Tanner929 said:
Boston is funding improvements for a private and amtrak partnership to improve lines from Boston to Springfield.
Boston isn't working with Amtrak for that, they only want to pay CSX to improve the tracks between Back Bay and Worster, so that they can run more trains. And unless something has changed, that's only a proposal at present. I haven't seen anything that indicates that the Governor has actually funded the project.
Tanner929 said:
States along the NEC should and i believe will put up money with perhaps a pvt management company.
First, are you aware that most states still require Federal help to subsidize their local mass transit? NY, NJ, California, Texas, Illinois, Utah, and many others all received federal monies in the last few years to help local commuter, light rail, and subways. The states themselves cannot cover the costs needed to build, maintain, and run local mass transit.
So they aren’t going to be able to find additional monies to fund Amtrak or some semblance of Amtrak or a private company. I can promise you that NY will not only be unhappy to pay for Amtrak, it will be unable to do so. Even right now, despite the Governors dreams of expansion of the NY City area system, his budget under funds the MTA’s needed budget by almost 10 Billions dollars. So they just raised fares on the commuter trains, the subways, and the toll bridges in NYC. And even that won't cover the expansion dreams, it barely keeps things running.
Neither NY and/or NJ will be able to find the needed monies to keep the Northeast Corridor operational, which will create a huge disaster far beyond the loss of the 60,000 people a day that Amtrak brings into NYC. The LIRR will find itself cut off from Penn Station, stranding 300,000 people per day. New Jersey Transit will find itself cut off from Penn Station, stranding another 180,000 or more people per day. Plus two of NJT’s major routes will cease to exist, further stranding even more people.
I don’t say this to scare people into saving Amtrak. But I live in NYC and I’m fully aware of these funding issues and despite the fact that NY State has the highest taxes in the nation; I can assure you that we don’t have the money to pay for the loss of Amtrak.
The states of Michigan and Missouri, which already do contribute to Amtrak to help provide service are having a very hard time finding the needed monies to keep funding those services. Even California is considering cutbacks to the current Amtrak and local mass transit budgets. California certainly does not have the money to realize its desperately needed expansion dreams.
Even now the monies that California currently pays to Amtrak, won’t keep all of the current Amtrak services in California running. Amtrak does own some of the equipment, while the state owns some of the equipment. However, the California routes only get charged a portion of the overhead costs of running the system. Part of the problem with why the Long Distance trains loose money, is thanks to how Amtrak allocates its expenses.
California will be forced to find much more than the 10 Million they currently invest in Amtrak, to keep the trains running. With no Amtrak, they’ll need managers to administrate things. They’ll need to bear the full cost of the maintenance & repair crews, along with the cleaning crews. Finally they’ll need to setup & install a ticketing system, as Amtrak’s will be gone. All of these costs are currently divided amongst all of Amtrak’s routes and very little of those costs are actually being paid for by the State of California.
Amtrak may only carry 25 Million people per year, but that’s 25 million people who aren’t vying for your seat on an airplane. That’s 25 million people who aren’t on the same highway or street you’re on. And there are millions more who depend on Amtrak’s existence for their own commuter trains, who would be left with no choice but to get in a car if Amtrak bites the dust. Finally, if the Fed shouldn’t invest in Amtrak, then it certainly should not invest in local commuter and city transit operations, which don’t cross state lines and therefore are not even the domain of the Fed.
So bottom line, without federal funding, there will be no Amtrak or any shadow of it, the states simply can’t afford it. None of them can afford it. And millions of people will be inconvenienced in all states served by Amtrak, even if they don’t actually ride Amtrak themselves.
Tanner929 said:
I'm not talking about comfort and the route, I love watching scenery through the train, but it is the lack of flexibility with scheduling options I believe this is has kept people from seriously considering taking the train.
Here I won't argue with you at all. If Amtrak was actually given enough money to run greater frequencies of those long distance trains, ridership would increase significantly. One only needs to look at the large increase in Ridership that the Texas Eagle saw, when it went from running 3 days a week to 7 days. It gave people more choices and they responded by riding.
Doubling the number of trains per day on all of the exisiting long distance lines and putting back some of the now defunct routes, might actually help to get Amtrak closer to a goal of covering operating expenses.
Tanner929 said:
These "3-Year" plans have got to stop.
What 3-year plan? :unsure: Amtrak gets its money one year at a time. It's very hard to plan anything that way. Nonetheless Amtrak's President did come up with a 5-year plan that he'd like to see. A plan that Congress has ignored.