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Senate moves to restore Amtrak funding cut by House
We need our passenger trains and new cars. We to get on broad with the other countries of the world!
I would hope the Senate proposed bill passes and the House would agree. However, my hope seems old-fashioned. I would anticipate that a Republican controlled Congress (2015-2016) will end Amtrak for good.
I’m as conservative as they come (love Rush Limbaugh, etc.) but this is so stupid! I love Amtrak and we need more trains, more cars, more sleeping cars and the end to never-ending cuts to Amtrak.
Some of the republicans seem to want to kill it Amtrak in slow motion.but don’t have a problem promoting more unstainable highway growth which in itself is totally self defeating.
It’s really a shame that after some forty plus years Amtrak is still a wiping boy for the Washington politicos. The only people that think Amtrak is worth anything is the general public. Every year statistics show that ridership is up and still the Washington budget makers can never seem to come up with enough money to make Amtrak the system it could be. I’m happy that they are getting some additional funding but it still is not enough. There is still not enough money to fix all the damaged equipment at Beach Grove.
The rest of the world is moving into the high speed rail revolution and here we in the stage coach era as far as passenger rail travel is concerned.
The house complains about our “Soviet style passenger rail system” yet refuses to provide money to improve it. What hypocrites!
The house complains about our “Soviet style rail system” yet refuses to provide money to improve it. Talk about hypocrites!
That’s so typical of those “It’s cheaper to fly Amtrak riders” group. They simply refuse to see the demand for and the increase ridership Amtrak enjoys. They need to change their narrow minded attitudes.
Writing’s on the wall, states slowly but surely, will have to pickup more of the tab or see service reduced or cut, its a poker bluff the Govt. is playing and the odds in their favor. Theres a few route that are state funded partially at least, its a business move. NC, IL are an example. Its only a matter of time. I see as it looks like NOT how I feel about it.
I haven’t flown for a good number of years, back when even “coach” was comfortable. But in a recent picture I recently saw of the coach seating arrangements and what some of the airlines use for seats, it brought to mind the “cattle trucks” that some of the steel mills use to haul workers around their complexes. It also brought to mind the fold-up benches in the back of the duce-and-a-half I drove in the army. The sad part they seem to have an unlimited amount of funding. The government even supplies their “dispatchers” (traffic controllers). One has to wonder where this country’s transportation will be in 50 years. God help us all!
The illusion that we can go back to the 18th Century both philosophically and infrastructure wise is akin to a idealistic flat earth society with it’s head stuck under a rock.
Yes we can push peddle carts to work while the Oligarchs that employ these shills can buy all the housing in several US cities with cash in hand. Let them eat cake philosophy ended up costing someone an unexpected trip to the guillotine…and what goes down comes around. This is just one example of skewed values when it comes to being miserly toward the common good rather than lining the pockets of robber barons.
Amtrak is great for serving those cities in our rural areas and promoting growth. However, I would like to see a Hub in the Midwest(not Chicago) connecting a fast Maglev system with Amtrak. People want speed and not inconvenience brought on by the wasteful agencies of the government(TSA, Homeland security, EPA, and non-versed Senators. In the meantime, Amtrak should be properly funded, equipped and mandated to operate with an on-time schedule whenever possible.
Ya’ gotta love that first sentence of the last paragraph. NARP, despite all evidence to the contrary, bought into the myth that the Obama administration was out to do great things for Amtrak and rail transit. And they STILL cling to that.
Let’s step back a minute before demonizing the nasty meany Republicans and let’s look at the other side. When the Obama administration began handing out ARRA money in 2008-2009, passenger rail got a pittance compared to what went to roads and highways. And it just went downhill from there.
And for every Scott Walker and John Kasich there was/is a Bob McDonnell and Rick Snyder. Where was NARP and the Obama administration when idiot child CT Governor Dannel Malloy(D) asked the administration to help fund the hugely expensive and useless New Britain-Hartford Busway and ignore the four deficient and deeply-troubled drawbridges on the New Haven Line? We are now reaping, in the case of the Norwalk River Bridge, sour harvest from that decision. And when the bus service fails to gain serious ridership, Malloy will kill it and CT gains yet another highway that will have to be widened to handle all the private vehicles.
Where was/is NARP and its NYState affiliate ESPA when the Obama administration decided to “loan” the state $1.6 billion so the governor, Andrew Cuomo(D) could build a monument to himself, the new Tappan Zee/I-87 Bridge that would only host a transit line in the “future” and would have more highway lanes then the one it is replacing? Meanwhile, the desperately needed Amtrak Gateway Tunnels go begging while Amtrak CEO says the existing two have maybe 20 years of life, if that.
And where was/is NARP and ESPA when Gov. Cuomo and Pres. Obama fund the TZB and utterly ignore the Livingston Ave. Bridge that carries Amtrak across the Hudson between Albany and Rensselaer? Just last Friday, the same day the Norwalk River failed for the second time to close and lock, the long-troubled LAB did the
Sorry, my first attempt got sent inadvertently. The cascading delays I was citing from the LAB troubles on the morning of 6/6 were to later trains Nos. 255 and 237 for sure. And there may have been others, depending on how #49/449 did combining at Rensselaer ahead of the late arrival of #255 at 715pm with #237 not too far behind.
If the Livingston Ave. Bridge fails permanently, Amtrak’s NYState service, along with LDs to Chicago, Toronto, and Montreal, are orphaned. The NYP-ALB are all that will survive. If Amtrak has to shut down one of the Hudson River tunnels, New York-WAS (and NJT to Penn Sta.) go down the drain. And if the CT bridges are compromised to a greater degree than now, Amtrak New York-Boston (not to mention MNR’s NH Line) go down the drain, although NY-Stamford survives as long as the Mianus River Bridge stays safe.
So the CEOs of the likes of Megabus and BoltBus uncork the champagne and Amtrak shuts down in its only bedrock (although CA is beginning to dispute that characterisation) while the Obama administration seems to care less. But “Amtrak Joe” never misses a self-serving photo op. Maybe that will give a boost to the rest of the Amtrak system and the NEC-centric politicians can wonder how it all happened that their trains went away.
I like what Mr. Armstrong said - let each passenger mode pay its own way. No general taxes for any mode - roads, air or trains.
Roads are paid by tolls and/or a tax on your car, truck, and bus mileage. Plane tickets include the cost of airports and air traffic control. Rail tickets pays 100% of Amtrak.
Then let the public choose what mode they want to travel by. The most efficient mode will get the most use and total cost will go down.
@LARRY KOSTKA from CALIFORNIA… ONLY the North east corridor of Amtrak makes money…Thats it… Trains are out there, and maybe some ridership is UP, but mostly in the North east where you have OLD cities and traffic…
As long as passenger rail competes with freight on the same tracks, this will never end.
For those that have written saying rail travel is dead and we should not invest in it then maybe it is time for us to also stop funding all the airports and let the users pay for everything.
ALLEN K HOPPEL:
A deuce-and-a-half! Oh, yeah, there’s some memories! I love aviation, got my pilot’s license in 1974 and was in USAF ROTC for a while because I wanted top fly an F4 Phantom. But I HATE HATE HATE airline travel, I avoid it as much as I can. Love Amtrak and wish it was a lot bigger. Deuce-and-a-half indeed…