Passenger Trains > "Free the Northeast from Amtrak's clutches...."

Opinion from Michael Sargent, a policy analyst for transportation and infrastructure at the Heritage Foundation.

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/free-northeast-amtrak-clutches-article-1.3198139

The Trump budget opens the door to privatizing airports and toll roads. I believe only Dulles and Reagan National are owned by the feds.

Posted from Android

I been reading articles like this for so many years!. It's the same old Media bias - blame Amtrak for everything. When starvation funding is probably the actual reason for so-called Amtrak "inefficiency"

I just don't believe the Media anymore.

I remember at least 5 Amtrak presidents, going back 20 years--and none of them did very much to make Amtrak "efficient", or "run like a business" (remember that one). They couldn't. No money to do anything.

ronald321 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I been reading articles like this for so many
> years!. It's the same old Media bias - blame
> Amtrak for everything. When starvation funding is
> probably the actual reason for so-called Amtrak
> "inefficiency"
>
> I just don't believe the Media anymore.

Michael Sargent is not "the media."

> I remember at least 5 Amtrak presidents, going
> back 20 years--and none of them did very much to
> make Amtrak "efficient", or "run like a business"
> (remember that one). They couldn't. No money to
> do anything.

Agree that the whole privatization trope is bogus. There's a reason why passenger rail doesn't exist in this country as a private operation any more: it's a money loser. As long as roads and air travel infrastructure (airports, etc.) are provided below cost to consumers, it always will be, too.

Maybe the Iowa Central will want to buy it.

reindeerflame Wrote:
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> Maybe the Iowa Central will want to buy it.

Or Megabus.

Lurch_in_ABQ Wrote:
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> Opinion from Michael Sargent, a policy analyst for
> transportation and infrastructure at the Heritage
> Foundation.
>
> http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/free-northeast-
> amtrak-clutches-article-1.3198139


Sargent is another ideological hack. Partisans created this mess, there is no reason to believe they have an answer to it. 

 

That's an opinion piece, not straight news. Very big difference.

Bill Deaver
Tehachapi, CA

I got a better idea:
"Free America from Heritage Foundation's Clutches..."

ronald321 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I been reading articles like this for so many
> years!. It's the same old Media bias - blame
> Amtrak for everything. When starvation funding is
> probably the actual reason for so-called Amtrak
> "inefficiency"
>
> I just don't believe the Media anymore.
>
As Toledopatch noted above, Michael Sargent is not the media. He is writing as a representative of the anti-Amtrak Heritage Foundation.

It is also false to describe "The Media" as if it was just one entity.

The following two links present other opinions from other media outlets about investing in Amtrak:

From the Toledo Blade:
http://www.toledoblade.com/Editorials/2015/06/16/Invest-in-Amtrak-1.html

From USA Today:
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/editorials/2017/03/17/editorial-investing-rail-non-negotiable/99315628/

It took me just a minute to find these articles in an Internet search. You should do the same before making false generalizations about "the Media."



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/17 06:14 by RuleG.

America has a serious problem with flabby, uncritical reading

Posted from Android

Robertjohndavis Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Sargent is another ideological hack. Partisans
> created this mess, there is no reason to believe
> they have an answer to it. 

He's trapped in his ideology, forcing "market-based" solutions like "creating" competition to solve Amtrak's woes. He brings up Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Central, a.k.a. JR Tokai) as an example.

I can sympathize with his complete lack of knowledge regarding the railroad markets in Japan, but even before the JNR Group got privatized into 7 separate groups, Japan had (and still has) several major passenger rail manufacturing corporations. We don't have that - BIG difference. Furthermore, privatization or not, Japan made great efforts to not only preserve their railroad expertise, but continue to grow it, instead of abandoning it like we did. That means political decisions of railroad policies (including the privatization of JNR in 1987) are backed by people with REAL knowledge, not lawyers and accoutants who don't know how the world functions without the automobile.

We've been hearing this "market-based solutions" for Amtrak for several years, sometimes accentuated by the election cycle. I think I'll wait 4-8 more years, and we'll debate this all over again. Yawn.

Give Amtrak's NEC to the corridor states free and clear and let them, under a multi-state compact, manage, operate, and fund it.

Same for the long-haul routes.

User pays. Or not.

466lex Wrote:
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> Give Amtrak's NEC to the corridor states free and
> clear and let them, under a multi-state compact,
> manage, operate, and fund it.
>
> Same for the long-haul routes.
>
> User pays. Or not.

The Northeastern states began that process in the late 1970s/1980s, with an entity called the Coalition of Northeast Governors. back then, it included the northeastern governors plus DE, NJ, and PA. They played a significant role in getting the Boston electrification moving. A huge amount of Congressional seniority (Teddy Kennedy, Biden, Lautenburg, Javits, etc) focused on an issue can work wonders.

I suspect it could have become a vehicle for eventually consolidating the NEC into a separate entity, and eventually taking it over or contracting it out. But it morphed into a think tank research exchange.

< Give Amtrak's NEC to the corridor states free and clear and let them, under a multi-state compact, manage, operate, and fund it.
Same for the long-haul routes. User pays. Or not. >

We have a compact - it's called the federal government, and its role includeds interstate commerce.

As far as user pays, we don't have that anymore. The federal highway trust fund has received $109 Billion in bailouts, called "transfer payments", from general funds over the last 8 years.

Perhaps an Interstate Highway Route Closing Commission is what we should set up.
One more socialist entitlement that needs to be put on a firm financial footing.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/27/17 09:50 by joemvcnj.

joemvcnj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I got a better idea:
> "Free America from Heritage Foundation's
> Clutches..."

Like!

joemvcnj Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Perhaps an Interstate Highway Route Closing
> Commission is what we should set up.
> One more socialist entitlement that needs to be
> put on a firm financial footing.


One conclusion I've reached for sure when driving Interstates in rural areas is that if they had to justify their cost, there would be a lot fewer grade separations with expensive bridges. Instead, the lightly-used local roads would cross the expressways at grade. Sure, there'd be a few more severe, fatal crashes doing it that way, but what's a few lives when you're saving the 1 percent a few bucks in annual taxes? (And don't tell me that the roads pay for themselves from gasoline taxes, because the gutless politicians haven't raised the federal fuel tax in 23 years. It ain't so.)

The ALL EXHALTED FAT ONE Chris Christie will take over Amtrak ...

BUT ONLY IN JERSEY !!!

Gee. . . .

Do you suppose that if #1) more people rode trains, and #2) More of the public demanded that the government raise their taxes to pay for more passenger trains, that. . .

The government would subsidize more passenger trains??

<Gee. . . .
Do you suppose that if #1) more people rode trains, and #2) More of the public demanded that the government raise their taxes to pay for more passenger trains, that. . . The government would subsidize more passenger trains?? >

They don't raise the gas tax to pay for more highways, so why would they do similar for passenger trains.