The disagreement over Amtrak funding boils down to a basic disagreement about the roll of government in peoples lives.
Traditionally in the USA the government provided an infrastructure for transportation, but did not provide the means of transportation. (This was tru of local and State Govt too). This was true for roads, waterways, airways, and although to a lesser extent railroads (example: land grants and even direct payments to the CP and the UP for construction completed on the transcontinental)
Historically the individual public road users did not pay to use the roads (prior to the auto user fees were difficult to access so except for tolls on some roads, non existent) , but the government did not furnish their horse or pay for the feed. Transportation providers obtained franchises from government to operate, for which they paid.
Rail, being privately owned, usually tried to at least recover their costs. When passenger transportation was subsidized, it was by revenue from freight hauling, not by the government.
Private street car and interurban lines were franchised by local governments, for which they paid, and where they ran in roads were expected to pay for at least some and often all of the road maintenance costs.
In the early days even government owned rail transit was expected to at least pay its costs.
Is the government responsible to provide transportation for people who are incapable or unwilling to pay the costs themselves? Should those people, and also those who can and are willing to pay, be subsizied by people who recieve no benefit?
I think they ought to let Amtrak die. I say this, having used Amtrak and having also worked for railroads.
Once this happens, the freight railroads should no longer be shielded from any future responsibility for providing their own passenger service. The reason for Amtrak in the first place was the money-losing service provided by the freights.
Amtrak is their insurance policy against having to coordinate passenger service, which is much more difficult than rerouting a freight car. It could be argued that the competition between railroads was what subsidized Amtrak in the first place: those RR’s with political clout saw the opportunity to divest themselves at government expense, and to pressure their competitors. This was similar to the establishment of the ICC, originally manipulated as a device to hinder one’s competition, as is the theory behind antitrust legislation as a device to hinder more efficient competitors.
All of this hides the fact that freight RR’s are capital-intensive and that there has been traditionally strong aversion to federal govt. capitalization of freight ROWs. The geographical benefits certain RRs have disproportionate to others makes it unlikely that a separation of infrastructure and operations will ever happen. The specialization to understand the logistics of moving heavy freight is localized and cannot be easily standardized, especially in difficult terrain.
If it does, expect to see major liability issues: Amtrak currently pushes liability onto the freights. With no infrastructure of their own, the freights could push liabilty onto the gvt., causing massive infrastructure funding issues to arise.
The lesson of Amtrak’s long-distance operations over the freight RRs is that even though they are political pork by some estimates, they are the shield that the RRs need, to avoid govt involvement in route-setting freight trains. This is already happening
I don’t believe the railroads are under any obligation to take over passenger services should Amtrak get axed. Remember, Amtrak was created while the railroads were still regulated. Once Staggers was enacted to eliminate a portion of the regulatory burden, the requirement to support passenger services kind of disappeared.
Your statement about liability issues arising from separation of infrastructure from operations is an interesting take. Isn’t that why transportation firms carry insurance? Just because Amtrak was granted an escape clause from indementy for an accident they might have caused doesn’t mean such a scenario would be transferred to other parties upon vertical separation of infrastructure from operations. The problem with the current freight railroads is that there is no divisional accountability. If a MOW miscalculation causes an operational deficit, the company doesn’t sue one division for the mistake of the other, they just keep it minimized internally to their fullest extent, and their insurance company deals with it at the corporate level. As far as I can tell, railroad companies do not porportion revenues among divisions in an accountable way, otherwise there would be no such thing as deferred maintenance.
I agree with you that the onset of monopolistic inefficiencies (downsizing to the point of melt down just to keep up pretenses of approaching revenue adequacy, with no real rail to rail competition to keep the business senses honed) are a harbinger of bad things to come. I just don’t see what that has to do with passenger service.
All of you who take these positions are members of what many call “the car culture.” Railroads were profitable, streetcars were profitable, and even lightly used interurban trolleys were profitable, also the NY-Boston night boat, and many othe public transit facilties, both intercity and urban and rural local, and paid taxes before the automobile swept the field. Results are that the average USA citizen uses 5 times the energy and resources of the planet than the average of everyone on the planet, and this is due to private transportation and not a higher standard living. The Swiss are out to prove that a public transportation oriented economy and lifestyle and be even more rewarding. I happen to be in the minority that think they are right. Other countries, yes Canada included, do believe that public transportation is an entitlement, and VIA’s general excellence and the excellence of public transportation in Toronto (with its problems) and other Canadian cities are really in my book models for the USA. What you are telling me is that you don’t give a **** about the elderly couple that has never left Rhode Island in their whole lives, and now that they are empty nesters, they want to see the USA, their country just as much as it is yours, and plan a transcontinental train trip to do it. And indeed there isn’t any other practical way for them (not me, them) to enjoy the whole USA, which in my book should be their birthright, despite their inability to fly or drive. I think they should equal access to the USA as much as a handicapped person has access up a ramp to the local post office, library, courthouse, theatre, auditorium, concert hall, or football stadium. 1-1/2% or even1/2% of the total population that use the intercity trains is still a whale of lot of people, and for most of these people, these trains are esssential. Mineta’s and your ideas are to me rank discrimination. Just like racial or religious discrimination, considering the gobs of money that have thrown at the transportation that yo
I hereby and abjectly apologize for the use of the four letter word in the above posting. Everyone has my sincere apologies and I will try to prevent this from happening again. Thank you for youor understanding. Dave
Your inadvertent use of a four-letter word should not detract from the excellent points you make in your post, dave–and there are some good ones there.
I’d say 1% is a pretty low number for intercity trains–25 million people rode Amtrak last year!
This is a thorny subject. One can assume that if one believes in the idea of taxation at all, in some cases you’ll be in a situation where some government program gives you, as an individual, no benefit. For example: I’m not blind, so why should I pay taxes for programs that aid the blind? I don’t have kids, so why should I pay local taxes for schools? I’m not unemployed, why should I pay for welfare for the unemployed? I don’t see any point to paying for a war in Iraq–can I opt out of paying for it if I don’t support it?
The answer, simply, is that one has the OPTION to use these services–and even though I don’t use them now, the day might come when I have to!
Not everybody takes the train–but everyone can, at least everyone who can afford the ticket. A limited subsidy doesn’t make train travel universally accessible–but it does make it relatively attainable. Taxation to pay for infrastructure doesn’t free the government from the responsibility of fiscally prudent stewardship.
While the argument that the U.S. government typically paid for the roadway rather than the vehicles on it, railroads are a special case. The track is privately owned–and I imagine that public funding for the vehicles on it costs a great deal less than a government-owned railroad right-of-way system with privately-owned railroad vehicles upon it would!
I might also note that at least in some areas – not in the great open spaces, no, but in some areas – public, heavy rail transportation is not a luxury, and not really even an option. One might then be inclined to ask (and oh boy is this a thorny question!) to what extent, indirectly, the nation as a whole benefits from the provision of public transportation which makes possible certain activities or centres of business…
I’m a pay as you go person - I believe in it and it is my practice. Now - having said that - and before any of you jump my aging bones - let me continue.
Subsidies are simply today’s reality. If we didn’t have these governmental handouts, Canada and the U.S. wouldn’t have the public transportation systems operating today. You see, it is in the government’s best interest to subsidize. Think about it for a second - the government (you and I) wants to ensure that people can get from point A to point B in order to work (earn money) or to play (spend money). The more who work, the more taxes are generated. The more who spend - likewise. That’s just a primer on how our systems work.
So, rather than call public transportation an entitlement, I see it more as a necessity for all who either must or wi***o use it.
So, where does this leave me with my pay as you go mantra? I will still pay my way and will refrain from going on the cheap - especially if that means taking advantage of a program really designed for others. Exception: don’t mess with my senior discount!
Since some of you might have misunderstood me, let me put it in less eloquent terms:
Somebody, somewhere will want passenger trains. If it’s not the govt. it has to be the freight railroads. Why? Because short of the states paying billions of dollars to build new rail, commuter operators must first start running on existing lines. They have to train their employees to the standard of the host RR, or else hire freight crews to run passenger service.
As political pressure increases, the railroads will be reobligated to run passenger service, or else resurrect Amtrak. They are considered a public trust and are subject to reasonable user demands.
Railroads can’t pay much for the track they need. They compensate by maximizing their operating efficiencies with few alternate routing options. They are now running out of routing options.
Open-access rails would lead to political jockeying in the event that the infrastructure company was govt bonded. The RRs would not accept liability for deferred maintenance leading to derailments and slow orders.
The imbalance in govt subsidies has caused the RRs to be undercapitalized as they spend money keeping up with other transport modes.
Passenger trains are what spur triple-tracking and advanced signalling. You have to run passenger trains without timetable interruption and you need infrastructure improvements. Dual-use infrastructure investment helps freight RRs with route flexability, line density, and real estate investment.
The meltdown is here. The expansions may be too late. Where will the money come from? WIll the govt give money outright, or will they require some sort of public-use benefit in return? Let the RRs contract passenger service. They have no choice, if they expect to get any kind of subsidy for freight at all.
The NEC is the best test-case.
HIghspeed rail is nearly impossible politically without
goboard, let me try a different angle. Specific to the government (fed, state, or local) funding infrastructure:
-We can build new highways without any complaints from the trucking and busing industries
-We can build new airports without any complaints from the airline or airfreight industries
-We can build new waterways without any complaints from the barge and cruise line industries
BUT…
-If we try to build new rail lines, the railroad industry would have a fit, complaining that we are unfairly subsidizing rail to rail competition. They have eliminated so much capacity over the years for a reason, and they are not about to let new rail construction destroy their hard fought profit margins gained from capacity retrenchment.
Compared to how other industries would react to proposed capacity increases, the rail industry response seems rather convoluted, but that’s what happens when the anachronism of the owner-operator ROW is allowed to continue its existence, while all other modes have evolved.
This is why you will never see public funding of proprietary rail lines. Deep down, they really don’t want it.
I wi***o make an important analogy. In fact, a good case could be made that NARP could sue the Frederal Government on behalf of non-mobile rail passengers in long distance rail service were eliminated. Here is why:
I am a theatre owner with a fine 850 seat theatre. It has as good acoustics and architectural design as any could possibly be. Even the high school amature actors are heard by people with normal hearing in every seat… The only sound systems I had were for sound effects, motion picture playback, and to cue actors in their dressing rooms. But then (and this true story was repeated 10,000 times, at least) the Handicapped Access act was passed by Congress and the Senate. I had to bring back the acoustical consultant and the architect. Of course, the architect was needed to design handicapped access ramps so wheelchair customers and others would not need to use the stairs. But the fire marshall also got into the act because of the need for improved emergency exits, as well. And then the acoustical consultant had to design a handicapped hearing listening system and a first-rate sound reinforcement system as well for those who were hearing impaired but wouldn’t wear the earphones of the special listening system. And the architect had to work with the acoustical consultant to find a location for a sound system operator and to integrate the new loudspeaker system into the architecture so it wouldn’t detract from the appearance. The sound system cannot be completely automated because it takes skill to please the hard of hearing with intelligibility without being too loud for people with normal hearing. Then came the construction work, the sound system installation, boring holes in concrete to get access for microphone jacks, etc. The whole thing ran to about half a million dollars just to comply with this act, and indeed each of you reading this thread can check with a local live-production theatre owner and verify this scenereo. And I also have a $40,000/year sound syste
You probably won’t see direct subsidies for new lines, that’s true.
What you could see is the govt paying the freights to run passenger service over existing freight lines, in compensation for infrastructure upgrades.
The RRs would be responsible for growing their own passenger business if they expected to get more subsidies, based upon tickets sold, ton/miles, route miles, whatever metric that makes it possible to estimate passenger use to a certain percentage based upon a combination of population density and freight-origination.
The RRs themselves would be responsible for unilaterally expanding proprietary track for the purposes of growing freight business just as they are now, however it would naturally connect into the preexisting system, and build off of efficiency increases from passenger-capable infrastructure.
In short, let the railroads determine where the freight is. Let freight congestion determine where to subsidize passenger service. Let passenger service subsidize infrastructure. Let infrastructure increase market-share.
Since some of you might have misunderstood me, let me put it in less eloquent terms:
Somebody, somewhere will want passenger trains. If it’s not the govt. it has to be the freight railroads. Why? Because short of the states paying billions of dollars to build new rail, commuter operators must first start running on existing lines. They have to train their employees to the standard of the host RR, or else hire freight crews to run passenger service.
As political pressure increases, the railroads will be reobligated to run passenger service, or else resurrect Amtrak. They are considered a public trust and are subject to reasonable user demands.
Railroads can’t pay much for the track they need. They compensate by maximizing their operating efficiencies with few alternate routing options. They are now running out of routing options.
Open-access rails would lead to political jockeying in the event that the infrastructure company was govt bonded. The RRs would not accept liability for deferred maintenance leading to derailments and slow orders.
The imbalance in govt subsidies has caused the RRs to be undercapitalized as they spend money keeping up with other transport modes.
Passenger trains are what spur triple-tracking and advanced signalling. You have to run passenger trains without timetable interruption and you need infrastructure improvements. Dual-use infrastructure investment helps freight RRs with route flexability, line density, and real estate investment.
The meltdown is here. The expansions may be too late. Where will the money come from? WIll the govt give money outright, or will they require some sort of public-use benefit in return? Let the RRs contract passenger service. They have no choice, if they expect to get any kind of subsidy for freight at all.
For anyone to posit that the government is not into our lives - read what Dave Klepper wrote on his thread - now that says it all.
Perhaps the word entitlement has taken on a completely new meaning when one factors in what Dave went through in refitting his movie theatre to comply with government mandates.
As with most serious postings, this one has generated much provoking rethinking for me. I still am a “pay as you go” proponent - but there simply has to be room for some slack. Contrary to what many would like life to be - it just isn’t fair nor equal. Take a look around you …
Once this country faces a crisis so deep, and hopefully not devasting, that wakes us up to the reality about the absence of a 21st century nationwide transportation plan, we’ll just continue muddling through. Technology exists to move people rapidly and safely with environmental concerns taken into account. MAGLEV would be one approach. But unless and until our Congress gets off the dime coupled with that national crisis I spoke of (gasoline at $100 per barrel for example), they will continue business as usual.
They say the squeeky wheel gets the grease. From some of the well thought out messages on this forum, there’s no doubt in my mind that each of our elected representatives - at all levels - should be made aware of how we feel. That beats beating each other to death, so to speak, with our thoughts (including my own!).
Suggest you read or re-read what Dave Klepper had to say - it is germaine. Then do it the old fashioned way - send some letters!
I’ll give you this from my background: I worked for a Representative - then Senator - for about 6 years after I retired. He responded FIRST to the written word sent to him by snail mail. E-mail has become so proliferated with junk, that he simply was swamped by that mode of communciations.
Except in mountainous areas, in the rest of fairly flat America the railroads built lines which are fairly straight, the tight curves are usually for overcoming grades and in wyes… In my opinion many of the rail lines already in existence can be improved to double track and their speeds upgraded to HSR speeds easily…
Goverment provides the “Forum” who speaks in that forum is entirley up to them. Local municipality have provided Public Market Houses which are owned
by the city. The Vendors and Farmers that are in that Public Market pay a small rent to cover there expences. Some of the Best Public Markets I have been in are in Cleveland,Broadway Market in Buffalo and Portland Public Market. These markets that I have been in benifit the community by providing a outlet for fresh produce and meats that might not be able to get on the big corparte grocery shelves. They provide inner city people with food in areas atht are too dence to build a huge supermarket. In Cleveland the West Side Public Market has benifited the whole neighbood in increased real esate and quality of life in “Ohio City”.
The FCC owns the air waves and then doles them out the local radio stations who are free to broadcast whatever they want.
NFTA ownes the Buffalo Airport but does not control the airlines.
The Thruway Authority ownes and manages the Turnpike and Canal System but does not manage the truck and barge companys that run on there System.
But Railroads on the other hand is the only transportation system that I can think of that owns the Infrastucture and the Vehicles that run on it. Its like the local mall owns all the shops inside the mall. The Cost of Infrastucture should be borne by Goverment because we all benifit from having that infrastucture there. Goverment is good at building and owning highways and bridges and sewers. Let the buisness be good at what it does and that is the free market.
Railroads benifit more then just the people who pay the freight and passenger bills. It not fair to make them pay the full bill when so many of us benifit from cleaner air and less traffic congestion. Why Railroads would fight tooth and nail not to have to the goverment take take over a major part of there expence is behond me. Railroads are in the transportation buisness not in the infrastucture buisness. Leave Transport
It’s amazing that so many people who ostensibly have divergent opinions on rail transportation can also have alot of common ground. Yes, it is also my opinion that during the creation of Amtrak back in 1970, the nation would have been better off if the feds had just directly subisidized of offered certain tax incentives to the freight railroads to continue to run their own passenger trains, rather than pawning them off on a federal agency. If nothing else, the level of service would have been improved, and the incentives to innovate would have still been in place.
[quote]
QUOTE: Originally posted by Dunkirkeriestation
Goverment provides the “Forum” who speaks in that forum is entirley up to them. Local municipality have provided Public Market Houses which are owned
by the city. The Vendors and Farmers that are in that Public Market pay a small rent to cover there expences. Some of the Best Public Markets I have been in are in Cleveland,Broadway Market in Buffalo and Portland Public Market. These markets that I have been in benifit the community by providing a outlet for fresh produce and meats that might not be able to get on the big corparte grocery shelves. They provide inner city people with food in areas atht are too dence to build a huge supermarket. In Cleveland the West Side Public Market has benifited the whole neighbood in increased real esate and quality of life in “Ohio City”.
The FCC owns the air waves and then doles them out the local radio stations who are free to broadcast whatever they want.
NFTA ownes the Buffalo Airport but does not control the airlines.
The Thruway Authority ownes and manages the Turnpike and Canal System but does not manage the truck and barge companys that run on there System.
But Railroads on the other hand is the only transportation system that I can think of that owns the Infrastucture and the Vehicles that run on it. Its like the local mall owns all the shops inside the mall. The Cost of Infrastucture should be borne by Goverment because we all benifit from having that infrastucture there. Goverment is good at building and owning highways and bridges and sewers. Let the buisness be good at what it does and that is the free market.
Railroads benifit more then just the people who pay the freight and passenger bills. It not fair to make them pay the full bill when so many of us benifit from cleaner air and less traffic congestion. Why Railroads would fight tooth and nail not to have to the goverment take take over a major part of there expence is behond me. Railroads are in the t
Thank you futuremodal, Now if I can get the other 299 million Americans to see things my way. Its hyprocritical they want goverment subsides of highways but when it comes to railroads they want to call you communist~!