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You're saying cars are expensive, so let's not build more efficient alternatives. The logic isn't logic.
Also, a quick internet search says the average new car is well under that figure, and that's just the average, not what people can buy new more cheaply. And it omits used cars.
Plus modern cars have a lot more tech built in like ADAS (advanced driver-assistance system) as well as powered windows, heated seats, and a bunch of other features that was considered luxury not so long ago which is inherently worth a lot more than the tin cans that were driven back in say the 70s. It’s like comparing a smart phone today to a brick cellphone from the 90s.
How do $60,000 cars in 2023 dollars with no resale value work for the middle-class?
So don't buy one of those. Buy a Toyota (they're famous for resale value).
Anyway, expansions to Amtrak service have no connection to car prices.
But the most important point is that government policy in the US at all levels has been tilted in favor of private vehicles for a least a century. After decades of such policies, it's no surprise
that much of the inhabited landscape is designed for private vehicles only. So some mild efforts
at restoring train service in a few corridors.... are long overdue.
Why this audition for the gong show with multiple transportation modes rather than simply putting your key into the ignition and being off to your destination? If these wee alternatives were so great why force people into them?
There were a variety of options, some of which you did not understand. I actually extended you the courtesy of explaining one of them when asked, but then somehow that morphs into a criticism of having options. This has been a pretty dishonest discussion conducted in bad faith on your part.
Location: Was Midvalley Oregon; Now Eastside Seattle area
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For the last +10 years, Cascades train, Portland<>Seattle, 14 day advance purchase can still be bought for $25, coach.
IRRC, there used to be a summer surcharge, which is not being implemented.
YTMV
Plus modern cars have a lot more tech built in like ADAS (advanced driver-assistance system) as well as powered windows, heated seats, and a bunch of other features that was considered luxury not so long ago which is inherently worth a lot more than the tin cans that were driven back in say the 70s. It’s like comparing a smart phone today to a brick cellphone from the 90s.
You indirectly raise a major conundrum. Someone gains the biggest increase in utility when they go from being without wheels to a jalopy. Each gradation up, to power windows, to remote trunk opening, to front-wheel drive, to airbags, to advanced infotainment systems makes life better, but not as much as the first increment from being without wheels to jalopy or "tin cans that were driven back in say the 70s." When you make the bottom of the line much more expensive it's the people without big wallets that get hurt the most.
Bringing this back to AMTRAK, it is politically very difficult to make private transit so expensive in sprawling as opposed to dense population that they will take the choice of mass transit for the first leg and "anyone's guess" for reaching the final destination.
Bringing this back to AMTRAK, it is politically very difficult to make private transit so expensive in sprawling as opposed to dense population that they will take the choice of mass transit for the first leg and "anyone's guess" for reaching the final destination.
As I pointed out earlier airports face the same issue of the last mile problem, yet most Americans are more than happy to fly and find ways of getting to their final destination, whether that be being picked up by a friend or family member, renting a car, ordering a Taxi or using the public transit that is available. The same applies to train stations.
That being said I agree that there are some areas that are just too remote that anything else other than a car doesn’t make much sense and in those situations the car will always be supreme. So beyond that I’m not sure what exactly is your complaint? And I stated earlier nobody is trying to ban the car, for example in the urbanist utopia of the Netherlands freeways and cars still exist, because there are always scenarios where cars just make sense.
Mode of transport used by commuters to travel to work in the Netherlands in 2019
As I pointed out earlier airports face the same issue of the last mile problem, yet most Americans are more than happy to fly and find ways of getting to their final destination, whether that be being picked up by a friend or family member, renting a car, ordering a Taxi or using the public transit that is available. The same applies to train stations.
Not so fast. When one is arriving by airplane it is generally a "special occasion." When someone arrives by train in Port Chester, New York it is usually daily. For someone to have to arrange transit to "Blackacre" (a made up name in law texts) is a much bigger pain in the rear end.
Not so fast. When one is arriving by airplane it is generally a "special occasion." When someone arrives by train in Port Chester, New York it is usually daily. For someone to have to arrange transit to "Blackacre" (a made up name in law texts) is a much bigger pain in the rear end.
It depends on where in Port Chester they are going to. Port Chester could probably use some bike lanes and better buses. Port Chester is also not an Amtrak station as Amtrak is more about intercity rail rather than regional rail. grega94's Amtrak intercity rail analogy to flights is more reasonable.
Regardless, even with the service standards and the rather mediocre transit service in Port Chester (though good for a US suburb), Port Chester's MNR station still nets thousands of riders a day despite it being infrequent commuter rail rather than all-day all-week regional rail.
You didn't understand how bikeshare works, and it doesn't seem like you understand the difference between intercity rail and commuter rail. Being a contrarian without knowledge of the matter isn't very convincing, and it's tough to call that free thinking when it's more like exhibiting not much thinking at all.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 08-08-2023 at 12:52 PM..
They have comparisons in there for YTD this year versus 2022. As is probably expected, both revenue and ridership overall are substantially up. Most lines were up from the year before and the northeast corridor up a lot, but Pacific Surfliner took a large dip since it's been out of commission. I think one thing that's notable is how well the Ethan Allen Express line is doing in comparison to previous year with very large gains due to finally being extended into Burlington which is not a very large city. The Ethan Allen Express started out as just an extension of a NYC-Albany Empire Service line which did okay. It served some stations upstate and a little bit of Vermont, terminating in Rutland. It was extended to Burlington late last year and that relatively short extension on existing track roughly doubled the ridership from pre-pandemic 2019. This extension was part of the Amtrak ConnectUS extensions the OP posted towards, and it has done pretty well. This bodes well for other extensions like this where it's extension of existing service to important city pairs like Hiawatha to Madison and Green Bay.
Anyways, Burlington extension from the ConnectUS document:
Whatever results in them offering a competitive product and turning a profit or at least breaking even, and stop being a liability for taxpayers.
And if it can't offer a competitive product after this round of funding, it needs to go bankrupt and be liquidated, and any of its assets with any kind of value sold off to whoever's willing to take them.
If Amtrak is designed to fail as alluded to earlier in this thread, then it should be shut down. Giving them any kind of money would be setting money on fire.
Last edited by albert648; 08-08-2023 at 05:43 PM..
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