Comments (18) | Add a comment
EDITORIAL
Railroaded, again
Tools
Updated: Apr. 10, 2012 | 9:43 a.m.
Amtrak pulled out of Las Vegas back in 2001 due to budget constraints. But the government-run rail line obviously has no qualms about losing money elsewhere.
On Tuesday, an arm of the Pew Charitable Trusts released a private study which found that taxpayers spent about $32 subsidizing the typical Amtrak customer in 2008 -- and that only three of the line's 44 routes made money that year.
The subsidy amounts to about four times what rail line executives have claimed they soak up from taxpayers.
The biggest loser? The Los Angeles to New Orleans route -- the Sunset Limited -- which lost a whopping $462 per passenger. Even many of the popular northeast services couldn't turn a profit. For example, the Northeast Regional route lost about $5 per rider.
Despite these numbers -- and despite the fact that virtually all mass transit rail projects bleed taxpayer cash and fall far short of ridership projections -- the Obama administration and Congress larded up the stimulus bill earlier this year with about $8 billion in rail subsidies.
Perhaps a more thorough examination of failing Amtrak routes would be in order before the nation's struggling taxpayers are forced to lay down on the tracks once again and be steamrolled by the mass transit lobby and their many friends in Congress.
But rail aficionados continue to defend the necessity of money-losing enterprises.
"Let's not hold rail up and say it needs to make money when highways don't make money, transit doesn't make money and a lot of small airports don't make money and they all get subsidies," said Stephen Van Beek, president of the Eno Transportation Foundation, a think tank.
Fair enough. But rail is certainly a good place for the budget hawks to start.
Comments
Terms & Conditions
The following comments are provided by readers and are the sole responsiblity of the authors. The Review-Journal does not review comments before publication nor guarantee their accuracy. By publishing a comment here you agree to abide by the comment policy. If you see a comment that violates the policy, please use the Report Abuse button.
Some comments may not display immediately due to an automatic filter. These comments will be reviewed within 24 hours. Please do not submit a comment more than once.
Note: Comments made by reporters and editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal are presented with a yellow background.
RSS
Twitter
Facebook
Nevada will need to have a new rail line route to bring in crap from China AND haul coal to the west coast headed to China. The existing routes are already at capacity hauling freight. Its OK to waste taxpayers money building a new rail line as long as some Multinational Corporation and politicians make lots of money and do not have to pay for it out of their own pocket. . . we can get a minimal amount of jobs and the coal smoke will drift back over the western U.S., but why be bothered about details?
I can hardly wait for the exciting days I can spend riding the fast train from Primm to Victorville...back and forth...back and forth...
How can I ever thank Harry? Oh, I know. I can vote for his retirement so he can ride the rails with me.
hecubus23 wrote:
“It would bankrupt this country to repair all the old rail within it.”
The cost per mile for installing & maintaining rail is far less than installing & maintaining our highways. The costs associated with moving commerce on rail, cross country, are far below the costs associated with truck. The cost associated with the maintenance of rail, per ton of commerce is far less that our highway systems.
The biggest problem with rail, is how the Government regulates the industry.
Reactionary -- I read on the daily kos that the winds are from secret research projects being conducted by Haliburton; under the direction of Darth Cheney.