How many times are they going to hike the fares on the NEC

[gmushial]

Valid point. I'll revise and expand:
The problem is twofold: 1)People want nice things, but don't want to pay for them and 2)People don't want to pay for things that they don't see the value for.

Part 1 is just irrational.

Part two is just a part of living in a society.

Sadly, I don't see either one getting fixed anytime soon.

(personally, I agree - I don't see the need to spend the megabucks that we do on the military. I say that as a former Naval Officer and current Defense contractor)

If it were megabucks, I wouldn't be so upset - but it's gigabucks tending on terabucks.

 

[gmushial]

Remembering $1 per gallon gasoline? I remember when members of Congress said that increasing the price of gasoline to $1 per gallon would cause a revolution in America and people would simply stop driving. Now they say that about $5 per gallon gasoline.
And I can remember purchasing gasoline for my car at 29.9 CENTS per gallon.

Yes, the hair has gone from blonde to silver to white... but I remember 16.9 cents per gallon with 5x BlueChip stamps... the mugs and glasses didn't come for another decade after that if I remember correctly.

 

[SanAntonioClyde]

prices are also up on sunset ltd and Texas eagle, way up

 

[Alexandria Nick]

Also, that 30 cents a gallon had the purchasing price of about $3.50 and the average person made like $8000 a year.

 

[gmushial]

Also, that 30 cents a gallon had the purchasing price of about $3.50 and the average person made like $8000 a year.

Not quite: 17 cent gas in 1969 = $1.02 gas today... and as a starting engineer (EE) I was making $22k. ... basically until the oil shocks of early '70s the oil companies had something like 8-10% margins and gas was priced per cost of production vs as today as market will bear.

 

[Anderson]

The answer to the title question is "once per year as a rule". Realistically, fares need to rise by about 2-4% per year (depending on various factors) to keep pace with costs, given the nature of inflation. Do remember that Amtrak is stuck with some messy union contracts, among other issues.

The other part of the answer is that fares will continue to rise as long as load factors do. If Amtrak can keep hiking fares and still add 100k riders/yr on the NEC, there is no reason for them not to. Yes, we're off minimally YTD through May, but that's more a function of Amtrak losing about 200,000 rides to major disruptions (Sandy, etc.) than any structural shift.