House of Representatives plans to shut down Amtrak

The House of Representativesis proposing a 60% budget cut to Amtrak that would virtually shut down much of the railroad. 

Arthur Frommer has written an excellent blog post on the subject:

Arthur Frommer’s Blog

(Frank II)

Comments

[K-eM]

Sooooooo...they have a record year and we shut them down? Huh.

[DavidG]

Why should the taxpayer fund failed business models?

[Derek]

This is great. Amtrak should not be propped up by stolen money from productive people. If it's a good, sound business, let it compete in the marketplace without stolen money.

[teaonebagger]

This is great. The interstate highway system should not be propped up by stolen money from productive people. If it's a good, sound business, let it compete in the marketplace without stolen money.

[Francine]

This is great. And neither should the U.S. Postal Service be propped up by stolen money from productive people. If it's a good, sound business, let it compete in the marketplace without stolen money.

[Esther]

I liked riding trains in Europe. I didn't need a car to travel to different countries. I don't understand why we can't achieve this here.
There isn't a company in the US that's willing to start a nationwide train service (at least that I know of) on their own. To keep an important utility such as this, the government should provide assistance. Train travel is certainly more useful than a number of useless things the government spends its money on.

[Jackson]

I hate it. I really do. But, what part of we're broke don't you understand??

[Paul Z]

We're "broke" because of two unsustainable, unjustifiable wars and unregulated financial markets. Transportation is a necessity. Obscene corporate profits aren't.

[Larry]

While every argument for the continuation of public funded rail travel is valid, I live just south of Houston, Texas and my town(of over 100,000) has NO public transportation. We don't even have a taxi service or bus let alone a train. Why should I pay to subsidize something I don't use? I love trains in Europe but have never rode one in the U.S.

[Frank II--Editor]

"If I don't use it, why should I pay for it?"

Do you plan to visit every national park? Plan to drive on Interstate 80 in Wyoming? Be so poor that you can't feed your child and need their school to provide them with breakfast? Prospect for oil? Have the military surround your house with tanks to keep out invaders?

All of these are programs or institutions subsidized by your tax dollars. As a nation we must collectively pay in to help each other.We survived hard times because we came together. Sadly, in our current climate, there are large groups of people who just think "me, me, me."
.
In the past, we elected people to political office to represent us. Sadly, they are dong a horrible job. (Congress has a 12% approval rating.) The smart thing would be to kick them out and get new people. But for some reason, we don't do that. Today's politicians are great at putting fear into their constituents about what will happen if they elect "the other side."

Your town should have some type of bus system. It's big enough. The only way you'll get it is if your elected officials fight for it. If it's something important to the majority--and being a democracy we go with majority rule--you need to elect people to office who will fight for it.

As far as a rail system goes, the smart thing would be to spend more to get more. We don't need trains that go coast to coast. Our country is too big. But high speed regional train service would eventually become a boon to the economy.

Ridership on Amtrak is increasing and what's really important is that the average age is getting younger. The largest age groups to see increase in ridership is college age and 20's. The more people we get riding the trains, the less cars on the road, the less traffic, the less pollution and the less we're dependent on fossil fuels. And the more people riding, the better chance of profit.

As someone who has owned businesses I learned that in most cases you need to spend money to make money. It has to be spent wisely and has to be spent wisely on things that will show a return.

We have a better chance of seeing a return on money spent to increase our passenger rail systems than we do giving subsidies to private corporations who use that money for profit, to pay their executives big bonuses, and never have to pay a penny in increased taxes on the extra profits they make with it.

The U.S. government has to cut back on spending. We waste way too much money. But just cutting indiscriminately makes no sense. It has to be done wisely. And "wise" is not a word I would use to describe the current crop of those sent to Washington, D. C.

I never realized this would be such a contentious issue on a travel board.

[Not a big train guy, but.]

Ironically, as a solution to your basic free-rider problem, Amtrak loses money by design. Adding to the irony, if the government got rid of subsidies/tax breaks for oil producers and we started seeing parity with the rest of the world viz fuel prices, Amtrak would be a lot more appealing to a lot more travelers.

Of course, then it wouldn't be Amtrak because that country wouldn't be America.

[tcl]

I prefer taking the train over a bus or even a flight for any distance <600-miles. I can plug my laptop in, tether to my phone and get a lot of work done. In addition, I can walk around freely to stretch my legs and grab a bite from the cafe car whenever I feel hungry.

I often take trains along the NE corridor (DC-NY-BOS), over to Chicago and even up to Canada. My rides average between 5-10 hrs on the regular Amtrak routes (not Acela). Compared to the time it takes to get oneself to the airport, go through security and wait for the flight to depart, pull into the gate on the other end, the actual time spent traveling is approximately the same. The main difference is 1) I can actually get more work done on the train & 2) I am much more comfortable.

The main difference I noticed between European trains and N.American Trains, is the scheduling. If you have more routes, more trains and increased the schedule, then it would be more relevant to more people. More people = more money :) By decreasing everything from the number of cars on a train to routing and scheduling, they are setting Amtrak up to fail.