“Why can’t America have great trains?” asks East Coast writer Simon Van Zuylen-Wood in the National Journal. The simple answer is, “Because we don’t want them.” The slightly longer answer is, “because the fastest trains are slower than flying; the most frequent trains are less convenient than driving; and trains are almost always more expensive than either flying or driving.”
Van Zuylen-Wood’s article contains familiar pro-passenger-train hype: praise for European and Asian trains; selective statistics about Amtrak ridership; and a search for villains in the federal government who are trying to kill the trains. The other side of the story is quite different.
For example, he notes that Amtrak “ridership has increased by roughly 50 percent in the past 15 years.” But he fails to note that the biggest driver of Amtrak ridership is gasoline prices, which 15 years ago were at an all-time low (after adjusting for inflation). Now that prices are falling, so is Amtrak’s ridership.
He also ignores the fact that Amtrak’s ridership is minuscule compared with flying or driving. Whereas highways moved around 87 percent of passenger travel and airlines around 12 percent in 2012, Amtrak’s share was just 0.14 percent. While that is an increase from 0.11 percent in 1999, it is a decrease from 0.15 to 0.16 percent in most of the years from 1975 through 1993, when gas prices were high.
Trains are great for moving large volumes of goods from point A to point B. America’s freight railroads are the envy of the world, but they make most of their money moving coal from mine to power plant; grain from elevator to port; and containers from port to inland distribution center. The railroads conceded less-than-carload shipments, the freight equivalent of passengers, to trucks and air freight back in 1975 when the Railway Express Agency went out of business.
Passenger train proponents argue that, over certain distances such as New York to Washington, trains can compete with airlines because have shorter downtown-to-downtown travel times. But the reality is that only 8 percent of Americans work downtown while less than 1 percent live downtown; in most urban areas, more people live or work within a few minutes of an airport than a train station.
One reason Amtrak’s share of travel is so low is that it is so expensive. While airfares averaged 13.8 cents per passenger mile in 2012, Amtrak fares averaged 33.9 cents. Amtrak is more expensive than driving, too, as Americans spend about 25 cents a passenger mile on auto travel (calculated by multiplying average auto occupancies by miles of driving divided by personal expenditures on driving).
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Amtrak fares are high despite the subsidies it receives from federal and state governments. Rail proponents argue that all modes of transportation are subsidized, but they neglect to mention that Amtrak subsidies per passenger mile are close to twenty times greater than subsidies to highways or airlines. Comparing government revenues and expenditures by mode with passenger miles of travel over the past decade reveals that subsidies to driving and flying have each averaged a bit more than a penny per passenger mile, while subsidies to Amtrak are nearly 24 cents per passenger mile. Counting user costs and subsidies, Amtrak is four times more expensive than flying and more than twice as expensive as driving.
Van Zuylen-Wood takes it for granted that Amtrak subsidies should be massively increased to bring America’s passenger rail system up to the standards found in Europe and Japan. Americans who visit Europe are often impressed by the region’s trains, but what they don’t see is that, despite the heavy subsidies to European passenger trains, European travel habits are not much different from our own. According to the European Union’s Panorama of Transport, residents of the EU-27 used intercity trains for just 6 percent of their travel while they drove for 74 percent in 2006, when Americans drove for 85 percent of travel. France has built lots of high-speed trains, yet 79 percent of travel there is by car.
Moreover, the countries that have built high-speed rail lines have succeeded mainly in capturing passengers away from low-speed trains, not cars or planes. Rail’s share of European travel was 8 percent before they began building high-speed rail lines; now it is just 6 percent.
Japan’s example is even more stark: when it built the world’s first high-speed rail line in 1964, only 12 percent of travel was by car and 70 percent was by train. Today, Japan has numerous high-speed trains, but trains carry little more than 25 percent of travel while cars carry 60 percent. The reality is that passenger trains are as obsolete in Europe and Japan as they are here, but local politicians keep throwing money at them.
Van Zuylen-Wood is so eager for his rail subsidies that he never mentions the clear alternative: intercity buses. In the last decade, and with virtually no subsidies, Megabus has revolutionized the intercity bus industry with low fares, mostly non-stop schedules, and free WiFi and power ports at each seat. While Van Zuylen-Wood repeats Amtrak’s claims that it carries more passengers in the New York-Washington corridor than the airlines, he neglects to mention that intercity buses carry even more than Amtrak (and automobiles carry many times more than all public conveyances combined).
Buses are more energy-efficient than rail, and between numerous city pairs offer more frequent and faster service than Amtrak at lower fares. For those who would turn up their noses at riding a bus, a number of companies offer luxury bus service between major cities with fewer seats, on-board food service, entertainment centers, and other amenities.
Amtrak supporters such as former Federal Railroad Administration director Joseph Szabo argue that passenger “rail deserves a predictable and reliable federal funding stream.” But it has one: fares. If fares won’t support passenger trains, there is no reason why the 99 percent of Americans who rarely if ever ride trains should be required to subsidize them. Let’s end all subsidies to all forms of transportation and let passenger trains operate where they can compete on a level playing field. That way people like Van Zuylen-Wood and myself can enjoy the trains we are willing to pay for and not expect others to subsidize our hobbies.
“Passenger train proponents argue that, over certain distances such as New York to Washington, trains can compete with airlines because have shorter downtown-to-downtown travel times. But the reality is that only 8 percent of Americans work downtown while less than 1 percent live downtown; in most urban areas, more people live or work within a few minutes of an airport than a train station.”
This is your weakest point. It’s not fair to counter an argument about a specific point-to-point proposal by quoting statistics about the entire country.
Where’s the talk of giving the people what they want? People want to be free, to be treated with respect, to be comfortable, … and to get something for nothing (or near nothing). Hence the success of the “Chinatown Busses” Frequent scheduled trips, clean comfortable busses, and inexpensive. You get the feeling they want your business.
If only Urban community transit could convince us they want our businesses.
The Republican and Tea Party hatred of Obama explains their opposition to his initiatives including expansion of intercity rail passenger service as much as anything. The transformation of California’s high speed rail project into a $100 billion+ welfare program for bureaucrats, consultants and engineering firms away from something that could be made to work also explains a portion of the antipathy towards passenger rail from many so-called conservatives. Unfortunately, transit and intercity rail have also become a political football in the “culture wars,” with idiots like George Will proclaiming trains as something “only wanted” by left wingers and Democrats–never mind that he takes the Acela regularly between D.C. and New York.
The Chinatown bus phenomenon is mostly irrelevant to anyone who isn’t poor. The Amtrak connecting bus network in California has proven over the last three decades that the self-conscious “middle class” has some tolerance for buses up to 2-3 hour travel times, but no longer, but mainly connecting to and from trains. The intercity bus market has expanded significantly mainly due to the increasing poverty in this country.
msetty-
Why won’t people who aren’t poor take a bus? I happen to believe people are largely rational, at least regarding decisions that affect them directly, and will generally pick the best mode of transportation for themselves. If somebody offers a bus service that is attractive to the middle class, the middle class will use it. For that matter, what’s the problem with a mode that is used largely by the lower classes? They have the right to their choices, if they pay the cost. It is amazing to me how many liberals hold the poor they claim to be advocates for in contempt. They are those tacky people taking the bus and shopping at Walmart.
Regarding the rest of your post, blaming anything you don’t like on the “Tea Party” is a common technique but it proves nothing. California’s high speed rail system was not transformed into a welfare program for various well to do interests. That is all it ever was.
FantasiaWHT,
You make a good point. Please tell all of the proponents of high-speed rail to quit talking about Amtrak’s market share in the New York-Washington corridor, the only corridor in America that has high densities of jobs and residents living in downtowns.
Blaming the California high speed rail boondoggle on Republicans and Tea Party supporters is just plain silly. The California High Speed Rail Authority is composed of neither and its support comes from the non-Republican Governor Moonbeam. Republicans are simply not a factor in California; it makes no sense to blame them for the excesses of Sacramento. Msettty’s well known hostility towards people who care about fiscal responsibility frequently causes him to make generalizations.
msetty is a one-trick planner living on a sprawling grape ranch instead of living somewhere where he could ride streetcars he loves so much.
His one trick is ridicule, whether it’s using loaded words and phrases (hatred, welfare program, antipathy, so-called conservatives, idiots, left wingers) or scare quotes.
msetty is an old and bitter sad sack, and his writing shows it.
msetty is also just plain wrong in his hasty generalizations about bus riders. According to one article, “Travelers like Hunasgi and Truitt fit discount bus companies’ target demographic: young, mobile adults who would rather spend their travel time surfing the Internet on an easy-to-book bus than waiting in line to go through airport security.”
But if it makes msetty feel better to make generalizations about class and ethnicity, perhaps he should take his invective, prejudice , and condescension back to his personal echo chamber or just go yell at his grapes.
Every American youth travelling around Europe loves the easy train travel and wonders why the USA doesn’t do the same thing. Then if they take Amtrak outside the NE corridor, they realize the USA is a huge country and there are not major cities every few hundred miles. Plus the train stations in most cities are not the hub of the city like they are in Europe. Amazing to learn that cultures and histories result in different transportation needs and wants!
msetty, I’m curious what you base your bus / poverty claim on. That hasn’t been my experience nor the Cranky Flier’s. Did we just luck out and have a bunch of non-impoverished people on our buses?
http://crankyflier.com/2010/05/14/the-good-and-bad-of-megabus-trip-report/
The downstairs clientele was a good one – they were quiet. The guy across from me was from the UK and was here touring around baseball parks. The guy across was traveling for work. I don’t know about anyone else because they were either asleep or working.
We pulled in to Indy exactly when we were told and that was it. It was a nice ride. So what does this mean for the airlines?
Well, short haul routes can easily be served with a bus or train, but a bus requires a lot less investment. The product onboard this new generation of buses is quite nice, and it might be something that airlines would want to consider as a partner in the future. Multi-modal is the cool thing to do, after all.
As for people wanting trains, I’m not sure that’s true. For example, we so many people enthralled with Metro Transit’s Green Line ( aka Central Corridor ) that they forget to buy a ticket to ride the train.
https://www.minnpost.com/glean/2015/04/fare-dodgers-green-line-cost-metro-transit-between-11k-and-22k-weekly