2004 Budget Release

Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Status
Not open for further replies.

Amfleet

Engineer
Joined
Aug 24, 2002
Messages
3,390
Location
Southeastern, Massachusetts
Today Bush released the 2004 budget which included intercity passenger rail. The stats do not look all that promising. Only $900 million was aloted, $1.1 billion short of the $2 billion in Amtrak's fiscal 2004 budget. Mineta stated that Amtrak reform can no longer wait. This requires Amtrak to become a pure operating company, establish partnerships with national and state governments for support, and introduce competition. Click here and scroll down to about page 6 to read the details.

My opinion on this is we have not learned our lesson from the mess UK's rail system got into when it was privitized, our government has not realized that there really is NO other competition, and our government has not realized the importance of intercity passenger rail or the introduction of intercity high-speed rail. Obviously we are short on money due to the downfall in the economy and an unneeded war with Iraq. Hopefully lawmakers and David Gunn will fight for more in congress.
 
I "love" this line from the first page of the document:

Supplies increased federal assistance for passenger rail service, conditioned on cost-saving reforms, including modernizing Amtrak's route structure and offering buyouts to any affected employees
I'm getting mad just reading this document. This is the reason why I am not a Republican. Most of my political views are fairly conservative, even for some Republicans, but Amtrak is one of the issues that the Republican party just doesn't have a clue. Another quote in a box talking about how much some Intercity trains (supposedly) "lose":

For several of these trains, it would literally be cheaper for Amtrak to buy each passenger a plane ticket to the next destination.  For example, a round trip ticket for direct flights between San Antonio and Chicago (the Texas Eagle route) can be purchased for as little as $216.
This assumes that the only people who ride the Eagle are going from San Antonio to Chicago. What about passengers who are coming from or going to a smaller town. What about people going from Little Rock, AR, to Bloomington-Normal, IL, for example. Is it cheaper for them? I doubt it very strongly! It probably costs more than $216 to fly between those two towns. When are these politicians going to learn that Amtrak stops at more than the end points?

Edit: I just checked Travelocity, and I was right. To fly to Bloomington-Normal, IL, from Little Rock, AR, costs "as little as" $271. Gee, that suddenly sounds like it wouldn't be cheaper for Amtrak, now would it? :angry:
 
Here is another link to a similar story, which appears on Yahoo! news:

U.S. Proposes Cutting Amtrak's Long-Distance RoutesThe Bush administration proposed on Monday that Amtrak eliminate some or all of its 18 long-distance trains in a bid to change the way the railroad does business, saying some routes lost hundreds of dollars per passenger.
The full story is here.
 
I'm wondering when the government is going to stop subsidizing airlines. Oh, that right, they're not going to. As a matter of fact they have a program called the "Essential Air Services" that provides services to small towns in Montana and other states. Some of the towns include Havre, Glasgow, and Wolf Point, MT, which are stops on the Empire Builder. This costs the government anywhere from $106,000 to $1,325,000 (approximately) per town served. Now, if the government would put that money into Amtrak instead of these airlines, we'd have much better service on long distance trains and would be a better use of the money. :angry:

Sorry if I seem a bit too upset about this, but I'm sick of the politicians giving Amtrak the table scraps while giving the (totally ineffecient) airlines money like its water. The information about the Essential Air Services program are on this website: Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance
 
I read an article in the latest edition of Airways magazine that details the horrible management at United Air Lines which led to their filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Funny how the government decides to reward certain industries for their managerial ineptitude, but then again they are the same people who deregulated that industry which helped it go to waste. Yet they are completely unwilling to operate Amtrak in a proper fashion. They need to get their priorities different. The biggest problem is that the government can mandate whatever they want on Amtrak but cannot do the same to the airlines (at least route wise as they are private businesses) thus Amtrak is the whipping boy.
 
tp49 said:
I read an article in the latest edition of Airways magazine that details the horrible management at United Air Lines which led to their filing Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Funny how the government decides to reward certain industries for their managerial ineptitude, but then again they are the same people who deregulated that industry which helped it go to waste. Yet they are completely unwilling to operate Amtrak in a proper fashion. They need to get their priorities different. The biggest problem is that the government can mandate whatever they want on Amtrak but cannot do the same to the airlines (at least route wise as they are private businesses) thus Amtrak is the whipping boy.
tp-

Obviously I am a train supporter, but just to argue a bit: the gov't DID allow United to file for bankruptcy. The last time that United asked for help, they didn't receive it. I felt comforted by this, because I felt like they were starting to treat them evenly. Of course I wish it was that they were equally GIVING them money, but I guess I should just be glad it is starting to be equally at all.
 
Since the government allowed (encouraged and supported) the current dominance of air travel in the U.S. (augmenting the highways), there should be some consideration due when the airlines ask for help from the government. The government’s early encouragement of the airlines had lots to do with the world dominance of American aircraft manufacturing through the early 1980s. Today, we have a strange transportation system in the U.S. where the diversity (planes and highways) is an illusion. The events of 11 September 2001 point to the dangerous lack of diversity in the system.

Congress apparently can not see the big picture. There is similar frustration among those who are charged with maintaining dams, tunnels, pipelines, tidal banks, forests, bridges, and a host of old and crumbling segments of our infrastructure. I can’t figure out where the government’s enormous blind spot is with the railroads. Is it the curious mixture of private and public ownership and responsibility with the freight railroads and Amtrak?

The Amtrak funding problem will not be solved unless and until Congress decides to apply deliberate diversity to the U.S. transportation system. It’s not happening to the rest of the U.S. infrastructure; why should it apply to Amtrak?
 
Essential Air Service -- actually, the Bush FY04 budget does propose elimination or reduction of the EAS program. It also proposes privatizing the ATC system. To me, it sounds like Bush is talking about getting out of the transportation business everywhere. Even the highway budget is slated for reduction (although the proposed sum is still a whopper).

I had to laugh when a Dem congressperson from ND asked the DOT how his folks were supposed to travel if the EAS program eliminated airline service to some of his smaller towns. He was told to put the folks on a bus!
 
cbaker said:
I had to laugh when a Dem congressperson from ND asked the DOT how his folks were supposed to travel if the EAS program eliminated airline service to some of his smaller towns.  He was told to put the folks on a bus!
:lol: That's pretty good. As a very frequent visitor to North Dakota, I can attest that there aren't too many bus services in North Dakota. It'd be pretty hard to do in the northern part of the state, since Amtrak handles the "High Line" (US Hwy 2) while Greyhound sticks to I-94 on the southern end. Elsewhere in the state, there's not much of any transportation other than cars.
 
The country needs a comprehensive and diverse transportation system… including roads, buses, planes, and trains. Leaving the whole system to a commercial free-for-all will not work. Go the the U.K. to see how that idea is working: what a mess. Even the most strident free market supporter eventually has to recognize the legitimate place of governments in some aspects of society. It’s much less about economic philosophy, and lots more about practical matters.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top