Amtrak's 2035 map has people talking about the future of U.S. train travel

Re:Amtrak's 2035 map has people talking about the future of ... by closeparen on Sunday April 25, 2021 @03:24PM (#26935728)

I don’t think the “economically” part of this statement is at all obvious. Train sets are cheaper than passenger planes but they have to be tied up a lot longer to provide the same passenger-miles. Acquiring land and laying track costs what it actually costs in the US and not what it would it would theoretically cost under foreign labor, regulatory, and property-rights conditions.

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Re:Amtrak's 2035 map has people talking about the future of ... by syshum on Sunday April 25, 2021 @03:50PM (#26935996)

Taxpayer money goes to fund the Airline industry in a wide number of ways, just a few would be that fact that most airports are government run, many operating at net loss when proper accounting is used. We also subsidize security (tsa), traffic control (faa), and do not get me started on the billions and billions in bailouts the airlines get with every economic down turn.

So to say the economic part is not obvious one has to be willfully ignorant of government spending, just listing the obvious source of government subsidy there are many other less obvious one including special tax exemptions, and many other programs that have indirect benefits to the industry

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Re:Amtrak's 2035 map has people talking about the future of ... by closeparen on Sunday April 25, 2021 @04:59PM (#26936616)

This report [0] suggests significantly higher passenger-mile costs in both fares and subsidies for Amtrak vs. air travel. It looks pretty off the cuff, I’m sure you could dispute the methodology, but... let’s see yours.

[0] https://urbanreforminstitute.org/2019/09/transport-costs-and...

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Re:Amtrak's 2035 map has people talking about the future of ... by syshum on Sunday April 25, 2021 @08:47PM (#26938180)

OK, and?

I find it amusing that in this thread if I make a statement opposing government funding of trains people point out that Airplanes get government funding, and if make a comment opposing government funding of airplanes people point out that trains get government funding

It seems that the 2 groups are completely unable to fathom that a person could simply oppose government funding of both Planes and Trains....

Neither Amtrak nor Air Travel should get ANY tax payer money, for any purpose or reason..

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Re:Amtrak's 2035 map has people talking about the future of ... by closeparen on Sunday April 25, 2021 @11:03PM (#26938826)

Do you have this confused with a different subthread perhaps? The argument you made above is that rail is obviously more economically efficient than aviation, and that to doubt this is willfully ignorant.

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Re:Amtrak's 2035 map has people talking about the future of ... by enriquec on Sunday April 25, 2021 @04:38PM (#26936454)

And rail would literally not exist without way more government intervention (eminent domain), subsidies, and bailouts. On the eve of self driving it is actually obvious that rail is economically inferior by several orders of magnitude.

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