iahphx

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...mtraks-big-lie

MSPeconomist

Summary please.....and how about an informative title too?

Mr. BoH

I wouldn’t give much credibility to an op-ed whose author doesn’t understand the difference between depreciation and maintenance.

DCA writer

Randal O’Toole, the author of that op-ed, is one the most predictable and least original transportation pundits, forever swearing that while he loves trains personally, they can’t work anywhere in the U.S. outside of maybe New York and we should instead celebrate auto-dependent sprawl forever. When I see a transportation story quote him uncritically, I stop reading—it’s a tell that the reporter couldn’t be bothered to find informed sources.

jrich7970

Wait...I found this gem in that article

"According to the best available estimates, Americans bicycle 8.5 billion passenger miles a year compared with 6.5 billion passenger miles on Amtrak. Being less important than bicycles, Amtrak certainly doesn't deserve the $2 billion in annual subsidies that it requires to run a supposedly almost-profitable operation."

So, I went to the cite, and I'm not quite sure that the 8.5 billion passenger miles a year for cyclists is totally for commuting. Lets say, for a moment, that it isn't. How many "passenger miles" a year are for walking?

OK, let's also say, for a moment, that that number *IS* for commuting. Is this guy really suggesting that people should use their bikes to commute from NYC to WAS?

I don't think a comparison can be made that Amtrak is "less important than bicycles."

travelmad478

Even if Amtrak is “less important than bicycles” (which I actually tend to agree with, seeing as how I use my bike pretty much every day vs. Amtrak very sparingly now), I’d argue that BOTH bikes and Amtrak deserve dramatically higher subsidies than they are now getting. Both forms of transport are preferable to cars for many types of trips. Not all trips of course, but plenty of them.

honest_abe

Subsidize bicycles but only if the disabled are allowed to use their walkers, service animals, motorized wheelchairs and other needs wherever bikes are allowed. That includes bike parking spaces, bike lanes any any other publicly paid for bike set-asides.

travelmad478

Nice sentiment, terrible idea. That’s all anyone needs, having cyclists and wheelchairs and service dogs and people using walkers trying to share the same bike path. (Maybe if you want to make a lot more people disabled as a result of catastrophic injury.)

dilanesp

I think the op-ed is basically "turnabout is fair play". Amtrak management makes its decisions on accurate accounting. The misnamed RPA (it really represents only a small portion of Amtrak passengers), committed to long distance trains, has basically libeled Amtrak's accounting department for decades because it tells the truth, which is that long distance sleepers and diners lose boatloads of money.

So now O'Toole writes a dishonest column where he buttresses his argument with RPA's criticisms of Amtrak's accounting to further an anti-rail agenda.

Amtrak's accounting has never been particularly dishonest. Private railroads came to the same conclusion (long distance trains run big losses due to sleepers and diners) 60 years ago. The dishonest actor has always been RPA.