no thanks, I'll fly
Amtrak continues to exist via taxpayer largesse.
Amtrak rides again. The Bush administration approved $200 million in emergency funds to keep the train system running through September. As a concession, Amtrak has agreed to greater accountability and more public scrutiny. That would be a welcome change, and might go a long way to eliminate Amtrak's Enronesque accounting tricks.
Since its inception in 1972, ridership on Amtrak trains has only slightly increased on a day to day basis. In 2000, about 62,000 people rode Amtrak trains per day compared to 1.8 million airline passengers. For this rarely used service, the American public has lost $25 billion. This year, Amtrak is requesting several extra billion in "disaster" funds due to the 9/11 attack. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Amtrak is the most subsidized form of travel by a factor of over a hundred times greater than any other method. Amtrak passengers receive a 24 cent per mile subsidy, compared to 0.2 cents per mile for airline passengers and 0.1 cents per mile for automobiles.
According to a 1997 law, Amtrak must break even by the end of 2002 or be reorganized. Transportation Secretary Mineta has announced that they will not make their deadline. Thirty years of evidence makes it clear that Amtrak is nothing more than an extremely expensive boondoggle that has neither the Constitutional authority to exist as government entity nor any chance of ever operating in even a remotely self-sufficient fashion. Rather than continue to waste taxpayers' money, the federal government should sell off the profitable lines of Amtrak to private companies and scuttle the rest.
15.06.2002 © ljr