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everything is cross subsidized and unfortunately no one is calculating roi but to be sure it is unlikely the corp profits that were actually paid in the us arent coveri g the enormous expenditure through the military. moreover gas taxes dont even cover maintenance.much of this is due to federalization. we all pay taxes to the feds and they determine which group of us gets the money back. republicans like to harp on welfare but its much larger than that. gas taxes in eastern cities paid for highways in arizona and other places. war spending has its own beneficiaries..largely in the south. ca benefits from federal irrigation, etc. lots of people pay taxes ut no one keeps tabs on roi. thats not the way it works. in transportation subsidies and regulatory policy rule the day. even amtrak pays taxes. sales tax , taxes on employees , alcohol taxes. subsidized train service can add value to surrounding properties as well much like a convention center. did drovers pay the full cost of highway construction when they knocked down neighborhoods and destroyed cities or did they use eminent domain and federal money to transfer wealth to suburbs while treating undesirable classes like u wanted inventory ?
The government reciepts from energy taxes are enormous. Exxon Mobil alone pays over 30 billion a year in income taxes. That's just one company, and just one kind of tax. Consumers pay billions every year as do many other energy companies. The government brings in literal boatloads of cash due to energy taxes. They also make money by leasing land to energy companies.
I'm sure that US Air has been helped by government expenditures.
But that doesn't justify subsidies for someone else, unless those subsidies were going to mean less money going out to the airline industry, or more money coming in from somewhere else in taxation and fees.
I can't see add'l rail subsidies as being a fiscal positive, and they would create displaced workers in the air and bus industries.
US Air wasn't just helped out. It was saved from collapse. Or kind of saved, depending on how you feel about America West. But, I don't see why displacing airline workers should be the only worry. You have to weigh them against other jobs that might be created if the subsidy were applied elsewhere.
The government reciepts from energy taxes are enormous. Exxon Mobil alone pays over 30 billion a year in income taxes. That's just one company, and just one kind of tax. Consumers pay billions every year as do many other energy companies. The government brings in literal boatloads of cash due to energy taxes. They also make money by leasing land to energy companies.
of course thats not even enough to cover the deferred road maintenance let alone the $2 trillion in war expenses to influence the price of oil or the military support for shipments. exxon pays taxes on business not roads. if taxpayers support roads it increases their profits. Iraq war costs U.S. more than $2 trillion: study
Low-cost carriers and especially ultra-low-cost-carriers like Allegiant, Spirit and what Frontier wants to be typically only fly leisure routes with rare, grandfathered-in exceptions (like Frontier's Denver hub or Spirit's Detroit flights). LBE-ORD or PHL (or Trenton or Wilmington) do not make that cut.
Actually, Frontier flies TTN-CLE and many other non leisure routes out of TTN. Please check the TTN route map if you do not believe this statement. Spirit recently launched DTW-MSP (cold city-cold city) but I think it may just be seasonal for the summer. Allegiant's routes are totally leisure focused however, generally with one end being a sun destination.
Both Frontier and Spirit however are flying routes generally above a 6 hours of a drive distance. TTN-CLE and TTN-RDU are still driveable within a day, but there is no MegaBus competition. I do wonder if Frontier evaluated that Philly to Pittsburgh has MegaBus. I still believe that if you are driving from NJ to Pittsburgh, you need to leave early in the day and it's not much different than driving from NJ to Raleigh, NC. The extra couple of hours to Raleigh is far easier. The drive is far easier as one isn't driving through Appalachian mountains and the curviness of the 2-lane only roads with as many tractor trailers.
The low cost alternative, MegaBus, has changed especially with MegaBus stopping in State College, with trip becoming longer.
But I can't really complain. I've been impressed with Frontier, otherwise, and have even used TTN-CLE as a way to commute to Pittsburgh. It'd just be better if it flew TTN-PIT. I'd bet there is more demand between NJ/Philly - Pittsburgh, than NJ/Philly - Cleveland.
Pittsburgh's economic alignment with the Midwest has been on the wane since the deindustrialization of the 1980's. Since then, it's slowly but surely become more aligned with New York, Philadelphia and Washington DC, and the migration numbers illustrate that. Exchanging a bunch of people with Cleveland and Columbus doesn't magically make Pittsburgh exchange a lot of people with Detroit, Cincinnati, Indianapolis or St. Louis.
It makes sense as the nearest large Eastern market, Washington DC, has a regional outskirt community, Hagerstown, within a mere 3 hours of a driving distance.
The nearest large Midwest market, Chicago, is about 7-7.5 hours away.
If it wasn't for Washington DC's region, I'd guess the Midwest, led by Chicago, might have greater or equal sway maybe over the Northeastern cities led by New York, Boston and Philly. Chicago still boasts superb access over NYC mainly by low cost, short distance (1 hr) flight. Although Southwest's fares aren't low fares anymore.
The government reciepts from energy taxes are enormous. Exxon Mobil alone pays over 30 billion a year in income taxes. That's just one company, and just one kind of tax. Consumers pay billions every year as do many other energy companies. The government brings in literal boatloads of cash due to energy taxes. They also make money by leasing land to energy companies.
Not to mention the massive taxes we pay as shareholders (owners). The layers of taxation is huge, but some folks don't get it.
The Pennsylvanian should run twice daily. Keep the current one that leaves Philly in the
afternoon (I believe around 12:45) and add one in the morning. With Pittsburgh keep the 7:20 and add another in the afternoon to Philly.
I'd use it if it did an overnight run. Instead of wasting a day on a slow train it's the perfect length for a nights sleep, wake up, & voila you're at your destination be it philly or NYC.
Not to mention the massive taxes we pay as shareholders (owners). The layers of taxation is huge, but some folks don't get it.
it doesn't help that buster is using inflated numbers
Quote:
Of Chevron’s $20 billion tax expense, more than $17 billion was in taxes owed to foreign countries..ConocoPhillips...In fiscal 2012, the company reported more than $15 billion in pre-tax income and recorded nearly $8 billion in tax expenses. Yet very little — less than $1 billion — of this expense was due to taxes charged by U.S. federal, state or local governments
I'm not sure you can say that you "get it" while others don't. using misleading numbers might help an argument in some quarters but the reality is that it doesn't clear anything up at all. the numbers related to non road related subsidies are absolutely enormous and that's before the road related subsidies over the years. the reality is most forms of transportation receive subsidies...just because you drive a private vehicle doesn't mean you aren't being subsidized. it might mean that, it might not. as pointed out, just because the state decides to subsidize intercity bus service to small cities throughout the state doesn't mean all buses lose money. trains also lose money, unless they're fast, then they turn operating profits though often don't turn positive returns on capital in farebox revenue (of course, real estate is the elephant in the room, the private railroads made loads of money in real estate, today, taxpayers pay for roads to be built, developers make all the profits from land development which is okay, but heaven forbid the same principle be applied to transit).
Quote:
Originally Posted by UKyank
I'd use it if it did an overnight run. Instead of wasting a day on a slow train it's the perfect length for a nights sleep, wake up, & voila you're at your destination be it philly or NYC.
these trains lose too much money. you may be "wasting" the day but other people get on and off the train when it runs during the day. it would be more cost effective to reduce the trip time than to run trains overnight. it appears megabus eliminated its overnight run.
Quote:
Originally Posted by avg12
...
But I can't really complain. I've been impressed with Frontier, otherwise, and have even used TTN-CLE as a way to commute to Pittsburgh. It'd just be better if it flew TTN-PIT. I'd bet there is more demand between NJ/Philly - Pittsburgh, than NJ/Philly - Cleveland.
it's a price sensitive market. southwest said, when it cancelled the service, the market is profitable at low fuel prices but not at high fuel prices. in most of the world this is the sweet spot for high speed rail. 265 miles from philly as the crow flies. unlike the northeast corridor the land in between isn't particularly expensive. the problem largely lies in just how expensive it is in the US to build things. it simply costs less to build these projects in the countries that have them
it's a price sensitive market. southwest said, when it cancelled the service, the market is profitable at low fuel prices but not at high fuel prices. in most of the world this is the sweet spot for high speed rail. 265 miles from philly as the crow flies.
Southwest downsized it's footprint in PHL, which funded a lot 737 aircraft for ATL at the time when Southwest was merging with AirTran and Southwest introduced itself to ATL. Fuel prices are a scapegoat.
For this route specifically, it's not comparable because Southwest flew 4x daily on PHL-PIT on a business schedule competing against US. US offered more than 8 daily frequencies and had the PHL hub that fed trans Atlantic flights through it. US and UA were both Star Alliance members at the time, and business passengers from NJ would book US over Southwest, sometimes through united.com if they were from Central and Northern NJ and had FF loyalty through Continental/United.
A Frontier or Spirit offering would be from an alternate airport on one end (either LBE if on the PIT end, or TTN, ILG or ACY on the Phila. end), no greater than 1x daily, and wouldn't be matched by US/AA.
Southwest deleted PHL-RDU, and Frontier has shown success on TTN-RDU even though most probably still drive between Raleigh and NJ. CMH didn't pan out. But I believe PIT is more of a destination for PHL pax, and vice versa, than CMH is. They do bracket CMH with CVG and CLE however from TTN.
Regarding low fares between Pittsburgh and Chicago, Southwest isn't providing them. The lowest advance purchase fare is about $100 one-way. I can find lower fares on Frontier and Spirit by about $30 less from eastern destinations to Chicago that are 300 miles longer.
Before someone disses Spirit:
Southwest offers two checked bags and change fee insurance, but it's like going to a restaurant and buying a dinner and two desserts are included (when you might not even want it) and it's in the price. While advance purchase fares are reasonable on Southwest, the walk up fares and within 2 week fares are quite high.
I do wonder if Spirit would consider moving from LBE to PIT. Spirit at LBE hasn't been growing. It actually has decreased with the loss of DFW service. Spirit has shown more interest in primary airports as well. It left AZA to move to PHX last year. The one exception is ACY but it has a flight crew based there and has been there for a long time.
Spirit just recently announced Kansas City (MCI), and Kansas City is a smaller metropolitan region than Pittsburgh, but Spirit is committing more service into MCI than LBE.
One route that is being added there is MCI-ORD, and it's not just for the summer, and it's roughly the same distance as PIT-ORD (50 miles greater by drive but not significant), and it figured it was likely ripe for some low air fares.
Last edited by avg12; 04-23-2014 at 08:24 AM..
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