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> the intent of transportation infrastructure isn't to turn a profit If you listen to some activists and look at the budget, you'd think that the intent of AmT
by microcolonel 7y ago
> the intent of transportation infrastructure isn't to turn a profit
If you listen to some activists and look at the budget, you'd think that the intent of AmTrak is to lose as much money as possible without arousing suspicion.
There's a big difference between not turning a consistent profit and losing more money than it could possibly save us. If the point was really to serve as transportation that can compete with the automobile at the point of sale (so that it would actually take cars off the road), or in terms of speed (increasing the economic output of passengers), most AmTrak lines and railcar-miles fail that test.
- bbanyc 7y agoThe intent of Amtrak was to take the burden of passenger rail off the private railroads, lose money for a few years, and then quietly shut down. It's long been in a political gray area, just popular enough that the government wouldn't dare close it, but not popular enough to be funded and managed like "real" modes of transportation. So it's stuck in the '70s and probably always will be.