say why.
Yes, I saw that, Mike. Bill Schuster of Pennsylvania’s 9th district may take over. There still is the lame duck session but the days of Congressman Mica’s “Holy Jihad” may be numbered.
As a matter of good public policy, the Republicans have term limited their committee chairmen. I believe the limit is 6 years. Congressman Mica has reached the limit.
If memory serves, Schuster is the Republicans’ big highway guy. I wouldn’t look for much in the way of support for Amtrak from him. On the other hand, he might not have Mica’s animus for Amtrak, either.