The campaign policy blogging starts now: apparently, McCain wants to shut down Amtrak. Liberals are predictibly (and understandably) outraged. I'm not sure, however, that this is such a terrible idea, even environmentally. The lines that actually run at a profit--those in the Virginia-Massachussetts corridor--would still be profitable, and presumably operated by some private company. The other lines are a mixed bag, environmentally; it isn't really good for the environment to run trains at low capacity. And the federal government, because of the EIS process, other procedural barriers, and a great deal of logrolling, has so far not succeeded in making sensible upgrades to the system. The Acela was announced in 1994, actually went live six years later despite the really rather minor infrastructure improvements required, and at lavish expense now gets passengers to Boston one half-hour quicker in slightly comfier seats.
Moreover, if oil prices stay high, the math changes substantially for passenger rail, making new routes more profitable. People will probably never take the train en masse from New York to Los Angeles, but a direct train from New York to Chicago could start looking good, particularly when you factor in the drive to out-of-the way airports, delays, and time spent removing your shoes in security lines.
America's freight rail system, while it needs a lot of work, is world-class. Its passenger rail should be too. But it's so far proven pretty much impossible for the government to make it that way--and not merely because we don't have enough liberal politicians who like rail. Most politicians like rail. But they like a lot of other things better, like getting re-elected.
It's times like this I wish I lived in France. Go to the beach for 2 months. Maybe I'll just fill up the Netlix queue with Eric Rohmer movies that I won't be able to understand. As for rail, I know nothing about heavy rail but I have lived in SF and LA and love the light rail systems. As for oil prices staying high, read Joseph Tainter and arm yourself.
Best. Idea. Ever.
I hate Amtrak so much. The DC - Boston corridor is profitable. The Chicago-Phoenix overnight with 12 retirees and their cameras? not so much.
I've never been on an Amtrak train that wasn't fairly crowded, though they are not always completely full. The train from Chicago to St. Louis is particularly crowded, despite running fairly frequently (and despite frequent delays that make it a frustrating way to travel). The train from Oakland to Portland is also fairly crowded. Now, I don't know if they would still be crowded if Amtrak charged more for tickets, but anyway Amtrak runs a lot of fairly full trains outside the DC-Boston corridor.
Most politicians like rail. But they like a lot of other things better, like getting re-elected.
They like freight better than passenger. That's why freight gets preference on the rails.
Personally, I'd use trains more if I could take my car on them. How awesome would that be?
Why does the US keep bailing out Amtrak. If one company can't manage things why doesn't the government reposess the tracks?
Of course some barely used lines can stand to be retired, but please let's avoid focusing on "profitability" in this discussion. Infrastructure and basic services are not supposed to be profitable. How profitable is I-80 through Wyoming? Maybe Amtrak as an entity should go away or maybe not, but some sort of government financial involvement in passenger rail will always be necessary and desirable.
Private rail is complex and kind of like private airlines. The government typically owns or regulates the rail lines. The rules to put in new rail-lines can be very tough and politicians don;t like the rules that actually work (eminent domain comes to mind).
Not to mention the bumping of passengers for freight (imagine if you had to get off the road because a transport truck wanted to use it).
So a private company can end up with many of the same problems. The real solution seems to be to decide to invest in non-road infrastructure with the same intensity that gave us the inter-state highway system.
Speaking of passenger rail, I'd always assumed that the bathrooms on trains flushed into some sort of tank that was emptied later (like an airplane). I was disabused of this notion when I flushed on a train in Greece and saw the railroad ties flashing past.
Yeah, McCain will get far. Just lets see him try to get it by any Senator or Representative(Republican or Democrat). Besides, McCain is toast anyway. I don't see why you bother with him. Is he going to be able to raise $300 million for the general? Are all the fundies going to come out and vote for him?
Is the BosWash corridor actually profitable? Does it cover both operating and capital costs? I always thought that was the case, but someone challenged me on that the other day, and I couldn't find any data to back myself up. Do you have any?
"How profitable is I-80 through Wyoming?"
That is an excellent way of putting it. This is part of the broader issue of mass transit. Some people like to have their transit subsidies hidden, so they can drive on the freeway satisfied that they are rugged individualists. It is harder to imagine this sitting on a train. You can sit in your car and pretend that the supporting subsidized infrastructure isn't there. With a train, the subsidies are too apparent.
I don't disagree with the premise that government has a role in infrastructure, but the analogy to cars/highways suggests that government has a role in laying track, but it doesn't extend to driving the train. People buy their own cars and their own gas to drive on roads built by the government.
Airlines/airports make an even better point of comparison. The government builds airports, but it doesn't run the airlines (although they do seem to bail them out frequently enough - but that's a different story).
So, while conceding that the government has a role in the nation's rail infrastructure, I don't see how this extends to the government needing to run Amtrack.
"while it needs a lot of work, is world-class": what does that mean, Miss M'Gargle? Do you mean that there's lots of it?
Calculating profitability on the capital costs is complicated because the lines are shared with the freight and commuter networks.
Megan,
I say yes and no. While I am a passenger rail advocate, I also dislike Amtrak. Once upon a time private companies ran passenger rail. Competition from buses and airlines ran them out of business, and the government would not allow them to merger into one or two companies that would run the show, because it would be a monopoly. They argued that it wasn't monopolistic because they competed with buses and planes. At any rate it didn't happen, and now we end up with a government monopoly.
Last time I checked Amtrak's website, there were only 2 corridors that made any money: NY to Boston and Chicago to Milwaukee. All others lose money. If you examine the stops, schedules, and fares, it isn't surprising.
To me the solution is to privatize service, but to run the actual rails themselves like we do highways. After all, the building and upkeep of rail lines is private, but the building and upkeep of roads, highways, and airports is publicly funded. So how could passenger rail possibly compete against all the government money funding the competition? Instead, passenger rail must use rail lines owned by freight rail. Freight gets priority, and right now freight rail is booming, so their windows for service are small. Also freight is very slow.
They like freight better than passenger. That's why freight gets preference on the rails.
Freight gets preference on the rails because the freight railroads own the rails.
Why does the US keep bailing out Amtrak. If one company can't manage things why doesn't the government reposess the tracks?
Amtrak doesn't own any of the tracks outside the Northeast Corridor ( + one section of track in Illinois/Indiana/Michigan). Anyway, Amtrak IS part of the government for all intents and purposes. Amtrak's long distance services exactly match what Congress and/or the state governments are willing to fund them to provide.
Speaking of passenger rail, I'd always assumed that the bathrooms on trains flushed into some sort of tank that was emptied later (like an airplane). I was disabused of this notion when I flushed on a train in Greece and saw the railroad ties flashing past.
More modern equipment does indeed use storage tanks, but that was not the standard until comparatively recently.
Anyway, John McCain has hated Amtrak for many years. It's not surprising to see him at it again.
the Becker-Posner blog has actually discussed this: both seem to be in favor of privatizing roads, but regulating airlines--a strange twist from two economic thinkers. I don't know if they discuss rails.
But anyway, until privitization happens, the comparison of roads to rails is inapposite.Here's why: While we subsidize the roads, we USE the roads ourselves--everyone does. We are responsible for the vehicles or paying for private carriers. What is more, the businesses associated with the roads are stimulated by the roads: McdDonalds, tire sellers, auto mechanics, car companies, shipping companies, etc. In essence, the road increase the overall ecomonic value of the country--our "subsidy" is returned to us 10x.
However, under the current rail structure (not the 19th century version), this not true. Very few people use the rails out of the whole population. The rails are controlled by a few carriers. The rails
There is a difference between subsidizing infrastructure and running the business that uses it. Government built the highways, but they don't run Greyhound.
I haven't taken Amtrak in years, but is there no security check before boarding the train?
Oh, I should also add that there are Amtrak routes in relatively rural places (upstate NY), but no LA to San Francisco lines.
I am going to give rough, round numbers, and if someone nitpicks what I have to say, I suppose Poppa McArdle, who is im gescheft as they say, could offer corrections.
Amtrak provides about 5 billion passenger miles while receiving an yearly subsidy somewhere above 1 billion dollars. So it takes somewhere above 20 cents/passenger mile in Federal money to operate Amtrak. Total US passenger miles are somewhere around 5 trillion/year, so Amtrak is involved in .1 percent of all passenger miles.
Intercity bus lines carry about 10 times Amtrak or 1 percent of passenger miles, airlines carry about 100 times as many passenger miles or 10 percent, and cars carry the remaining 90 percent share of passenger miles, although precise breakdowns on local vs intercity car trips may be hard to obtain.
In the EU, cars account for 85 percent of passenger miles with common-carrier modes having a larger 15 percent share, but the common-carrier share is divided equally of about 5 percent air, 5 percent rail, and 5 percent bus. So while European air usage is half of ours, their car usage is roughly the same, their rail usage is 50 times our small number, but it is still a minority share of market, and their intercity bus use is 50 times our Amtrak.
One can quibble whether people are rational actors regarding the total costs of their cars, and admittedly, many people price car trips at the price of gas when making comparisons to common-carrier modes. But people are willing to pay a lot for the convenience and flexibility of cars, as evidenced by the high usage of cars in Europe where gas has long been priced very high.
But as to subsidy rate, if we subsidized airlines at the rate of Amtrak, airlines would be getting a 100 billion/year subsidy. If we regard the Federal subsidy to airlines as the 15 billion/year of the Aviation Trust Fund, and were we to ignore the cost recovery from fuel tax and that airline ticket tax people may wonder about when they fly, the "proper" level of Amtrak would be 150 million a year, a rate that would evoke howls from the train advocacy community that is on the warpath with George Bush for proposing to reduce Amtrak to 500 million/year and now John McCain.
If we subsidized road travel at the rate of Amtrak, a full trillion/year would be budgeted for road construction, which is not happening or going to happen in people's dreams.
The EU subsidizes trains at the level of our Federal highway budget, so the Amtrak rate of subsidy per passenger mile is comeasurate with the US experience, but of course their trains are carrying only 5 percent of total passenger miles, and their growth in common-carrier travel has been in airlines.
So, if we diverted the entire 30-50 billion per year of the Federal highway budget to trains, something that many train advocates think is a good idea "given the high price of gas and everything", we would increase train travel 30-50 fold, but we would still be at 3-5 percent "market share" and making a tiny epsilon improvement in energy efficiency and oil usage, assuming that trains are energy efficient.
But are they? Recent figures put Amtrak at 2700 BTU/passenger mile and auto and air travel somewhere above 3000 BTU/passenger mile. The energy saving resulting from mass public expenditure on trains would be hardly noticable.
Why are trains not more energy efficient. Can't a single locomotive pull a train of 11 cars, each car seating 150 people as they do in Chicago commuter service? Well, the longer distance trains require more locomotives to cross mountain passes and offer fewer seats per car and provide services such as baggage cars, diners and lounge cars, a "crew dorm car" that is supposed to offer additional sleeper space but Amtrak does a poor job of offering coach passengers "upgrades" to that space. While the train has lower rolling resistance, it is like driving around in a massive SUV in terms of weight.
Load factors are another issue, and passenger advocates will tell you "last time I rode coach on the Empire Builder it was packed!" There is a selection issue because most people don't ride during the times the train is lightly patronized -- otherwise the load factor during those times would be higher. I don't really fault Amtrak for low load factors because even airlines with their aggressive auction type market for airline tickets do not fill every seat of every plane. A common carrier mode needs some empty seats to be able to accomodate varying demand.
The intercity trains may be more energy efficient than the long-distance trains because they have only a single locomotive, they lack all of the non-seating revenue cars, and they have the seats closer together. But data is hard to come by, and Amtrak does not offer any breakdown of energy use by type of train serivce.
Railroads experimented with lightweight, highly streamlined, energy-saving trains such as the Train-X, Talgo, and Aerotrain in the late 1950's, but the novelty didn't reverse the slide in ridership and many passengers found them uncomfortable compared to conventional trains, much as a regional jet offers only a fraction of the comfort of a real jet.
Part of the problem with energy and Amtrak is that it is subsidized. Amtrak sees just about the same amount of pain from oil prices as the airlines, only they are subsidized at such a high rate that the cost of oil remains a smaller fraction of their budget.
My critique of Amtrak with regard to energy efficiency follows the criticism Dr. Evil (Mike Meyers) offered his son Scott (Dana Carvey). Amtrak is insufficiently "evil" (i.e. energy saving). Amtrak is semi-evil, it is quasi-evil, it is the corn-derived margarine and ethanol of evil, it is the Diet Coke of evil . . . one calorie, not evil enough.
There wasn't any security check the last time I rode Amtrak in August.
I have a love-hate relationship with Amtrak because it is so poorly run, but I don't see how privatization will help. The free market depends on competition to be effective and efficient. It's hard for rail lines to be competitive because there are often only one set of railroad tracks for every line. The up-front investment costs are huge and last for years before a single ticket is sold. You can't really have multiple lines (even ones built by the government) as easily as you can have multiple runways at airports (and it isn't marginally profitable to improve service by building more runways at major airports).
Privatization would likely just mean that service would get even worse or already-expensive ticket prices would climb even higher because raising prices and/or cutting costs would be the only real tools to make such a company profitable. Even then, it wouldn't be run as efficiently as possible because such a company would be too big to fail and would only get into the business if the government promised to bail them out if they lost money, so the invisible hand would be pretty much absent anyway.
The idea that we are not paying for use of highways is not correct.
Whenver I fill up gas, I pay an extra tax levied on fuel. What is the primary purpose of fuel purchased from gas stations?
Every year I am forced to register my car and pay a fee to the local government, pretty clearly the use of my car is going to be on the roads which the local authorities can use my funds to pay for.
When I lived in Boston I used the Mass-Pike, when I lived in New York I used the various bridges and tunnels. What is the justification of those fees if not the direct maintenance of the specific infrastructure I was just using.
The government builds airports, but it doesn't run the airlines (although they do seem to bail them out frequently enough - but that's a different story).
No, it isn't a different story. Airline bailouts count as subsidies in my book. You can debate how big an effect they've had.
Once upon a time private companies ran passenger rail. Competition from buses and airlines ran them out of business, and the government would not allow them to merger into one or two companies that would run the show, because it would be a monopoly.
Once upon a time, the same companies ran freight and passenger rail on the same tracks (more or less). It's true that the government did stand in the way of rail mergers, but, more to the point, the government mandated passenger service levels and set all the freight rates. Merging wouldn't have solved any of these problems.
Competition from buses, planes, and cars did have a very very bad effect on the railroad passenger business in the US. The railroads battled the federal and state governments with the goal of reducing or eliminating their passenger service. Amtrak was the final step in that process -- the federal government took over the financial burden and some of the operational burden for almost all of the remaining long distance passenger service.
When I lived in Boston I used the Mass-Pike, when I lived in New York I used the various bridges and tunnels. What is the justification of those fees if not the direct maintenance of the specific infrastructure I was just using.
Uh, do you mean that if you found out the money wasn't going to that specific infrastructure, you wouldn't use the infrastructure? Unless you vote with your feet, the government doesn't really need to justify very much, does it?
By the way, in the parlance of another web site, I RTFA (read the fine article) you linked to.
The way Megan linked to it, it sounded like Senator McCain gave a speech putting the War on the Amtrak Subsidy front and center of his campaign. Following the link, it was the same-old same-old from the advocacy community with warm fuzzies about Obama and warnings about how that grouch McCain hated Amtrak.
Nothing to see, people, just move along. Obama has done nothing to make improvements to passenger rail a plank of his campaign platform, and McCain has not made any major recommittment to do away with Amtrak. This is just another train pressure group (er, I mean advocacy group) projecting what they interpret the candidates' positions will be with regard to their narrow interest. None of the campaigns did anything to position themselves on that issue.
The train advocacy community definitely sees McCain as the 3rd Bush term, and these guys are getting crankier by the minute having been in the political wilderness for so long, but I don't see where Senator Obama elected to be President making much a change either -- his big priorities are the Iraq War and health care, and I don't even see trains on his radar screen.
Government may be inherently inefficient at management, but privatization simply doesn't work for transportation. Look at the airline industry, and that's not even a perfect example because air travel isn't essential to the functioning of society, while urban mass transportation is.
Obama passes this test with flying colors and McCain is congenitally unable to do anything but fail miserably. The old man just doesn't get it.
In fact, as I'm a 20-something Manhattanite, transit is among my top 3 most important policy issues and a big reason why I support Obama.
Government may be inherently inefficient at management, but privatization simply doesn't work for transportation.
Apropos of what evidence, I wonder?
Look at the airline industry, and that's not even a perfect example because air travel isn't essential to the functioning of society, while urban mass transportation is.
Nationwide mass mail service is arguably in the same realm of essential function, yet semi-privatization has done wonders for the Post Office in terms of both services and overall efficiency.
The Amtrak zombie lines have to go. Losing hundreds of dollars on every passenger is no way to run a railroad - these routes suck resources away from the routes that could make money. I'd love to be able to hop on a train in San Antonio or Austin and get up to the DFW airport. It would make more sense to focus on the 300 mile or less routes where high speed rail is competitive with Airlines. The long haul passenger routes could live on as charter trains for tourists - running them as regularly scheduled routes makes no sense.
Ever heard of UPS, Fed Ex, DHL?
Amtrak should be privatized as should the postal service. They would both run infinitely better.
Moreover, if oil prices stay high, the math changes substantially for passenger rail, making new routes more profitable.
Major new rail routes are hugely expensive, inflexible and uncertain long-term investments. Whether they make sense at all depends not only on the price of oil today, but on the price 20 or 30 years from now. And on all sorts of other changes over time. Even if a new rail route could compete effectively with today's cars and buses and planes at current oil prices (and it probably can't), it might not be able to compete with the alternatives we'll have a decade or more from now---more hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles, fuel-cell vehicles, automated vehicles, new jet fuels, air taxi services, etc. There's much more scope for upcoming technologies to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of road and air transport than rail transport.
TH,
Government may be inherently inefficient at management, but privatization simply doesn't work for transportation. Look at the airline industry,
Huh? The airline industry "works" very well. There are thousands of flights a day serving hundreds of cities. Deregulation has yielded much lower fares, many more destinations, and much more frequent service. It is among the safest forms of travel and has become even safer. Aircraft comfort has improved significantly (quieter, roomier, more entertainment). Air travel has boomed over the past few decades, while intercity rail has been in terminal decline. Urban rail projects are mostly hugely expensive boondoggles that provide little benefit to few people at great cost (the New York subway is an exception).
OMG,
Megan, you have so been punk'd.
John McCain doesn't want to shut down AMTRAK. He just wants to SAY he wants to shut down AMTRAK.
Republicans have been shutting down AMTRAK for 40 years ... every time there's an election.
Honey, Republicans controlled the White House, the House and the Senate about 10 years ago. Did they use this power to shut down AMTRAK, or any other Federal Governemnt program?
No, no they didn't.
Please. I'm a lifelong Republican. But I'm not a moron. John McCain no more wants to shut down AMTRAK than he wants to stop immigration.
As a resident of DC, I'm a regular Amtrak user. It's my preferred mode of travel to NYC or Phila. Door-to-door, the Acela is almost as fast as the plane, especially if you take reasonably seriously (as you should) the directive that you arrive at the airport one hour before flight time to get through security. It's certainly a lot more comfortable and the train's on-time record is better than the plane's. Amtrak owns its tracks between DC and Boston, which provides for higher speeds (freights go slower and require tracks that are less banked on curves) and more schedule dependability. Also, there are no at-grade road crossings, so there are no worries about a horrible train-vehicle collision as a result of some moron driving around the crossing gates. I can't imagine that this portion of Amtrak can't be run to pay its own way, at current prices.
Most of the rest of Amtrak is classic congressional pork, with all of the waste that implies. A more rational, less politicized Amtrak would focus on routes where it can equal or exceed the airplane, door-to-door, and at less cost. DC to Boston is the model; I am sure there are others involving similar distances between cities.
Amtrak doesn't make a profit on any of its routes. It covers its operating costs on the DC-Boston system; it does not cover the cost of capital. The government provides that in an annual appropriation. It's subsidized - but so is the airline industry, which could never cover the cost of capital of its airports or the FAA.
Moreover, since Acela was introduced in 2000, Amtrak's market share on the DC-NYC and DC-Boston routes has shot through the roof.
http://www.amtrak.com/pdf/FY09GrantLegislativeRequest.pdf
The fact that Amtrak doesn't own most of the tracks that it uses is a huge problem. On two long distance trips I made on Amtrak, we had to stop for hours at a time to let the freight trains pass us. A one day trip became almost two days. A two day trip lasted almost four. The DC - Orlando trip with car in tow has worked fine for me several times, though.
"The airline industry "works" very well"
What? What reality are you living in? Since deregulation the airline industry as a whole has lost over 13 billion dollars. Since deregulation there have been hundreds of closings and bankruptcies. The price drop after deregulation is no bigger than the price drop before deregulation. The airline industries is a boondoggle, and it is intellectually dishonest to make claims otherwise.
Its passenger rail should be too.
Why?
The truth is I love riding trains; when I lived in Europe I thought the trains were wonderful. But if you look at trains in the US with the exception of the Northeast, and consider the costs of the travel time as well as the costs of travel, it just doesn't make sense. I just looked at a couple of trips I'd be likely to make on business: Denver to San Francisco and Denver to DC (I'll wave as I pass.)
Denver-San Fran: $120 coach and 36 hours, or almost $700 if I get a roomette. And two lost work days (or lost weekend days).
Denver-DC: $338 and 41 hours, or almost $1200 if I get a roomette.
Or I can take a plane, for a similar amount --- actually significantly less to DC --- and do the whole trip in less time than I spend waiting for my connection in Chicago.
The fact is that nationwide passenger trains don't make any damn sense here, while they do in Europe? Why? Because it's a big country. It's roughly the same distance from Denver to DC as it is from London to Istanbul.
Now, the Northeast is different: it's only 200 miles, more or less, from New York to Washington. And, accordingly, I can do that train in 4 hours for $69. That's cheaper than the shuttle and (after you count airport time) as fast or faster.
It would be different if trains could cover the whole distance at 300-400 miles per hour, but imagine the investment there. That would mean faster than the Shinkansen, for six to eight times as far. For each cross-continent route.
The only way trains will become feasible is if air travel is just impossible --- and even then I'm not sure, because it would be easier to telecommute than waste 4 days travel time round trip.
Since deregulation there have been hundreds of closings and bankruptcies.
Hundreds? I'll grant you there have been many closings and bankruptcies but there have been startups as well. That's the nature of business. The number of bankruptcies in the airline industry pales in comparison to the IT industry. Are you going to argue that Information technology has been a boondoggle for the U.S. economy?
Amtrak suffers because it is forced by political realities to run highly unprofitable lines which take funds away from the good ones. If this is what it takes to shed those lines, excellent. The money it saves can go towards infrastructure improvements and expanded service in good areas. Eventually we might even have a decent national rail service. Paradoxically, the only way to do that is do get rid of Amtrak once and for all.
freddiemac,
What? What reality are you living in? Since deregulation the airline industry as a whole has lost over 13 billion dollars. Since deregulation there have been hundreds of closings and bankruptcies.
I am not sure why you think the number of bankruptcies in an industry, rather than whether it satisfies the demands of the market it serves, is a measure of whether an industry "works." Bankruptcies and big losses among U.S. airlines are a result of the hypercompetitive nature of the U.S. air travel market, and are a sign that it's working, not that it isn't. Well-run airlines that serve the market well, like Southwest, have thrived, while poorly-run ones that don't, like Pan Am, have disappeared. That's how capitalism works, freddie.
The price drop after deregulation is no bigger than the price drop before deregulation. .
Please substantiate this claim with evidence.
Amtrak doesn't make a profit on any of its routes. It covers its operating costs on the DC-Boston system; it does not cover the cost of capital. The government provides that in an annual appropriation. It's subsidized - but so is the airline industry, which could never cover the cost of capital of its airports or the FAA.
I believe that airport construction is funded mainly from the Aviation Trust Fund, which is funded by what are effectively user fees--jet fuel taxes, passenger ticket taxes, air freight waybill fees, aircraft registration fees, etc. And airport operations are also largely funded by fees imposed on airlines and passengers (landing fees, etc.). So airports are basically funded by the people who use and directly benefit from them.
In contrast, passenger rail services are heavily subsidized by broad-based taxes. There seems to be little relationship between how much benefit an American gets from Amtrak and other rail services, and how much he pays for them. As others have noted, even Amtrak's "profitable" services, like the Acela, are heavily subsidized. According to Amtrak, most Acela passengers are business travelers. I'm not sure why defenders of this arrangement would think that, say, a poor single mother in rural Texas should be paying taxes to subsidize Acela tickets for affluent northeasten businessmen.
I vote we figure out what is the right amount of government investment in air, train, and car travel, then ask elected officials to implement our findings.
I think high speed trains (e.g. 200 mph plus, and yes, they will need their own dedicated and new tracks) will eventually help to ease the air travel congestion by taking the place of many short haul flights. Thus a real high speed train corridor between Denver and Chicago could cut the number of flights into O'Hare significantly (perhaps as many as 30 a day) thus reducing delays there somewhat.
Certainly, such would be expensive, but how expensive will tripling the size of O'Hare be?
Hmmmmm
I don't understand why we don't have an ultra-light personal rail system. We're shifting to hybrid or electric vehicles. Make a system of elevated tracks that can supply power to the electric motors and then you can drive however far you have to go without worrying about recharging.
"privatization simply doesn't work for transportation"
The biggest and most successful commuter rail system in the world BY FAR is Tokyo's. It has 10 commuter rail lines moving far more people than any other such system in the world. All of them are privately owned and operated and profitable after covering all their own operating and capital costs.
The major nations of Europe, finding central govermental control hugely expensive and inefficient, have largely decentralized control and bid out operational units of their transit systems to competing operators, typically realizing savings of around 40%.
The famously socialistic Swedes for instance have contracted out the operations Stokholm's transit system, buses, trains, everything.
Only the US remains in Luddite trap of pouring ever more money down sinkhole government/government-union run monopoly transit projects that don't begin to come anywhere near covering even their operating cost.
I'm beginning to think Sweden is a stalking horse for the Cato people: Fully voucherized public school system, private investment accounts in Social Security, bid out operations of its public transit system...
"And airport operations are also largely funded by fees imposed on airlines and passengers (landing fees, etc.). So airports are basically funded by the people who use and directly benefit from them."
Most airports are publicly funded authorities, paid for by municipalities and states (with some Federal funding). Moreover, there are federally-funded aviation programs (like the Essential Air Service Program) that funnel money directly to carriers. And of course, the FAA is funded by the DOT budget (and some of its numbers are hidden in the DoD budget). There are also deals like the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, which pay carriers directly for maintaining aircraft for the contingency of military use. It ain't a bad thing; but it is a subsidy. Without subsidies (and debt forgiveneness), there wouldn't be an airline in the country today - at least, not one offering affordable tickets.
Passenger trains are not profitable; they're never profitable. The European and Japanese carriers that claim they are do it by playing shell games that hide costs and government subsidy. The freight railroads, who know more about the business than anyone on this blog, knew what they were doing when they got out of it. And not one of them is clamoring to get back in. That should tell you something.
I near DC, in a Metro-connected suburb (Rockville). I go to NY 5-8 times a year, for at least a day. Nothing beats the buses. They're $25 each way, take five hours, and leave two blocks from my house. Or, I can take one from Bethesda, or Silver Spring, or downtown, or Fairfax, or...
Never more than $25 each way, usually $20. Buses leave once an hour, no security issues, no problem taking a couple of boxes of books with me. Door-to-door, my house to Madison Square Garden, under 5 hours (trip back can be a bit longer).
Usually, there are two buses to choose from where I am, and Rockville's not the best-served place (Bethesda is much better...) I understand the roads are subsidized, and I'm sure fares might climb $5 soon (though the competition, oy!), but screw the train.
(Boston, I drive, but I go the secret way.)
Not only is I-80 through Wyoming infrastructure, rather than an operating system like Amtrak, but if you put toll booths at either end, it would indeed "make a profit". I take it you haven't been in Rawlins or Green River and watched the river of transcontinental [primarily truck, but also passenger] traffic flow 24/7. Since I-80 mostly follows the Oregon Trail [easy crossing of the continental divide at the Red Desert] and doesn't fight the Rockies like I-70 west out of Denver, it is the primary east-west route for truck traffic between the midwest and west. Wyoming may not have a whole lot of local traffic[the locals like it that way!], but it is strategically between some pretty big and important places.
"The biggest and most successful commuter rail system in the world BY FAR is Tokyo's. It has 10 commuter rail lines moving far more people than any other such system in the world. All of them are privately owned and operated and profitable after covering all their own operating and capital costs."
I don't believe it. There are hidden government subsidies - I guarantee it. The Japan National Railways "privatization" was like a rolling Enron.
"I don't understand why we don't have an ultra-light personal rail system. We're shifting to hybrid or electric vehicles. Make a system of elevated tracks that can supply power to the electric motors and then you can drive however far you have to go without worrying about recharging."
Two words:
1) Queue
2) Collision
Jennymoose,
You're right to consider the wider benefits of I-80 through Wyoming, rather than narrowly focusing on whether that particular stretch of highway is "profitable." The point is many people don't extend the same consideration to rail travel. As for tolling I-80, let's do it!
Most airports are publicly funded authorities, paid for by municipalities and states (with some Federal funding). Moreover, there are federally-funded aviation programs (like the Essential Air Service Program) that funnel money directly to carriers. And of course, the FAA is funded by the DOT budget (and some of its numbers are hidden in the DoD budget). There are also deals like the Civil Reserve Air Fleet, which pay carriers directly for maintaining aircraft for the contingency of military use. It ain't a bad thing; but it is a subsidy. Without subsidies (and debt forgiveneness), there wouldn't be an airline in the country today - at least, not one offering affordable tickets.
I'm not saying there's no subsidy, but I'd like to see some figures regarding the level. What share of U.S. air travel infrastructure costs are funded by general taxes rather than specific aviation-related taxes that are effectively a form of user fee on passengers and freight?
"The biggest and most successful commuter rail system in the world BY FAR is Tokyo's. It has 10 commuter rail lines moving far more people than any other such system in the world. All of them are privately owned and operated and profitable after covering all their own operating and capital costs."
I don't believe it. There are hidden government subsidies - I guarantee it. The Japan National Railways "privatization" was like a rolling Enron.
Just for the record, the JR companies that are the result of "privatization" of Japan National Railways may or may not be profitable, but the ten commuter rail companies in Tokyo started out private, and still are. From my experience on both types, while nearly all Japanese railroads are well run, the private commuter rails are run noticeably better, and are noticeably cheaper for the same distance traveled than JR East (which covers Tokyo, Kanto, and Tohoku). The private companies may be helped by the fact that they invariably have diversified into other businesses that have "synergy" (ugh) with their rail business, notably the department stores at the end of many of the lines.
I think high speed trains (e.g. 200 mph plus, and yes, they will need their own dedicated and new tracks) will eventually help to ease the air travel congestion by taking the place of many short haul flights.
I don't. High-speed rail would be just as big a boondoggle as Amtrak. There are many other ways of relieving air travel congestion than building hugely expensive new rail systems. First and foremost, we need to upgrade the Air Traffic Control system, which still operates according to rules and principles created decades ago that no longer make sense. We could manage air traffic much more efficiently than we do now. We can obviously also build new runways, terminals and airports. Where demand supports it, airlines could switch to larger aircraft. And over the longer term, air taxi services like DayJet, which James Fallows wrote about in the Atlantic recently, could greatly reduce airport congestion by shifting traffic to the thousands of smaller airports in the country that are currently underutilized because they can't accommodate large passenger jets.
Mixner, what about the climate benefits from increased rail travel vs. the climate costs of increased air travel? Don't we have to include that on our p&l?
Mixner, what about the climate benefits from increased rail travel vs. the climate costs of increased air travel? Don't we have to include that on our p&l?
We certainly should include environmental effects in our evaluation of the merits of each alternative. Your claim that more rail travel would be better for the environment than more air travel is highly dubious, however.
I wish they allowed pets on trains.
No it's not.
"I am not sure why you think the number of bankruptcies in an industry, rather than whether it satisfies the demands of the market it serves, is a measure of whether an industry "works.""
Well then, by your metric don't trains work? To suggest that an industry that has done nothing but lost money since deregulation is a paragon of economic virtue is nothing but a feckless lie. But then again you are a liar, so no surprise.
Behold, the regulation boogeyman debunked:
http://www.alternet.org/story/25495/
Rail service funded by the federal government is encumbered by the Buy America Act, and pretty much any passenger rail service is prevented by the FRA from using trains that aren't designed specifically for the US and unmarketable in other countries.
Ditching federal subsidies of Amtrak will fix #1, so that only leaves #2. If rail service is important to states, they'll pay for it themselves.
freddiemac,
Well then, by your metric don't trains work?
In general, no, they don't. They need huge subsidies just to attract a tiny share of the market.
To suggest that an industry that has done nothing but lost money since deregulation is a paragon of economic virtue is nothing but a feckless lie.
Given comments like this, I'm not sure why I'm even bothering with you further, but "industries" don't make or lose money. Companies do. Consistently unprofitable airlines tend to go out of business. Airlines that serve the market well, such as Southwest Airlines and JetBlue, tend to be profitable.
Behold, the regulation boogeyman debunked: http://www.alternet.org/story/25495/
Ah yes. Who are we to doubt that a blog post by someone billed as "co-founder and vice president of the Institute for Local Self Reliance" constitutes a "debunking" of airline deregulation. This is the best you can come up with, is it?
"In general, no, they don't. They need huge subsidies just to attract a tiny share of the market"
Just like airlines, which are subsidised by the government and make no money.
You say things that aren't true all the time, like the time you claimed big cities are losing population, there is no market demand for cities, or that the trend is against cities. This is one more lie in a long list of lies. The airline industry loses money. The airline industry is subsidized by the government. But it "works very well". You don't see other industries like cell phones work like this. Pure hackery.
freddiemac,
Just like airlines, which are subsidised by the government
No, not at all like airlines. To the extent that U.S. airlines are subsidized at all, those subsidies are vastly smaller than rail subsidies. Airlines also serve a much broader and larger segment of the population. Rail use is limited to small niche markets, but paid for by everyone.
and make no money.
Yeah, Southwest Airlines, the largest airline in the world by number of passengers, hasn't really made a profit every year for the past 35 years. That must be a "feckless lie," too.
I don't think I'm going to respond to you further on this subject. Your comments are too stupid to bother with.
*** The biggest and most successful commuter rail system in the world BY FAR is Tokyo's. It has 10 commuter rail lines moving far more people than any other such system in the world. All of them are privately owned and operated and profitable***"
**I don't believe it...**
*Just for the record... the ten commuter rail companies in Tokyo started out private, and still are. From my experience on both types, while nearly all Japanese railroads are well run, the private commuter rails are run noticeably better, and are noticeably cheaper for the same distance....*
And the success of the Tokyo and New York City urban transit systems (NYC's being by far the most successful in the US, though very far behind Tokyo's) will never be duplicated going forward for a simple reason: geometry. A train goes along a fixed one-dimensional line, but with a road vehicle you can go anywhere on the planed surface of the dry world. Which is the more useful there? No contest. Then try packing the kids, cooler, beach umbrellas, etc. on the train even if it does go right from your door to the shore. You'll take your car instead. Building an urban rail line in an auto world never works.
But both the Tokyo & NYC systems were laid out before the city population had automobiles. I can't talk for Tokyo, but here in NYC 3.5 million people were squashed into lower Manhattan before the subway opened -- immediately afterward more than 2 million used it to move to upper Manhattan, the Bronx, etc., via it and the new train lines to Westchester., etc., with the new living & businesses centers arising along the lines. So NYC is organically, institutionally structured along its rail lines in a way that no other US city is. That makes its train lines relatively far more effective.
The joke on people who want more urban transit to promote higher population density, and who cite NYC as a model dense city with urban transit, is that the NYC subways were built with the explicit purpose of creating as much urban sprawl APASAP, and succeeded tremendously at it. The "more transit for higher density" people haven't a clue.
The other strike against transit in the US is the horrible monopoly-govt-management model still used here. The average NYC bus driver makes $65,000 -- 50% more than average household income! -- and they strike.
I finally quit reading DeLong when he damned Wal-Mart as a monopolist (!) "using local monopoly power to sleaze and cheat" during the last illegal transit strike while everyone here was walking to work. DeL had no word about that monopoly.
Since deregulation the airline industry as a whole has lost over 13 billion dollars.
The big-dollar losses have been overwhelmingly concentrated in the big, legacy airlines that had bloated cost structures from their days when they had cost-plus pricing -- like the Pentagon uses for $100 hammers -- and were protected from competition so nobody ever went out of business.
These losses are not bad, they are good. They forced these airlines to shed assets to be used by more productive firms.
Since deregulation there have been hundreds of closings and bankruptcies.
The vast majority being tiny, one- or few-planes startups, with leased planes. This also is good, not bad. Low cost of entry creates many new competitors trying many things. In every healthily competitive industry the majority of start-ups fail.
In the computing/ software/ tech industries, the start-up failure rate is huge. Do you think this is bad? Would you prefer have govt regulators step in to assure that no business ever fails -- like NONE, NOT ONE, airline failed during *decades* before deregulation?
It looks to me that, failure-wise, that industry had some serious catching up to do!
Jim,
Nobody is going to duplicate the NYC or Tokyo systems, but a bunch of cities have added commuter rail successfully -- Dallas, for example, where it's popular -- and there is evidence of some higher density construction around stations there.
I have to say I'm puzzled by your tone ("the joke's on people who want more transit" etc). It's funny how people become so vehement about particular transit modes. Some seem ready to fight to the death for cars and highways, others only want to see trains and are not interested in hearing about cars, buses, etc. I know there's a small but fierce contingent of trolley advocates out there, and they only want to talk about more trolleys.
Like almost all big tasks in life, moving large numbers of people around requires a mix of different solutions; the mix will almost certainly include cars, trains, buses, planes, bicycles, walking, etc. All and each of these solutions will require a combination of government subsidies and private enterprise. It's really just a question of finding the right mix -- trying to vanquish all transit modes other than your preferred one is not a good way to spend your time.
Some issues call for vehemence, but this really isn't one of them. We just need ideas.
If the Obama campaign is smart they can use this to trash McCain in several states. It´s the only thing that could make him win Montana. It could also secure Minnesota and other states.
Nobody is going to duplicate the NYC or Tokyo systems, but a bunch of cities have added commuter rail successfully -- Dallas, for example, where it's popular -- and there is evidence of some higher density construction around stations there.
If by "successfully" you mean they managed to get it built and that some people use it, then, yes, by that criterion it's "successful." But I very strongly doubt it's a rational solution to Dallas's urban transportation needs.
Like almost all big tasks in life, moving large numbers of people around requires a mix of different solutions; the mix will almost certainly include cars, trains, buses, planes, bicycles, walking, etc.
There are few places in America where rail makes sense. Subways and commuter lines in a few big, densely-populated cities. Perhaps an intercity service along the northeast corridor. But other than that, it's a boondoggle. Hugely expensive and inflexible, providing little benefit, to few people, at the expense of many. Buses and planes make far more sense.
TH, a young Manhattanite says,
"...air travel isn't essential to the functioning of society, while urban mass transportation is."
TH, you need to get out of Manhattan more. A lot more.
This highlights a major problem with Republican positioning. Sure, Amtrak is a waste of money, but you can't govern simply by opposing waste, you need to provide a positive vision of how rail service can be developed. Republicans have never done this.
Republicans should change the debate from eliminating Amtrak to replacing it with something better. Nobody will ever say, "Oh good, we're going to shut down our national passenger rail system and save a couple billion a year, let's vote for those guys."
But if they provided a positive vision of better transportation at similar cost or even higher, people might actually vote for it.
Republicans could turn the debate upside-down if they adopted a pro-transportation stance, and contrasted it with the Democrats' anti-energy stance.
I have to say, I'm a little embarrassed that our airlines are racing each other into bankruptcy under the weight of fuel prices, while those backward socialist French have their nuclear-powered electric trains running smoothly from city to city.
Doesn't mean we should copy the French, but it does show how weak our transportation policy has been.
If by "successfully" you mean they managed to get it built and that some people use it, then, yes, by that criterion it's "successful." But I very strongly doubt it's a rational solution to Dallas's urban transportation needs.
By successful I mean it has had a positive impact on congestion, the environment, and quality of life. Ridership in Dallas is twice as high as originally forecast, and at least some locals seem to think more rail would be a good thing: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/editorials/stories/DN-transit_26edi.ART.State.Edition1.463e678.html
I don't know if it's profitable, but the Amtrak coastal line is crowded all the time, especially summer. Isn't it a good thing to keep all these people off the highways?
And roads don't run "at a profit" either; why should a rail line be compelled to?
Amtrak's long distance services exactly match what Congress and/or the state governments are willing to fund them to provide.
No, actually the state governments fund the short-distance corridors trains, which don't have sleeper cars. Amtrak receives about $84.4 million/year from states for corridor operations, but no state supported revenue for the long distance trains. (See pages 30-32 of their latest monthly financial report.)
Amtrak's financials (see those pages 30-32 above, or pages 65-67 of the same report for per-route data) show that Amtrak would run on an operating profit with NEC + other corridor trains alone. The NEC profit + other corridor trains would make an operating profit even without state support, though the NEC would be subsidizing most of the corridors.
The long distance trains are a horrible money sink by every measure-- net loss, loss per passenger mile, loss per seat mile, yield, everything. The long distance trains have even lost extra money as gas prices have gone up, because their extra ridership has been more than outweighed by higher fuel costs; the other classes of trains have in general broken even or become more profitable.
The average load factor (weighted by miles) is only 52%. It's much, much better on (most of) the short distance trains (not including, say, the Indiana Hoosier State train and the New Haven-Springfield train), but the long distance trains really drag the numbers down. (Except the Auto Train, which is sui generis but also runs close to profitable.)
And roads don't run "at a profit" either; why should a rail line be compelled to?
Roads do, in the sense that gas taxes (and tolls, in areas) paid by drivers pay for operating expenses. They don't always pay for capital expenses, certainly, but I'm talking about operating profit for Amtrak here. Subsidize capital investment, sure.
Amtrak could be quite successful not just in the profitable NEC, but in other short distance corridors-- the experience with the recent Keystone Corridor electrification and speed increase from Philly to Pittsburgh shows that.
I guess I should point out that, in reality, not only does politics with Congress prevent shutting down long-distance trains, but the railroad employees' union does as well. It would cost a lot of jobs to shut down those long trains.
roads don't run "at a profit" either; why should a rail line be compelled to?, and
***Nobody is going to duplicate the NYC or Tokyo systems, but a bunch of cities have added commuter rail successfully -- Dallas, for example, where it's popular -- and there is evidence of some higher density construction around stations there .
**If by "successfully" you mean they managed to get it built and that some people use it, then, yes, by that criterion it's "successful." But I very strongly doubt it's a rational solution...
*By successful I mean it has had a positive impact on congestion, the environment, and quality of life... at least some locals seem to think more rail would be a good thing:
"Successful" means it creates enough value to pay for itself, because people will happily pay its full cost through the market and still come out ahead.
E.g., The original NYC subway system was built entirely privately, no govt money. The builders bought the land along where the lines were being built. People who wanted to move to there bought the land from them. The profit from land sales covered the subways' capital construction cost. Then the subways ran at an operating profit. Net: The people who got the benefit of the subways were the ones who paid to build and operate them, and they gained by doing so. (NYC guaranteed subway company bonds, but the company paid them and a fee to the city -- so the city and its taxpayers profited too.)
Compare that to when an urban subway system is built today with the gov't paying the capital cost and operating subsidy. The people along the line get a free benefit, "less congestion", everyone else in the community gets hammered with a tax cost loss. Of course the few winners are happy! Businesses that collect tax subsidies from a community are happy too.
Ask the locals in Dallas who benefit from transit and "think more would be a good thing" if they are willing to pay for the full cost of more transit themselves -- through increased property tax assessments on property near the transit lines to cover construction, and fares high enough to cover operating cost -- that'll show how good they really think it is.
Jim, I have to say I'm puzzled by your tone ("the joke's on people who want more transit" etc).
Tone conveys poorly via e-mail and blog comments, so I don't know what tone you are hearing.
I wrote that the joke is "on people who want more urban transit to promote higher population density"
Because cost-efficient transit promotes sprawl. And the greatest (and only) big successful example of urban transit they can point to in the US is the NYC system that literally created the greatest sudden flood of urban sprawl in US history. Exactly as it was designed to do.
That's not in some small way amusing?
People who deem themselves serious social analysts but fancy mass transit as an economically efficient means to increase population density -- especially if they cite NYC! -- are like people who deem themselves serious scientific analysts but fancy creationism or flat-earthism.
It's funny how people become so vehement about particular transit modes. Some seem ready to fight to the death for cars and highways... trolley advocates, etc .... Like almost all big tasks in life, moving large numbers of people around requires a mix..."
Of course. But the mix should be based on reality. Not on "everybody gets a fair democratic share of the mix no matter how far from reality one's idea is and costly it is". Which is how politics works.
Markets have shown themselves to be remarkably efficient and innovative at creating effective mixes. Politicians, not so much.
Jim,
Your tone and approach remain offensive. "Flat earth," putting "everybody gets a fair democratic share of the mix no matter how far from reality one's idea is and costly it is" in quotes, as if quoting someone you're arguing with, when in fact you came up with that formulation... quite uncivil. But in any case, you do seem to know what you're talking about, so I have another question for you.
Markets have shown themselves to be remarkably efficient and innovative at creating effective mixes. Politicians, not so much.
Other than NYC 100 years ago, in what cities have markets been allowed to create the transportation mix without political influence?
By successful I mean it has had a positive impact on congestion, the environment, and quality of life.
That's a pretty stupid definition, then. Obviously, you also have to consider costs. If the costs of building and operating the system exceed the value of the benefits, why should the system be considered a success? And even if the benefits do exceed the costs, there may be other ways of achieving the same benefits for lower costs. If Dallas could have achieved the same "positive impact on congestion, the environment, and quality of life" at lower cost by building more roads, or buying lots of hybrid buses, or subsidizing cars for the poor, or encouraging carpooling or telecommuting, or in some other way or combination of ways, then its rail system is not successful, it's a boondoggle.
Mixner,
You're stupid.
The government should be subsidizing roads and airlines while they shouldn't subsidize rail lines, for the same reason that the Interstate was built in the first place: military necessity.
Trains are useless from a military perspective in the US. They make sense in Europe and parts of Asia, but if the US military needs rails to get to a front, the US is in deep, deep trouble! Airline subsidies get a huge fleet of passenger planes to carry soldiers anywhere in the world in condition to fight when they land. Interstates get all materiel anywhere in ConUS and are great for moving people around as well.
Rail takes too long, isn't robust, and only serves a limited number of locations. It's useless for almost all military needs except freight, which isn't in any danger.
Get back to a true limited government, and get rid of all subsidies everywhere. You can cut the federal spending level in half and massively increase defense spending. It's the only leigitmate thing for the government to do: protect from enemies foreign and domestic. Run federal courts for appeals and treason trials only. Easy peasy.
As to environmental costs - in 3 years people will be begging for carbon emissions as the reduced levels of insolation starts to really bite.
"Jim,
Your tone and approach remain offensive."
Well ... as Popeye said, I am who I am. Sorry.
"But in any case, you do seem to know what you're talking about, so I have another question for you. Other than NYC 100 years ago, in what cities have markets been allowed to create the transportation mix without political influence?"
The most successful transport system in the world by far is Tokyo's 10 commercial rail lines, private businesses running at a profit covering both their capital and operating costs (which so many in the US seem to imagine to be impossible for transport businesses)
But the key to Tokyo's transit success today, and to NYC's (and London's, Paris's, Moscow's) wasn't lack of politics when the system was being built -- NYC was replete with bad politics, "Tammany Hall", and Japanese politics is notorious. The key was lack of cars.
These cities are organically structured around their rail lines today because there were no cars when they were growing, back then. These cities are built around their rail lines, literally.
You can't retrofit an entire city that was built for cars, like Los Angeles, around a new rail line and get a transit result like Tokyo, NYC, London, etc. You'd have to rebuild the entire city, physically. It's totally impossible. The "bad politics" of transit today is in pouring great gobs of tax money into such projects while ignoring that, or trying to force it, or simply imagining it will happen.
I have no problem with mass transit where it makes sense: when you have two points between which many people want to move on a straight line. But you can't turn the plane of a city built with cars into the line of a city built pre-cars with trains. The geometry is impossible. It won't work.
~~~~~~~~~
(Posted by J-Ron, a comment in its entirety:)
> Mixner,
> You're stupid.
Didn't you just complain that my tone and approach was offensive?
Did I said "sorry"? I take it back.
J-Ron,
Mixner, You're stupid
Who was it that just said "Your tone and approach remain offensive?"
Oh, that's right--you.
Random Note. An above poster said that the New York City subway system was started without public money. That's not really true.
While it was run by private companies, big public bonds were required for much of its expansion, and it also ran into a very simple problem: Once the first line was up and running, the company, which then had a monopoly on the subway, refused to add to it because they didn't want to burden themselves with more huge capital outlays before they'd managed to pay off their previous ones.
This is the major problem with fully privatizing a transportation system. So much of the profit of the system is achieved via how it helps the economy and a private entity is very rarely going to reap much of that profit. Eventually New York got into a big dispute and got another company involved and there were essentially two incompatible subway lines running to different areas. Costs kept rising but the city wouldn't let them raise the fares above 5 cents (hah!) and so the companies were starved. They were expected to both turn a profit and provide impossibly cheap fares.
Now obviously this story doesn't mean that you can't privatize parts of transportation systems effectively, but if you fully privatized something like the highway system then yes, many roads could be run for profit, but you'd have no way to make sure all the companies played nice with each other and you'd constantly be bullying the companies into expanding the roads in ways they didn't want to. In short, the capital required for infrastructure and transportation is absolutely massive and one way or another, you'll need government money because the profits from such investments are so diffusely spread throughout our economy.
Didn't you just complain that my tone and approach was offensive?
Did I said "sorry"? I take it back.
Yep, I did. But after Mixner's
That's a pretty stupid definition, then.
I gave up and joined in the fun!
Mixner, how about "Well, that's not a very good definition then"?
Bob K,
You're quite right about a negative agenda being unappealing. However, it absolutely does not follow from that, that anyone needs "a positive vision of how rail service can be developed". Rail service already works at least moderately well in those few areas where it makes sense. For the rest--well, we don't have stagecoach lines any more, either.
John Thacker,
You're a bit too glib about subsidizing capital expenditures. Why should we subsidize anything? I'm not saying the case can't be made, I'm saying you have to make it, and the default assumption should always be "pay your own way" unless there's a compelling reason that won't work.
Hey,
You're simply wrong: the M-1 Abrams tank is too heavy to move via road, the Army ships them by rail all the time.
I'm a big fan of the Northeast Corridor, and I definitely support the corridor concept. Where the population density is high enough to support trains, the traffic tends to be bad enough to give people a reason to take the trains for some trips. Elsewhere, not so much. So a political deal needs to be struck -- rural areas get more highway money per capita to pay for all that empty road, and densely populated areas get more rail money per capita to keep at least some of the traffic off the road. No need to have the same transit policy for very different parts of the country.
One thing that no one has mentioned so far is that corridor trains can be run off electricity without encountering the battery problem that limits electric cars. The fixed route is an advantage in this case, if the route is electrified. The Northeast Corridor is, which is why you don't smell diesel in the business class car.
Trains are useless from a military perspective in the US.
Well, how do you explain all the trains that went from Fort Hood to the Port of Houston (a few hundred miles) to get their armored division to Saudi Arabia by sea? I saw one of the trains with my own eyes at a rail crossing. It was fully loaded with Abrams tanks, engineering vehicles, APCs, and Hummers.
While the Interstate system was orignally built to speed movement of troops from place to place (based on experiences he had as a lower level officer) and provide fallout shelters in urban areas (at each overpass), they aren't envisioned to be used to move large numbers of armored vehicles.
I've only ever used the distance runs— the Coast Starlight (aka the Starlate) and the California Zephyr, Sacramento to Denver. The former run is a way for us to visit family in the winter without driving through the Siskiyous, while the latter is simply the most beautiful trip I've ever taken.
I think, for the most part, that they're not selling those types of trips adequately. The Zephyr goes through some of the most beautiful country in the nation, and if they'd sell it as part of the vacation (rather than a prelude or postlude) they'd have a better time of it. Our Denver trip involved all of three days at our destination... and four days en route. But almost all of my photographs are from the train, and there was a certain magic to it.
(P.S. Evil Rob is subject to panic attacks— not phobia, unfortunately, phobia's treatable— with plane flights, so airplanes are far down our list of preferred options.)
An above poster said that the New York City subway system was started without public money. That's not really true. While it was run by private companies, big public bonds were required...
The city's credit was behind the bonds issued to pay for tunneling but Belmont's IRT paid them in full plus a fee so the city made a profit. All the equipment was paid for by Belmont out of pocket.
the company, which then had a monopoly on the subway, refused to add to it because they didn't want to burden themselves with more huge capital outlays before they'd managed to pay off their previous ones.
Not quite. Belmont was reluctant to expand because he didn't want to water down his profits with second-tier routes. But as soon as a potential competitor arrived on the scene he offered to expand right away. Contrast this with how the MTA has made it illegal for private vans to compete with its routes today. No remedy.
So much of the profit of the system is achieved via how it helps the economy and a private entity is very rarely going to reap much of that profit.
?? The IRT and BRT were both making great gobs of money -- such much so that the city decided to renegotiate, to donate the bond capital that the subway companies were paying off in exchange for an equity interest giving 50%-50% profit sharing when the lines expanded. Keep this in mind for a moment....
Costs kept rising but the city wouldn't let them raise the fares above 5 cents (hah!) and so the companies were starved
Ha, indeed!! Inflation more than doubled during and after WWI -- but the city politicians price-fixed the fare at 5 cents so the subway's real revenue fell more than half, wiping out their profits.
This was AFTER the politicians had traded to get profit sharing! They had given up their right to get repaid on the bonds for profits sharing, then they wiped out their own profits, and got stuck with the full cost of the bonds.
Of course, the key is that they, the politicians, in fact didn't get stuck with the cost of the bonds, the taxpayers did. The politicians themselves benefited mightily by getting populist votes in the current elections while dumping the huge fiscal cost and a broken subway system on the future citizenry.
This is how politicians work. Remember this when you ask them to design for you, oh, nationalized health care, Medicare, Social Security, new urban transit lines, whatever.
Matt Yglesias has linked to a worthy read, apropos of this conversation, from Paul Weyrich. The Economist has called him "one of the conservative movement's more vigorous thinkers" (i.e., they say he's not stupid or a flat-earther).
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/PaulWeyrich/2008/06/10/bus_rapid_transit_-_deficiencies_and_defects
I should add, Weyrich is in favor of investment in rail transit.