No One’s Riding Trains So Spend More

Amtrak ridership is down more than 75 percent. Commuter-rail ridership is down more than 80 percent. So naturally Amtrak and commuter-rail agencies want more money to expand service.

Commuter train in Utah. Photo by Paul Kimo McGregor.

Amtrak wants to resume service on a route from New Orleans to Jacksonville, or possibly just to Mobile, that had been dropped after Hurricane Katrina. The renewed route would begin operating in 2022 with full federal funding of operating costs for the first year. The implication is that Amtrak is demanding that Alabama and other states provide some of the funding after that. Proponents claim a 15-to-1 benefit-cost ratio. It’s more like 1-to-15. Their legislatures should say no.

Connecticut has one of the worst-patronized commuter-rail systems in the country. Fares covered less than 5 percent of operating costs in 2019 and the average car, which has 75 seats and room for 45 more standing, carried just 11 passengers. As of December 2020, ridership was down 90 percent from 2019 numbers. So naturally the state wants to add a new route. The main argument for the train is that “the track is there,” says one legislature. Wouldn’t want to let it go to waste, now, would we?

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The trains take just over two hours to go from Provo to Ogden, a distance of 81 miles. That’s 40 miles per hour. For a lot less money, commuter-train passengers could ride faster buses on I-15’s congestion-free HOT lanes.

Naturally, the state wants to spend another $200 million to double-track the line. These are commuter trains, which means most traffic is in-bound in the morning and out-bound in the evening. Why do they need two tracks? Utah Transit runs trains in both directions in both morning and afternoon because it doesn’t have enough trainsets to just run one way. But buying more trainsets would cost a lot less than $200 million (and buying buses would cost even less).

The state is also looking at extending commuter trains statewide, meaning as far south as Cedar City and as far east as Green River. Utah isn’t the biggest state in the West, but trips from Green River to Salt Lake City would be at least three hours long while trips from Cedar City to Salt Lake would be close to five hours. Unless we are talking about telecommuters who just go into the office one day a week, that’s not reasonable for commutes.

Americans love passenger trains and state legislators seem to be no exceptions. But these plans are ridiculous.