PRR 60 said:
Gee, I love a good argument.
First, 25 million passengers is the count of all Amtrak passenger boardings nationwide in Fiscal Year 2004 (10/1/03 to 9/30/04). It is not 25 million individuals. Not even close.
First let’s just talk about the purpose of my statement. Yes, perhaps I should have altered or even halved that 25M number, or followed your formula’s to arrive at a true ridership number. However the point of my statement was, once again, simply the fact that the writer was wrong in stating that
“no one will miss Amtrak.” No matter how you want to slice and dice the numbers, the simple fact remains that you can’t reduce it to 0 and therefore, someone will miss Amtrak. Hence that writer’s statement is false, which is all I was trying to prove.
PRR 60 said:
First, let’s talk state-supported trains. Amtrak only operates these trains contingent on the states paying all or a big part of the tab. In some cases, the states even provide the equipment. Since this argument is over Amtrak funding, should passengers being carried on trains that Amtrak does not fund be counted? Couldn’t and wouldn’t someone else run the Downeaster or the Capital Corridor if Amtrak went away? Over 8 million of those 25 million “Amtrak” passengers are riding state supported trains. That leaves 17 million passengers riding purely Amtrak funded trains.
The simple answer to your question is no, someone else can’t easily run the Downeaster, the Capital Corridor, or even most of the rest of the California trains. California only owns about 1/3 of the needed equipment, the rest belongs to Amtrak. Additionally California doesn’t fully fund all of the California trains; they do fund most of them, but not all of them. However returning to why someone else can’t run the trains, at least not easily, is the fact that under the proposed budget being floated by the White House, Amtrak would be sold off to the highest bidder.
None of the states that do contribute to Amtrak are in a position to buy and maintain the equipment. They can barely afford the payments that they are making right now to Amtrak. Additionally they’d have to set up ticketing, since that would go bye-bye with the demise of Amtrak. Finally those states would now have to renegotiate every contract with the freight RR’s and probably would end up paying more than Amtrak does right now.
So bottom line, no you can’t just eliminate all of those passenger boardings from the equation. Even if the states were able to find the funding for all that I’ve mentioned (funding that is not in the White House budget), it would still at a minimum take at least 3 months and more likely 6 months to restore those state supported services. So again, those riders
would miss Amtrak.
PRR 60 said:
But wait. How about the Clockers? 1.5 million passengers rode the Clockers in FY04. The Clockers are not categorized as state-supported trains, but they only exist to service NJ Transit passholders. Only about 10% of the passengers on the Clockers ride on Amtrak tickets, and next year the Clockers will pass to NJT operations. So, let’s be generous and take only 1 million more passengers away from Amtrak for actually being NJT passengers. Now we are down to 16 million.
I won’t debate the specific numbers that you’ve laid out here, as they may well be correct. However, once again the Clockers at present are using some Amtrak Equipment, namely the coaches. Those coaches would be sold to the highest bidder, if the White House budget were to be passed. Since NJT doesn’t have enough coaches already and with a budget gap so big that they won’t be bidding on the coaches, once again
people will miss Amtrak.
Plus let’s talk about the fact that the bank owns Penn Station and there is no provision in the White House budget to stop the bank from selling off the station to the highest bidder in a bankruptcy proceeding. (Yes the White House did include some monies to keep the tracks going, although you and I both know that 360 M isn’t nearly enough.) While I don’t expect to see trains stop using Penn, I could see the fees that NJT and the LIRR pay to use Penn going way up. This could cripple the transportation budgets of both states and cause a reduction in commuter service or at least another fare increase. So now you have the potential that many more millions of passengers
will miss Amtrak, passengers who don’t even ride Amtrak.
Jumping slightly off topic here, the current situation with the Clockers being transferred to NJT also serves to highlight one of the flaws with the idea of States supporting Amtrak, which the White House is floating. Last I heard NJT and SEPTA are still fighting over whether the Clockers will run from Philly or from Trenton. The disagreement, of course, is over how much SEPTA should pay NJT to run the trains from 30th Street Station. They also couldn’t agree on funding for service and station near Morrisville Pa., where NJT now has a yard, so no station was built. I’ll also mention that so far the states of PA and NJ have yet to agree on a funding formula for the proposed Lackawanna Cutoff.
Maine is currently fighting with New Hampshire, in an effort to get them to help fund the Downeaster. Yet somehow the White House expects to get 45 states to miraculously agree to fund some sort of train organization. We both know that Mineta’s idea of not opening the doors in a state that won’t pay is silly. After all, part of a trains charm is that not everyone rides from one end to the other. So not opening the doors simply eliminated possible revenue and the freight RR is still going to charge for passage regardless of whether the train makes a stop in that state or not.
PRR 60 said:
But that 16 million is passenger boardings, not individuals. Some people on this board may have ridden Amtrak 20 or 30 times last year. They would each count as 20 or 30 passengers. A daily PHL-NYP commuter may ride 400 times. That person would count as 400 passengers. Even one person riding round trip is counted twice. So, my guess is that less than 5 million individuals rode an Amtrak-funded train one or more times last year. That is a far cry from 25 million, and 5 million is a very generous estimate.
As I think I’ve proved, the number would be higher than 5 million. However even if it’s not, as I stated at the beginning, be it 25 million, 10 million, 5 million, or even just 1 person, Amtrak will be missed.
PRR 60 said:
No matter how you cut it, Amtrak is a niche player in transportation and, other than in and out of New York, not much more. NJT is far more important. Metro North is far more important. Metrolink is far more important. As an intercity transportation entity, Amtrak is about the size of America West, and outside of Phoenix, few people would describe America West as a vital link or would see the loss of HP as devastating.
Amtrak is a small-scale operation that consumes a direct federal subsidy that is grossly disproportionate to its role. It is an entity that has stubbornly and arrogantly refused to change in any meaningful way over its nearly 34 years of existence. It is time for passenger rail advocates to wake up to the fact that Amtrak has failed miserably as an organization in ways that are not related to funding and if it takes a trip to the bankruptcy court to finally get this sorry operation moving in a different direction, then so be it. This country needs passenger rail for many of the reasons stated before, but that does not necessarily equate to needing Amtrak and only Amtrak.
Now I don’t disagree that Amtrak has many problems, some of which are internal, some of which relate to the political nature of the beast. I also don’t dispute the fact that Amtrak is a bit player in the transportation market, by comparison to some of the other forms of transportation. I’m not real sure what the best way to fix and/or replace Amtrak is. But I don’t believe that forcing it into bankruptcy is the answer either.
This is especially true, with the absence of any comprehensive reorganization plan from the White House. Had they presented a fully detailed plan and said, “implement this plan with X dollars or I’m going to recommend 0 dollars”, then I might believe that the intent not to destroy train service. However in the absence of any detailed plan, in fact all they’ve spouted is a few vague ideas, this isn’t about fixing what’s broken with train service. Note, I didn’t say Amtrak.
Frankly this budget from the White House that cuts many other programs in addition to Amtrak, smacks more of a retaliation by a young child who didn’t get what they wanted from the last congress, so this year they are crossing out everything just to spite them. It also seems that most Republicans agree, since they by and large are lining up with the Democrats in open opposition of most of the White House cuts.