1.5 billion for Amtrak in stimulus with daily service mandate (Passed in Congress)

[me_little_me]

Amtrak is also providing a public service and does not have sufficient quantity of trains or coverage (cities with service) unlike the roads and airfields built to serve the cars, trucks and airlines (nearly all at government expense. Remember that the railroads (now running virtually only freight) were also provided with huge government subsidies both in cash and in land. Amtrak has not and was required to provide certain services without being given the money to provide them. Those services, IMHO, are necessary.

So if anyone complains about money per mile or money per passenger, wait until Amtrak has gotten the equivalent to the subsidies given the other forms of transportation and allow it to build a real national network, then compare its subsidies with those of the other forms.

And as to money per mile, why not compare some of our large western states with small populations and huge distances and ask why they should get as much as they do to build those long, less used roads when compared to the small, dense states? For example, should the government not have paid for interstate 25 through less populated NM and even lesser populated Wyoming because their subsidy per car mile is higher than the 24 miles of I-95 in Delaware?

One has to ask the question, not only of fairness, but of need.

 

[Ryan]

Ryan, you can nitpick my methodology, but you haven't come remotely close to demonstrating that my overall point is invalid - which is really what matters here. I understand that you are defensive (I used to be too!), but the reality is what it is.

You missed the part where I said that I don't have a dog in this fight. I'm not defensive about anything other than you made a claim, and you're failing to back that claim up with data (in truth, you're likely right, although not by the margins that you believe).

You're making the claim that Amtrak receives significantly more in subsidy, the onus is on you to prove that. When you can't read a document closely enough to realize that it's 40 years old or what the right table numbers are to go look at, your credibility suffers. If you want to be taken seriously, make a compelling argument with data without making stupid and easy to find errors. It's not nitpicking to point out fundamental errors in your inability to take numbers from a data source, understand them, and make a cogent argument.

 

[Exvalley]

Ryan,

I made a credible argument with recent data. Your quibble was over the table numbers, not with the data in those tables - which seems rather petty at this point.

 

[AmtrakBlue]

Ryan,

I made a credible argument with recent data. Your quibble was over the table numbers, not with the data in those tables - which seems rather petty at this point.

You lose credibility when you do not show adequate attention to details, like the table numbers. If you point someone to table A, but quote table B, how are they supposed to trust your source and your analysis of that source.

 

[Exvalley]

Amtrak is also providing a public service and does not have sufficient quantity of trains or coverage (cities with service) unlike the roads and airfields built to serve the cars, trucks and airlines (nearly all at government expense.

Airports and highway systems don't provide a public service?

You are also slipping back into the, "We should get exactly what they get!" mentality. The problem with that argument is that the public does not want everything to be exactly even. Whether we like it or not on this forum, the public prefers air and highway travel. A responsible government would allocate resources based on the desires of the populace. That said, the average Amtrak passenger gets a much greater government subsidy than the average airline or highway passenger - at least based on each mile traveled.

Remember that the railroads were also provided with huge government subsidies both in cash and in land.

Which Amtrak directly benefits from since they run over those railroads.

And as to money per mile, why not compare some of our large western states with small populations and huge distances and ask why they should get as much as they do to build those long, less used roads when compared to the small, dense states?

Do you really want to go there? You may not realize it, but you are making a tailor made argument in support of eliminating long distance rail service.

 

[jebr]

Whether we like it or not on this forum, the public prefers air and highway travel.

Do they actually prefer it, or is it just what they use because there's not enough train service to be a usable option for most people? It's a bit silly to say that people prefer air or highway travel over the train when, using MSP - CHI as an example, the train only runs one time, three days a week, but there's 11-13 flights per day and multiple highway options that will get you there whenever you want to go. Get outside of the big cities, and driving is almost a necessity because even if you can get to the local town or city without a car, local public transit, if it exists at all, is infrequent and doesn't go to lots of places within that area. Of course people are going to prefer the option that has had plenty of investment and can be relied upon due to that investment; that says nothing about what people would prefer if both were on semi-equal footings in terms of usability.

 

[Exvalley]

Americans have always had a love affair with their cars.

Unfortunately, our communities are now designed with car travel in mind. We are just too spread out for that to change.

 

[Exvalley]

You lose credibility when you do not show adequate attention to details, like the table numbers. If you point someone to table A, but quote table B, how are they supposed to trust your source and your analysis of that source.

While I am guilty of referring to old notes, what matters is that the underlying data is correct.

Bottom line: The airlines would absolutely drool over the subsidies that Amtrak gets on a per passenger mile basis.

I am fine with that. I just get tired of people saying that the airlines make out much better when that is patently false.

 

[jis]

Bringing the thread back to its original topic....

It looks like the kerfuffle over the $15/hr minimum wage will require an additional post reconciliation vote since the House and Senate at present are slated to pass different bills. They will probably still be able to get it done by 15th March.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/26/cor...-pass-1point9-trillion-biden-relief-bill.html

 

[jebr]

Americans have always had a love affair with their cars.

Unfortunately, our communities are now designed with car travel in mind. We are just too spread out for that to change.

Designs can change. We literally plowed down parts of inner city neighborhoods and displaced thousands of people to make car travel as easy as possible. The layouts we have now are not permanent. City layouts change and adapt, and that can happen in 2021 just as it did in 1971.

 

[fdaley]

When comparing two forms of intercity travel, the passenger-mile metric seems about the best metric to use.

To me, the passenger-mile metric is one that's stacked against rail, because it disregards the fact that tons more people currently travel by air and highway than by train. The higher subsidy per passenger-mile for rail is a function of having a skeletal national rail system with high fixed costs -- such as maintaining and staffing lots of stations for trains that only run once a day or even less. The fact that highways and airlines carry many more people at lower subsidy per customer per mile is a function of the fact that, in raw dollars, we spend tons more public money to maintain those systems, and consequently those systems are useful to many more travelers. It doesn't mean that air and road travel is inherently more efficient than rail -- in fact, the opposite is true.

I haven't gone hunting for the latest statistics, but when I last delved into this, which is probably a few years ago, Amtrak was carrying less than 2 percent of intercity travelers and was also receiving less than 2 percent of federal transportation dollars. It had been in the 1-to-2-percent range in both categories for a few decades. If we keep spending nearly all of our transportation dollars on highways and airports, that's what most people will continue to use. But if we started spending, say, 5 percent of our transportation dollars on rail, we'd be able to have new and more frequent services that would attract more riders, and the cost per passenger-mile would go down. And we'd have a more efficient and environmentally better transport system overall.

 

[TrackWalker]

Over the years every time I've had to deal with charts and statistics this book and my "Carl Sagan Baloney Detector Kit" have served me quite well.

 

[Trogdor]

One of the problems I have with the passenger-mile metric is that it assumes distance = utility. That isn't really true. You can move 1000 people 1 mile, or 1 person 1000 miles, and the number of passenger-miles would be the same. Which is ultimately more useful? (I suppose that's subject to debate for any number of reasons)

It gets into a higher level philosophical discussion of whether we really need to move people such long distances in the amounts that we do, and what consequences it has throughout our society, environment, etc. If it costs $100 to move a group of people 100 miles, and $199 to move that same group 200 miles, then on a passenger-mile basis, the longer trip is cheaper. But it also cost $99 more in absolute terms. Instead of dollars, let's say that was an amount of fuel burned or air pollution emitted, etc. Airplanes, for example, are more efficient on longer flights than shorter ones because takeoff burns a lot of fuel, and cruise relatively little by comparison. Yet a plane is still going to burn more fuel flying 2000 miles than 1000 miles (all else being equal). Using a passenger-mile metric means we all ought to be flying as far as possible. Using an environmental concern metric, we ought to be keeping our flights as short as possible (which, really, also means limiting unnecessary travel) because the environment cares about total emissions, not a per passenger-mile rate.

Designs can change. We literally plowed down parts of inner city neighborhoods and displaced thousands of people to make car travel as easy as possible. The layouts we have now are not permanent. City layouts change and adapt, and that can happen in 2021 just as it did in 1971.

This goes towards the point I noted above about reducing total miles traveled. The way our cities are designed forces long commutes, and actually subsidizes suburban living at the expense of the cities that are the hub of regional activity. The amount of space our highways take up, even right into the downtowns of cities, in order to accommodate more "passenger-miles," means we lose a lot of usable space that could house lots of people, thereby significantly reducing the number of "passenger-miles" people need to travel on a regular basis to go about their daily lives. The result, if you were to add it all up, might be a significantly worse financial performance of our road/highway network on a cost/passenger-mile basis.

Aviation (at least, pre-COVID) does fairly well in the US because it is significantly supported by high-revenue business travel, and also adds lots of miles very quickly (i.e., passenger-miles are more heavily influenced by the miles than by the passengers). A lot of that business travel may turn out to be unnecessary even as COVID no longer becomes a factor. If businesses determine they can do a lot more work remotely, the number of passenger-miles will decline, and their revenue will decline with it. Since a lot of that is the high-RPM (revenue per passenger-mile) travel, this means their overall financial performance on a passenger-mile basis will be worse. This will mean some flights that were marginal in their economic performance will no longer be sustainable, and others may still be profitable, but not as much so. Some might look at this turn of events as a bad thing. Yet, from an environmental point of view, it's probably a good thing. From a societal point of view, it will probably just be a thing, neither good nor bad. If the funding into aviation was maintained at current levels, with reduced passenger-miles, then it would look like aviation got less efficient. And so what?

 

[Exvalley]

One of the problems I have with the passenger-mile metric is that it assumes distance = utility.

Well, let's look at cost per trip.

A bit dated, but here are some statistics compiled in a report that looked at subsidies between 2002 and 2009. From the report:
 Amtrak passengers received $57.04 per trip.
 Private sector commercial air passengers received $6.35 per trip.
 Mass transit riders received $0.95 per trip.
 Private sector commercial bus passengers received $0.10 per trip.

The report can be found here:
https://www.buses.org/assets/images/uploads/general/Report - Modal Subsidies - ABA.pdf
Please understand that I am not being critical of what Amtrak receives. I am pointing out that it is false to say that airlines have a tremendous advantage in terms of subsidization - at least in terms of spending public resources to get people from point A to point B.

I appreciate the debate over how we let this happen, however.

 

[me_little_me]

Amtrak is also providing a public service and does not have sufficient quantity of trains or coverage (cities with service) unlike the roads and airfields built to serve the cars, trucks and airlines (nearly all at government expense. Remember that the railroads (now running virtually only freight) were also provided with huge government subsidies both in cash and in land. Amtrak has not and was required to provide certain services without being given the money to provide them. Those services, IMHO, are necessary.

Airports and highway systems don't provide a public service?

You are also slipping back into the, "We should get exactly what they get!" mentality. The problem with that argument is that the public does not want everything to be exactly even. Whether we like it or not on this forum, the public prefers air and highway travel. A responsible government would allocate resources based on the desires of the populace. That said, the average Amtrak passenger gets a much greater government subsidy than the average airline or highway passenger - at least based on each mile traveled.

I said "also". That means Amtrak should get sufficient money - I did not say the same amount . And I mentioned fairness and need, not equality. That's why I used the Interstate example. The distances are greater and even if the roads have to be longer, the need is there. Please don't misstate what I said.

Which Amtrak directly benefits from since they run over those railroads.


Do you really want to go there? You may not realize it, but you are making a tailor made argument in support of eliminating long distance rail service.

No, they don't really "benefit" from them. They pay very high prices to use that track and the RR's services. The only thing Amtrak is "guaranteed" to get is priority because that was the deal the railroads agreed to but that is a joke and they do not get it. It's more like a tollway than a "free" road.

 

[Qapla]

What difference does it make how much $$ppm is "subsidized" for Amtrak. The fact is, Amtrak is not "subsidized" at all.

• The US Gov't does not own the trucking industry - yet they provide the Interstate Highway System the trucking industry uses to make money
• The US Gov't does not own the commercial airlines - yet they do provide funding for ATC, HLS and other things the airlines use to make money
• Monetary support of any kind that benefits these private businesses is a "subsidy"

The US Gov't does own Amtrak. Therefore, the money provided to Amtrak is not really a "subsidy" - it is "operating expense". To say that Amtrak is subsidized is like saying that Walmart is "subsidizing" their own warehouses.

To say it is "unfair" for the Gov't to give money to Amtrak over other forms of travel would be like saying it is unfair that Walmart does not give Target or Amazon money for their operation.

The fact is, for a "company" that is solely owned by the Gov't, Amtrak is grossly underfunded and should be funded (not "subsidized") to, not only "operate", but to expand and improve the service they provide. It would be different if Amtrak were a private business like the airlines and trucking - but it isn't.

 

[Qapla]

Just curious ...

When the amount of "subsidy" is calculated - is the the amount of acreage taken off the tax rolls calculated into the mix? The loss tax revenue for a massive Interstate interchange or a city-owned airport must have an impact on the overall tax-base there is to work with. In addition to the cost of building and maintaining the nations highways - how many tax dollars are no longer being collected from all the land these roads occupy? Passenger rail would need far less land to build tracks on than even a two-lane road needs ... not to mention the massive 4-lane and larger roads with medians.

 

[Bob Dylan]

Americans have always had a love affair with their cars.

Unfortunately, our communities are now designed with car travel in mind. We are just too spread out for that to change.

This is changing rapidly! Even Car Loving Cities like LA, and all of the Major Texas Cities, except San Antonio, are building and expanding Rail Services,Trolleys and Electric Buses.

And the popularity of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles, ( most Vehicle Manufacturers are getting out of the Fossil Fuel powered Vehicle Business) it wont be long before a Gas Station on every corner will go the way of Block Buster!

 

[jis]

Please understand that I am not being critical of what Amtrak receives. I am pointing out that it is false to say that airlines have a tremendous advantage in terms of subsidization - at least in terms of spending public resources to get people from point A to point B.

I appreciate the debate over how we let this happen, however.

That is a very important point....

I think when people talk about advantages that airlines have they really are implicitly driven by information about the past as to how things came to be this way, more than what it is now. That is why I suspect people are possibly talking a bit past each other in this discussion.

During the transition from the supremacy of rail to road and air it is alleged that taxes collected from rail were used significantly to fund development of the other two modes. As to whose fault it was, can be a major separate discussion. The railroad management had not exactly earned themselves great kudos in either being user friendly or being community friendly. They were indeed often seen as the rogues. So when there was a chance to get back at them, it is possible everyone piled on both through diversion of resources and exercising unreasonable government control on them. This is something that was finally addressed in the '70s in the 3R and 4R Acts, which among other things created Amtrak and Conrail and transfered commuter service to half a dozen state agencies.

So in some sense, both sides in this argument about who has and had advantages are probably correct, depending on the time span over which one is focusing.

 

[Exvalley]

The fact is, Amtrak is not "subsidized" at all.

While I appreciate the creativity of your argument, I will respect what budget analysts and economists say.

 

[Exvalley]

So in some sense, both sides in this argument about who has and had advantages are probably correct, depending on the time span over which one is focusing.

Well said.

In my opinion, effective advocacy spells out why passenger rail is important to our country moving forward rather than looking the rear view mirror toward a past that cannot be changed. It's not enough to complain that airlines and highways are subsidized. They are subsidized because politicians believe in them. If you want more subsidy for Amtrak you need to lay out the case why more is needed. You aren't going to convince politicians that airlines and highways should suffer at the expense of Amtrak. It's doesn't have to be a zero sum game.

 

[user 6862]

Should eviromental costs now be added into the equation for subsidies?

A nod to Bob Dylan's Post #119

 

[Exvalley]

Should eviromental costs now be added into the equation for subsidies?

This is what I am getting out. Emphasizing the environmental benefits associated with train travel is effective advocacy.

 

[MARC Rider]

redacted

 

[tricia]

You bet. First, who runs air traffic control? Second, who funds nearly all airports? Finally, government bailouts for airlines in last year's COvid relief act. I also seem to remember about some sort of government airline bailout after 9/11 when ridership breifly tanked, though it has been twenty years, so my memory is a little fuzzy.

Airlines also kept a heaping pile of cash from tickets paid for early last year, cancelled due to Covid, and converted into vouchers with terms that make it a safe bet that many vouchers will expire before they're used.