Short run regional doesn’t have to be Amtrak’s mandate when there are plenty of feeder lines like NJT and Septa able to step in. The problem is not rail vs roa

Short run regional doesn’t have to be Amtrak’s mandate when there are plenty of feeder lines like NJT and Septa able to step in. The problem is not rail vs road. The problem is that rail becomes a sinkhole for public fantasyland spending. Take for example the article cites how Amtrak got stuck with the bill for hurricane sandy infrastructure repairs never mind its legacy of bailing out Passenger rail service in the 70s. God only knows it would have gotten the ultimate bill for California’s insane rail project when it failed. The issue is there aren’t enough controls to keep out of control allocations, spending and let’s just call it what it is: corruption, greed and graft, from entering the system. This idea that we can’t build roads cost effectively while we can build rail is simply preposterous - Acela was predicated on the idea that twenty years ago Amtrak could figure out how to develop high speed rail and yet Acela beats the regular line by ten minutes between dc and ny and that’s largely due to fewer stops. I’m sorry to be a downer but I have zero confidence in a national rail initiative. If metros and regions want to improve commuter times great but there’s just nearly zero rationale to build more Amtrak infrastructure.