TrainBlog by Marcel Marchon

The lesson: we think of government-owned Amtrak as money-losing socialism, but the money-losing airline industry as a bunch of noble capitalists. Maybe we should re-examine our national transportation policies the way JetBlue is rethinking its customer-service policies.

[Quoted from Allan Sloan: Lessons From JetBlue’s Meltdown ]

That comment about the airline industry - my feeling exactly. As we all know, Amtrak is a money-losing entity. Lots of people think it could be otherwise, but I just don’t think so. But then, the much touted airline industry is also a money loser. Nobody really knows about the road transportation industry, because there is no single entity at whose income statement one could look at, but last I heard, most of the roads are paid for by the taxpayer and can therefore be considered a subsidy of the road transportation industry, so they’re probably not real profitable either. Looks like the only profitable transportation entities are freight railroads - they pay for their own infrastructure and still make a profit.

Well, maybe the general conclusion should be that transportation in general is just too cheap nowadays, i.e. the operators don’t charge as much money as they should in order to pay all the bills. I believe the general public in the USA somehow has the notion that transportation is/should be “free” and that cheap airfares are as much a basic human right as freedom or free speech… That’s just not true - especially with “Global Warming” showing up on people’s horizon more and more, I hope that those same people will soon have to recognize that transportation is a major factor. And the only way to really teach them is through their pockets - get them where it hurts most: charge more money for it. And then they might well recognize that trains are a much more efficient means of transportation than either air or road.

(via TicketPunch).

The Washington State Transportation Commission recently oversaw the creation of a study of freight and passenger rail needs for the State of Washington - the final study plus various other documents and presentations are available at the Commissions website. If you have some spare moments, take a peek - there’s some very interesting information in those.

The Legislature provided the Commission with funding and a mandate to conduct a statewide rail capacity and system needs analysis. The Washington State Transportation Commission oversaw this study of strategic freight and passenger rail system needs, challenges and opportunities. The study reviewed the current powers, authorities, and interests the state has in freight and passenger rail and recommended policies for state participation and ownership of rail infrastructure and service delivery. The study also prepared a plan for managing state owned rail assets.

[Quoted from Washington State Rail Capacity & System Needs Study - Washington State Transportation Commission ]

I’d wish that other states (like California …) and the Federal Government would undertake similar studies - the result should certainly be interesting to read!

The Lott-Lautenberg Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act, formerly known as Senate Bill #1516, has been reintroduced as the Lautenberg-Lott Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act under Senate Bill #294 in the new Congress.

Washington, D.C.—Senators Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) and Trent Lott (R-MS), appearing at a joint news conference this noon at Washington Union Station, announced that they were introducing today their Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act. The new bill, S. 294, is similar to S. 1516 in the last Congress, except for changes in the dates and technical amendments.

[via NARP Press Release]

This proposed legislation would, among other things:

• Reauthorize and provide funding for Amtrak for 5 years
• Establishes an 80% federal match funding mechanism for capital projects.
• Requires the development of a long-range Federal rail policy

Adron has a post on his blog where he attempts to calculate how high the gas taxes would have to be to actually cover all costs associated with road construction and maintenance. His conclusion:

In no scenario does the gas tax cover roadway maintenance except in certain circumstances. Even on the vast majority of the interstates gas taxes don’t cover the costs. If they where to cover the costs the taxes would have to increase from 10-35 cents per gallon to about 60-80 cents per gallon minimum. In addition to that if new construction and maintenance where factored in for ongoing expansion of roadways that would have to increase somewhere to the tune of $1.20-2.00 per gallon.

[Quoted from Transit Sleuth : Gas Taxes for Roads?]

The main take from this should be the following: a lot of people in politics and elsewhere complain about the fact that public transportation (especially Amtrak) is not “self-sufficient” - this calculation hear clearly shows that road-based transportation is also not “self-sufficient” and I believe a similar calculation applied to air traffic would show the same. What follows is that no means of transportation is currently “self-sufficient” (i.e. pays its own costs), but rather relies on certain subsidies to be paid out of general tax monies.