Amtrak & Innumerate Liberals

A number of articles in National Review last week supported the Antiplanner’s view that more infrastructure spending wouldn’t have prevented the May 12 Amtrak crash in Philadelphia. Rich Lowry says Amtrak is a huge waste that carries so few passengers that it is “a rounding error of American transportation.”

John Fund shows that Congressional budget cutting wasn’t responsible for the crash. Ian Tuttle considers the “rush to blame the Amtrak crash on infrastructure” shortfalls to be “shameful.” And Charles Cooke points out that the ones who were quickest to jump on the infrastructure bandwagon were mainly from the left.

Of course, all of these writers are on the right and thus would be expected to decry Amtrak. (There are some conservatives who support Amtrak and rail transit, but they are social conservatives, not fiscal conservatives.) Similarly, Amtrak supporters generally come from the left.

A few years ago, left-wing magazines and bloggers published a number of articles asking why conservatives hate transit, Amtrak, and high-speed rail. Only George Will asked the opposite question, which is why liberal love trains so much.

I don’t think any of the articles about conservatives got the right answer, which is that fiscal conservatives hate subsidies and transit and Amtrak both receive far more subsidies, per passenger mile, than other forms of transport. Instead, most of the articles assumed that conservatives loved highways and somehow viewed trains to be a threat to highways. Considering that we’ve poured close to a trillion dollars into transit in the last 45 years and per capita transit ridership has dropped, it isn’t much of a threat to autos. But the truth is that fiscal conservatives are indifferent about whether people choose to drive, ride buses, trains, or fly; they just want people to pay the full costs of their choices.

The question of why liberals love trains is more difficult. Will suggested that collectivists prefer collective transportation over individual transportation. I see a little of that when I hear people argue that we should help low-income people by giving huge subsidies to transit even though it would cost far less to simply give cars to low-income people. “Giving cars to poor people would create too much congestion,” one transit official argued during a debate with the Antiplanner.

It might be available easily but is cheapest online viagra not recommenced to take this drug without seeing a physician is dangerous. You are not unica-web.com levitra prescription wrong reading this. You may not be aware that online viagra india they’re there, but they are. Person taking this medication must be sexually stimulated; otherwise it won’t help in getting erection. buy line viagra But I don’t think collectivism is the main motivation. For most, I suspect the problem is innumeracy. Government subsidies to highways average about $40 billion per year, while subsidies to Amtrak average about $1 billion per year. Many people argue that Amtrak therefore deserves far more subsidies.

Never mind the fact that highways carry about 87 percent of all passenger miles while Amtrak carries 0.14 percent. Never mind the fact that transit is getting more than $40 billion in subsidies each year yet still carries only about 1.1 percent of passenger travel. As the Antiplanner has said many times before, instead of turning transportation policy into a competition of who can get the most subsidies, let’s just end all subsidies and let people make their own choices.

Liberals are also innumerate about the supposed environmental benefits of transit and Amtrak. Transit uses about the same amount of energy and emits the same amount of greenhouse gases per passenger mile as the average car. Amtrak does a little better, but if saving energy or reducing emissions is our goal, it would be far more cost effective to use that money giving a bunch of people Priuses, Leafs, or even Teslas.

Because liberals are innumerate, it is easy to convince them that subsidies to highways are huge, when in fact they are small per passenger mile. US PIRG has a study that vastly overestimates highway subsidies by assuming that any dollars not immediately paid for out of user fees must be subsidies. This includes bond sales that will be repaid by user fees, interest earned on unspent user fees, and similar items.

The study also neglects the fact that 20 percent of federal gas taxes and 30 percent of state gas taxes are diverted to non-highway uses such as transit. US PIRG simply ignores those revenues even though they were paid by highway users. The point is not so much that US PIRG has biased its report but that liberals are too quick to believe such shallow analyses.

Speaking at an American Dream conference in 2004, the late sociology Professor J.F. Scott, who is best known today for having developed the first mountain bike, argued that liberal trend setters are mostly from New York City, where they mainly ride transit and if they got driver’s license at all, it was in their late 20s. As a result, they viewed cars as something to be feared rather than a source of freedom, the way many teenagers look at them in less-dense areas. Thus, the anti-auto movement is really based on ignorance and fear, not on reason and analyses.

Scott could be correct. But either way, poor analytical skills seem to be behind much of the left’s view on transportation. Unfortunately, the left is very good at sloganeering even if the fiscal policies they advocate for so often turn out to be wrong.

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About The Antiplanner

The Antiplanner is a forester and economist with more than fifty years of experience critiquing government land-use and transportation plans.

21 Responses to Amtrak & Innumerate Liberals

  1. ahwr says:

    A hundred years ago cities were a miserable place to be. Some of what made cities miserable is gone. Crime, pollution and disease have declined dramatically, even if they have not been eliminated. Today in some cities the greatest negative impact may come from cars. Is there a point where the mobility they provide fails to exceed the destructive impact they have? I don’t mean in the aggregate, I mean in specific places. The mobility of a car in rural Nebraska should not be used to balance the destructive impact of excessive traffic on downtown Portland. Maybe the average vehicle mile is cheap, but is it still cheap if you say that you have to minimize the unpriced negative externalities of cars, and end up burying a road? Is it still cheap if you have to use cars to provide mobility for all, instead of dumping that job onto transit agencies?

  2. Fred_Z says:

    “destructive impact of excessive traffic on downtown Portland”

    What is “destructive”? What is “excessive”?

    Popular places will have large populations trying to get there. A tautology. The people rushing to downtown Portland do not think their actions are destructive or excessive, or they would not go. We like what we do.

    The outcry against destructive or excessive traffic is always a complaint either from a past user or occupant who is horrified to find that the “convenience price” of their destination or home has risen. The market price of a thing includes convenience (time, not having to wait in the cold for a bus, not having to ride a bus with a bunch of hacking, coughing, sneezing, disease riddled wretches, or listen to the inane stupidities of their conversations, or fear getting attacked or robbed etc., etc.) as well as money. However, a person’s self valuation of this convenience can probably be measured in money a la London’s congestion charge.

    So why not charge all vehicles entering central Portland a fee based on how many people they carry, and how much traffic they snarl? An empty big bus gets banged big time, likewise a bicycle, because even though it’s small, the scofflaw bastards who ride them always cause problems for traffic.

    Anyway, antiplanner, “innumerate liberals” is repetitive.

  3. paul says:

    I agree with the antiplanner that in this case Amtrak’s supporters are innumerate. However this is not limited to political labels such as “liberals”. In both 1981 and 2001 Republicans (conservatives?) cut taxes with the belief that this would increase revenue, but then increased spending more so that the budget deficit increased. Yet still there is a belief on the right that cutting taxes will reduce spending. It doesn’t, it just drives up the deficit if spending is not reduced. If voters want taxes reduced they must vote to reduce spending.

    So whether a policy is left, right, conservative, liberal, doesn’t make it numerate. It is numerate only because the numbers add up.

  4. Frank says:

    Meanwhile, Greece can’t make its payment to the IMF. Liberals and socialists aren’t necessarily innumerate; they just live in a fantasy land by ignoring economic realities and laws.

  5. msetty says:

    OK, if the hundreds of billions per year the U.S. pays for “free parking” isn’t to be charged to the act of driving, then what is it properly classified as?

    Remember all modes have terminals. Trains have stations, buses (usually) have stations and bus stops, and airplanes have airports. Cars have parking. So, again, where should the costs of “free parking” be properly charged?

    On parking and many other “hidden” costs and impacts of motor vehicles, auto apologists like The Antiplanner and the majority of posters her are “innumerate” by an order of magnitude or two more than Amtrak and transit supporters.

  6. letsgola says:

    FWIW, even if it were cheaper, giving cars to poor people would never, ever happen, because if it were seriously proposed, most “fiscal” conservatives would reveal themselves to really be moral conservatives, arguing that poor people don’t deserve cars because they’re lazy slackers who just want handouts. No conservative politician would ever propose this a serious alternative to transit subsidies for the poor.

  7. paul says:

    So what is the cost of the free parking? Please state your actual reference on a basis of costs per passenger mile as the antiplanner does about rail transit.

    If a government body has a parking lot they should charge for it. I see no reason taxpayers should subsidize parking anymore than expensive transit. (Go into a planning meeting and planners will agree that free parking is an unreasonable subsidy. Then tell them that they should start to pay for their parking and the excuses some as to why they are different.)

    However, if a private business wants to subsidize their parking for their customers that is their business decision. If a home owner wants to pay for a parking spot, that is their decision that they pay for. Let the user pay the fees. A person parking at a business is paying for the parking in the added cost of what they buy. An employee of a business that offers free parking is taking a benefit that has cost. By all means let those employees who don’t use parking get a refund.

  8. paul says:

    The historical development of cities drives how appropriate cars are for them. The very older core of cities was built around walking and cars can be a problem there, but it is a very small area. Local communities should be able to decide if they want to turn local streets into car free zones for pedestrians. However this is probably a very small area of most cities. It certainly appears that most businesses want cars to be able to drive past them and see their business, even if parking is in the rear of the business.

    Bottom line is that the local community should be able to decide with unbiased data from business and traffic engineers, etc. not from planners who dislike cars in principle.

  9. metrosucks says:

    I don’t think msetty could find one single person on the face of this earth who owns a business and subscribes to the ludicrous idea that providing a parking lot for customers is somehow a evil, socially damaging “subsidy” to them.

  10. MJ says:

    OK, if the hundreds of billions per year the U.S. pays for “free parking” isn’t to be charged to the act of driving, then what is it properly classified as?

    The act of shopping, the act of working, the act of visiting, or whichever act an individual is engaging in when they use said parking. That is how it is currently handled. And they do pay for it.

    Remember all modes have terminals. Trains have stations, buses (usually) have stations and bus stops, and airplanes have airports. Cars have parking. So, again, where should the costs of “free parking” be properly charged?

    It should be charged to the provider of the parking, who then can decide for themself whether to pass those charges on to the end user.

  11. MJ says:

    Maybe the average vehicle mile is cheap, but is it still cheap if you say that you have to minimize the unpriced negative externalities of cars, and end up burying a road? Is it still cheap if you have to use cars to provide mobility for all, instead of dumping that job onto transit agencies?

    You don’t need to bury a road to mitigate externalities of car use. And in a city like Portland, it is not feasible to force everybody onto transit. The cost to individual users in terms of time and out-of-pocket cost would be too high. There would always be an incentive for some share of them to switch to driving.

  12. MJ says:

    And to get back to the question at hand, it is not at all clear that insufficient funding had anything to do with the Amtrak crash. The left/right divide is merely a distraction. The bigger question is what Amtrak would have actually done with a couple of extra billion dollars had someone given it to them.

    Grandstanding about insufficient spending levels when you don’t even have the facts of the situation is abhorrent.

  13. Ohai says:

    I suspect liberals prefer transit over highways because highways don’t do an individual any good unless he or she is willing and able to make an enormous private investment in driving first. The cost of purchasing or leasing a car, insuring it, and maintaining it can be an enormous burden on someone with limited income.

    Pro highway people like the Antiplanner get to conveniently ignore all these “private” costs when comparing transit vs. highways in the same way they ignore the costs of negative externalities like pollution and road collision deaths. After all, in theory we’re all free to choose whether or not to own and drive a car. In practice, however, in a society entirely designed and built around the automobile, private car ownership becomes a practical necessity. As such it represents a substantial regressive tax on the poor, not to mention a frustrating barrier for those not capable of driving because they’re too young, too old, or disabled.

    Transit, on the other hand, welcomes any individual from the young to the very old and infirm, the poor to the very rich. Autonomous vehicles hold the same promise, but for them to truly replace transit we’ll have to embrace a lot more car sharing over our current system of nearly universal private car ownership. For ostensibly pro-AV folks like the Antiplanner, however, this vision of the future might just be too much more big-government collectivism, only this time dressed up in ghee-whiz tech.

  14. metrosucks says:

    Without car drivers to sponge off of, there would be no transit, period. How ironic that they always (deliberately?) overlook this.

  15. CapitalistRoader says:

    @Ohai:

    Transit, on the other hand, welcomes any individual from the young to the very old and infirm, the poor to the very rich. Autonomous vehicles hold the same promise, but for them to truly replace transit we’ll have to embrace a lot more car sharing over our current system of nearly universal private car ownership. For ostensibly pro-AV folks like the Antiplanner, however, this vision of the future might just be too much more big-government collectivism, only this time dressed up in ghee-whiz tech.

    It’s not my impression that the AP has anything against either autonomous cars or subscription-based vehicle access overtaking private car ownership. Quite the opposite in that he seems quite supportive of both. That’s my impression, anyway. Both developments will be privately funded and won’t involve governments much at all, aside from governments being able to dump inefficient, capital intensive mass transit systems in favor of providing vouchers to poor people for autonomous car rides.

  16. Ohai says:

    @CapitalistRoader

    The Antiplanner has more than once jokingly stated that instead of building this or that transit project it would be cheaper if government simply bought every rider a Prius. If that’s really true, and private cars are so great, then why isn’t that the Antiplanner’s official position?

    The answer is twofold. First, we all know that the suggestion is preposterous because the capital cost of a Prius is only a small portion of the true cost of operating a car. Second, the Antiplanner’s friends at the Cato Institute would never accept so naked a handout for anyone. That’s because it’s not just the supposed fact that transit is so wasteful and inefficient that bugs conservatives. Rather it’s the entire notion that government has any duty whatsoever to help someone get around if he or she can’t afford the basic price of admission: a private car.

    Autonomous vehicles may solve a lot of existing problems with cars but they don’t change the basic economics of moving lots of people around much. Therefore, if you accept the premise that government has a duty to make sure people can get around, at the end of the day we’re all going to have to buy some poor people Priuses, figuratively speaking, even if they don’t have to actually have to drive them.

  17. Sandy Teal says:

    If a store doesn’t want to provide free parking, then let’s see how it does in the marketplace.

    If Portland doesn’t want cars downtown, then go ahead and ban them and let’s see how it does in the marketplace. I’ll give you a thousand-to-one odds on what will happen, but let’s let them do it and see for sure. The bums and druggies in Portland will sure appreciate the experiment.

  18. ahwr says:

    @Sandy

    You don’t have to jump to extremes. There’s a middle ground between banning cars and destroying a city to make room for them.

    That said, getting rid of parking minimums everywhere would be a great idea.

  19. CapitalistRoader says:

    @Ohai

    Autonomous vehicles may solve a lot of existing problems with cars but they don’t change the basic economics of moving lots of people around much.

    That remains to be seen. Certainly autonomous cars will be less expensive, all in, than urban rail. They may or may not be less expensive than urban buses, but that fact that they go door-to-door is definitely an advantage. I’ve no doubt that once autonomous cars become ubiquitous advocates for the poor will demand that local governments provide vouchers for shared rides. I think this will be popular among voters owing to the reduced capital and ongoing costs allowed by eliminating trains and buses. I.e., why pay to support ridiculously expensive, publically owned mass transit systems when paying for vouchers to private autonomous car services would be much cheaper? Sorta’ like the Obamaphone: government doesn’t own the phone company but government pays for the limited service for people who can’t afford phones.

  20. Frank says:

    “government doesn’t own the phone company but government pays for the limited service for people who can’t afford phones.”

    I’d argue few cannot afford a $20 phone and $20 a month for unlimited talk and text.

  21. ahwr says:

    Frank I’m sure there are plenty who couldn’t afford unsubsidized rural service. (Landline) Phone companies wouldn’t offer service in plenty of places if they weren’t required to do so, or at least they would charge much more than they do now. You see that with broadband, the service is often very poor if you leave denser areas.

    What’s the road analogue of that? Free or heavily subsidized taxi vouchers for those who can’t afford mobility on their own? Transit is often cheaper today. Will in some cases be cheaper to use driverless cars at some point. Biggest expense for buses is the driver. If you lose him there would be quite a few profitable bus routes at today’s fares with today’s frequency. Driverless trains have existed for a long time, implementations typically more analogous to smart roads than smart cars, an approach that was abandoned for driverless cars. There are advantages of that approach over current signaling, it’s not just about cutting the train operator. But with existing signals you could make driverless trains work if you can get driverless to work, to avoiding paying an employee. Still think driverless cars would replace transit?

    Not everywhere, but in some places it will, at least at some times. Probably more than would be efficient, because you’ll have some cases of driverless taxis competing with buses that have an employee on board, where the cheapest option would’ve been a driverless bus (or train, or van etc…). Not because the transit employee would serve a purpose. Just because transit unions are stronger than taxi driver unions. Why do I think that? Commuter railroads moved away from conductors checking every ticket a long time ago in other countries. PoP cuts labor, can’t have that here…

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