As C.P. Zilliacus noted in one of his comments yesterday, Slate published an article subtitled, Why Do Conservatives Hate Trains So Much?. The writer, David Weigel, covered most of the bases, but a couple of clarifications are in order.
First but not foremost, Weigel seems to confuse passengers with passenger miles when he writes, “Amtrak got $2.2 billion in pure subsidies in 2010 and carried 28.7 million people, for around 13 cents per passenger, although some researchers estimate the annual cost at closer to 30 cents. Highways got $42 billion in funds in fiscal year 2010, but far more people use them; the estimate puts cost at between 1 cent and 4 cents per driver.”
I told him that Amtrak subsidies are nearly 30 cents per passenger mile (not per passenger), and road subsidies are about a penny a passenger mile (not per driver). Even his arithmetic is wrong: $2.2 billion in subsidies divided by 28.7 million passengers is $76 per passenger, not 13 cents. I’m not even sure where he got the $2.2 billion in subsidies; I think it was closer to $1.7 billion in 2009. Maybe this is one reason why reporters like trains so much: they can’t do the arithmetic.
