Amtrak Subsidy Gone, States Must Pay the Freight [View all]

[BeyondGeography]

HUNTINGDON, Pa. — The unmistakable wail of a locomotive horn and screeching steel wheels signal the arrival of the evening Amtrak train in this central Pennsylvania town just over an hour west of Harrisburg, the state capital. The train is one of two that stop here daily, a vital link to Harrisburg, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and the entire Northeast Corridor.

“There is no bus service or airports nearby,” said Dee Dee Brown, the mayor of this town of 7,000, who often rides the train to Philadelphia. “It’s just the train, and, quite frankly, we would be a ghost town without it.”

But after years of financial losses on the route for Amtrak, Pennsylvania was faced with either picking up the tab or losing it altogether by Oct. 1. Under pressure from Congress to reduce its dependence on federal subsidies, Amtrak is looking at either closing 28 short-haul routes or getting 19 states to cover the costs. Most of the states have already agreed to pick up the costs.

...The cost-sharing arrangement between Amtrak and the states, mandated by a 2008 law, is designed to reduce federal support for Amtrak, which has received nearly $40 billion in taxpayer subsidies since its founding in 1971, and has never made a profit. Last year, the railroad got about $1.4 billion in federal money for its operations, rail maintenance and equipment purchases.

Read more at:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/03/us/as-amtrak-aid-ends-states-face-decision-on-local-routes.html?hp

That $40 billion sounds like a big number, except that it's spread out over 40 years. $1 bn./year for rail travel, even a national system as comparatively limited as Amtrak, is nothing. A perspective-free article by the NYT. Thank you, librul media.

Reminder: Amtrak Subsidies Pale in Comparison to Highway Subsidies

...House Transportation Committee Chair John Mica continued his “holy jihad” against Amtrak yesterday, holding the third full-committee hearing in a series on “Reviewing Amtrak’s Operations.” He’s planning at least three more hearings during the lame duck session after the election.

Mica went after subsidies in this one, and he clearly thinks this is a winning issue. After all, Amtrak has gotten nearly $1 billion a year in federal funds over its 41-year existence. The per-ticket subsidy over the past five years has averaged nearly $51. Mica compared that to other forms of transportation: Using 2008 data, he showed that the average per-ticket subsidy to aviation was $4.28, for mass transit was 95 cents, and for intercity commercial bus service 10 cents.

What’s missing? Highways, of course. Luckily, Amtrak CEO Joe Boardman was on hand to remind him. “In the past four years, the federal government has appropriated $53.3 billion from the general fund of the Treasury to bail out the Highway Trust Fund,” Boardman told the committee. “That’s almost 30 percent more than the total federal expenditure on Amtrak since 1971.”

Considering that about 20 percent of the Highway Trust Fund goes to transit, that’s still more for highways alone over the past four years than Amtrak has ever gotten.

http://dc.streetsblog.org/2012/09/21/reminder-amtrak-subsidies-pale-in-comparison-to-highway-subsidies/