Amtrak Subsidy Flushed
Our ever brilliant president has proposed sending Amtrak into bankruptcy, reports CNN.com. The new budget has exactly $0 in subsidy funding for the national passenger railroad, down from $1.2 billion last year. The government wants to reorganize Amtrak in bankruptcy and kill off some of the lesser travelled lines. At the moment, however, Amtrak has been seeing a revival: new record ridership figures, especially on the almost-profitable Northeast Corridor.
I understand their concern about some of the higher-loss routes, but this is just plain absurd. We can spend an additional $80 billion on the war in Iraq and still have a massive deficit, but we can't fund viable transportation networks for the country as a whole.
Idiots.
Post Author:
amg | 5:28 PM |
Link
|
TrackBacks
What good do you think continuing the current subsidy levels will do? They'll signal to Amtrak that it can keep limping along, whining and moaning for more money, and not actually changing anything.
Make their subsidy go away (though a big chunk of it is likely to be restored by Congress), and suddenly they've got to actually figure out a way to do things well and profitably. As cliched as it is, they've got to make tough choices about what sort of business they should be in.
I'm a big fan of the Acela service. As far as I'm concerned, there's no better way to go from NYC to Boston (haven't tried NYC to DC yet, but I assume it's the same). I have a hard time seeing why Amtrak isn't just the Northeast corridor (and maybe other pockets around the country where they run successful commuter lines and the like). If there's a market for the cross-country trains (at a break-even price), then let someone else provide that service.
This isn't Europe. It isn't going to be Europe. Given the size of this country, the best way to travel long distances (and in many cases the cheapest given the fare wars) is by airplane. For those places too close for flight (and which aren't the NE corridor), destinations are generally far enough as to be best served by car. Why should we keep pouring money down the Amtrak hole just so it can fail to provide adequate service in those markets?
