The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) estimates that adding 15 new overnight routes to Amtrak’s system will cost taxpayers $46 billion to $59 billion (see pages 80 to 159 of this 18.8-MB file) plus increase Amtrak’s annual operating costs by $1.1 billion to $1.6 billion. The FRA did not estimate ridership or fare revenues, but it did estimate that adding these routes would reduce driving by 0.014 percent and the annual number of highway accidents by 0.016 percent.
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Amtrak currently has 15 overnight train routes that carried just over 2.0 billion passenger-miles in 2023 (see page 7). These routes cost $1.3 billion to operate in that year (not counting depreciation) and earned just under $600 million in fare revenues. Amtrak admits all of them except the Virginia-Florida Auto Train lost money, and when depreciation is counted that train probably lost money as well.
Last February, the FRA identified 15 new routes that would approximately double the long-distance route-miles operated by Amtrak. The agency’s latest report (actually a 197-slide PowerPoint show) estimates the costs and some of the benefits of adding each of these new routes.
Based on the FRA’s numbers, ridership on these new routes would probably be even less than on the existing ones. While the FRA didn’t estimate ridership, it did estimate that these trains would take 460 million vehicle-miles off the highways each year. Assuming 1.5 people per car, that’s 690 million passenger-miles. If half the people taking Amtrak would otherwise have driven while the other half would have flown or taken a bus, this represents only about two-thirds of the passenger-miles carried by the existing 15 routes.
The FRA’s PowerPoint show, which it issued in the last week of June, is careful to repeatedly say that these routes are “not FRA proposals for service.” Instead, the FRA is merely studying these proposals for Amtrak and federal and state officials. Presumably, at least some people in the FRA realize that it would be ridiculous to spend close to $60 billion just to reducing driving by 0.014 percent.
Most of the 47,000 people who have so far commented on the FRA’s study don’t think this is a ridiculous idea, however. According the FRA, 99 percent of them want other people to subsidize their train rides, and they don’t seem to care how big those subsidies would have to be or whether they are proportional to subsidies to other modes of travel.
One way to see how cost-ineffective this plan would be is to compare it with the Interstate Highway System. The total capital cost of 15 new Amtrak routes is about 10 percent of the cost (adjusted for inflation to today’s dollars) of the interstate highways. Those highways carry about 20 percent of all passenger-miles and 20 percent of all freight ton-miles in this country. Amtrak carries virtually no freight, so to be cost-effective this plan would have to carry well over 2 percent of passenger-miles.
Not only will it not carry 2 percent of passenger-miles, it won’t even carry 0.2 percent. In fact, it would be lucky to carry 0.02 percent, meaning the interstates were roughly 100 times as cost-effective as new Amtrak long-distance routes.
In 2019, subsidies to driving and air travel both averaged about a penny per passenger-mile, while subsidies to Amtrak were almost 36 cents per passenger-mile. Airline subsidies for 2023 are not yet available but highway subsidies were still about a penny per passenger-mile. Meanwhile, both federal and state subsidies to Amtrak increased by about 60 percent even as ridership dropped by 10 percent so subsidies grew to 68 cents per passenger-mile.
The proposed new routes would almost certainly cost even more per passenger-mile. If people really want to reduce the impacts of driving on the environment and public safety, there are much more cost-effective ways of doing so.
It appears from the FRA report that passenger-train advocates will claim that adding new Amtrak routes will increase connectivity and access to various resource. The report counts the number of medical centers, institutions of higher education, historically black colleges and universities, military installations, and units of the National Park System that will be “served” by each new route.
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However, passenger trains aren’t truly capable of providing people with “connectivity.” Compare the above map of FRA’s concept of Amtrak’s future route system, including both the 15 new long-distance trains as well as various state-supported local trains, with the nation’s highway system. The total route miles on this map are approximately the same as the Interstate Highway System, which is less than 2 percent of the nation’s paved roads.
Suppose someone wants to go from Nashville to St. Louis, from Denver to Phoenix, or from Atlanta to Cleveland, Albuquerque to Salt Lake City, or any of hundreds of other city pairs that are not directly served by the Amtrak concept system. Doing so would require going hundreds of miles out of the way and taking two or more trains whose schedules may not easily connect with one another. In contrast, even where there are no interstate highways directly between two cities, there are plenty of other roads people can drive on at speeds at least as fast as Amtrak. Moreover, air travel between any two cities requires almost no infrastructure and so is often even less expensive than driving.
Congress didn’t give Amtrak enough money in the 2021 infrastructure bill to fund all of the routes in the FRA report. Instead, Amtrak’s current focus is on expanding its state-supported day trains, which means it needs to get the states to agree to fund operating costs. However, if the Democrats gain control of both houses of Congress in 2025, it is easily to imagine that they would give Amtrak another $60 billion to double Amtrak’s system even though it would have a trivial effect on the nation’s transportation and environmental quality.
Want more train riders, make America Scenic Again.
Since most amtrak riders are seasonal, Company make sufficient use, by operating exactly as they should. Increase availability of access to tourism friendly destinations and make their existing destinations more tourist friendly. That’s why most US tourism train rides are natural scenic areas, not it’s urban areas.
Of course, if Politicians would clean up their cities….. *Cough* fat chance.
U.S. cities beyond the Appalachian Mountains often look different from cities east of the mountains. The reason is: Jefferson. The Midwest grew up under the influence of Jefferson’s grid system, which he developed under the influence of European Enlightenment thinkers. (The third president of the U.S. was a major student of European architecture. If you visit his house in Virginia, it’s kind of like visiting a Roman temple.) So in a way, the classic American “grid” cities are totally European in inspiration — with the caveat that they only rarely have an equivalent in labyrinthine Europe. As such are much more broadly laid out than Medieval Europes clusterfuk of dense packed alleys and one may ancient streets.
https://placesjournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Esperdy-lead-Ugly-America.jpg
Tourists Don’t flock here.
https://thumbor.forbes.com/thumbor/fit-in/x/https://www.forbes.com/home-improvement/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Charleston_South_Carolina.png
They flock here.
New generation of night trains coming to Austria:
https://www.seat61.com/trains-and-routes/nightjet-new-generation.htm
Troubling news from Paris as freedom and mobility decline to 19th century levels:
https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/how-cities-can-use-paris-model-implementing-safer-street-infrastructure
Paris has more persistent problems.
Of the sub saharan variety…
French voters have elected for politicians support unfettered mass migration. From group where gang rape and female genital mutilation and zoophilia. Oh and Rampant HIV proliferation.
Left: stop having kids for climate
Also: we need import millions of people to address declines in birthrates.
We all saw writing on wall. Jordan Peterson described how the US military determined that people with an IQ below 83 (1 in 10 people in the USA) could not be trained for anything at any level of the organization that was not counter-productive. Immigrants iQ from Africa and MidEast is barely functional evidenced by never ending and constantly censored real time footage of these people engaging in beastility, minor rape and cophrophagia (eating feces)
The “Great Replacement” hit cities like Chicago/Baltimore decades ago when Suburban flight essentially gutted cities financial capacities for supporting tax base and Public services….
Because black/Hispanics are largely net deficit on public finances (They take more in public service than they pay in taxes Early onset). Their GDP and tax brackets make them incompatible with services they Demand and Cities population demand; the economies of scale of living in dense cities is always trumped by financial costs of city upkeep. Once a City becomes a White-Minority; Economic and social collapse occur.
1-2 generations Brown majority you have Atlanta, 2-3 generations you have Chicago, 3-4 generations you have Detroit or Flint and after 4 generations you have South Africa and Former Rhodesia aka Zimbawbwe.
The largest bicycle parking lot in Île-de-France has just opened at Gare du Nord, facilitating the growth of bike-transit multimodality in the French capital.
Co-designed by Dutch consultant @Movares, it offers 1200 secure spaces.
https://x.com/Cycling_Embassy/status/1810585133465907583
You need Dutch engineers for a glorified shed?
Amtrak needs 40-60 Billion dollars
NOT for high speed rail mind you, BUT just for running trains. For an organization that loses money; Now they’re literally telling you. We have to Lose 40-60 Billion MORE dollars,
In China, a 500 mile high speed train trip is 50% faster and produces 90% less CO2 emissions vs a plane trip in the US ?? covering the same distance
https://x.com/Factschaser/status/1810327064223920547
Information about the Al Boraq, Morocco’s 320 kmh/h high speed train connecting Casablanca – Rabat – Kenitra – Tangier:
https://x.com/IntercitySimon/status/1774865036927783019
AP: ” In contrast, even where there are no interstate highways directly between two cities, there are plenty of other roads people can drive on at speeds at least as fast as Amtrak”
In contrast to the hassle of train travel with needing to buy a ticket, with driving, all you need is to buy a car.
AP: “Moreover, air travel between any two cities requires almost no infrastructure and so is often even less expensive than driving.”
Astounding to hear that airports do not qualify as infrastructure.
JH: “Astounding to hear that airports do not qualify as infrastructure.” What’s truly astounding is you don’t understand the meaning of the word “between.”
What’s truly astounding is you don’t understand the meaning of the word “between.”
Do you not need an airport at each destination? Or are you proposing issuing parachutes to the passengers?
Most airports have vast open spaces around them and wide highways, dozens of miles away from their city centers so that planes can take off and land safely. But technology changes quickly – once we invent planes that can fly underground (like trains can) they probably will require much less land and infrastructure around them.
Sarcasm aside
Janehavisham is right “Technology changes quickly”
That’s why technological investments over LONG time frames are risky investments.
“Investments in technologies with Long timeframes/introductions are risky ventures, because no one can predict what technologies will emerge to compete against it by the time it unveils”
High speed rail requires infrastructure, BUILT to an amazingly precise standard at significant expense; often in this case public.
Geez, is it just me or is janehavisham the most annoying commenter on the internet?
The internet is a huge place and I’ve experienced a tiny fraction of it but janehavisham is probably the most annoying commenter I’m familiar with.
i have ridden the Amtrak Zephyr from Reno the Chicago. if you don’t get a cabin at great expense (more than a flight if I recall) you shake all night in a seat and smell body odor and farts. and you are stuck on the train except for smoke breaks at small stops. in a car at least one can locate a scenic stop and pull over and view it often in solitude. i get that some short route trains linking dense urban cities to each other might make some sense….long routes ones suck.
I’m proposing a train vs airplane race – but not like you’re used to. The race will be from today until the first (true) high-speed train runs between Metroplex (D&FW) and Houston against the first green (fuel cell electric? legit biofuel? efuel?) commercial airplane flight between the two metropolitan areas. Bets?
You think I’m annoying? That’s nothing, read this:
https://www.fastcompany.com/91153405/even-amtrak-was-surprised-by-the-instant-popularity-of-its-new-chicago-twin-cities-route
“That total ridership exceeded Amtrak’s forecasts—which Ray Lang, vice president of Amtrak State Supported Service, says were already “very optimistic”—by 2,900 passengers. “What that really means,” he adds, “is that there’s a strong demand for short-distance corridor trains in the United States to provide that transportation option for travelers that don’t want to drive or fly.”
“Amtrak’s Borealis launched on May 21. In June, the line’s first full month of service, it saw more than 18,500 riders. That averages about 300 passengers a day, in each direction … exceed(ing) Amtrak’s forecasts … by 2,900 passengers”
So, they predicted 15,600 and saw 18,500, in a month—counting every person who got on anywhere and got off anywhere else—and Amtrak takes a victory lap, boldly proclaiming 300 passengers a day suggests “strong demand for short-distance corridor trains in the United States.”
That’s total bullshit—typical for Amtrak.
If you were to count every person who got on any highway ramp and got off at any other highway ramp between Chicago and Minneapolis-St. Paul, I’m quite sure they would add up to well over 18,500 people PER MINUTE!
That, Amtrak, is what strong demand looks like! 300 passengers a day is indistinguishable from zero demand.
Amtrak goes on to say, “ A good portion of those Borealis trips are likely directly replacing car rides, meaning they’re avoiding congestion and emissions.”
Reality: Removing 300 people a day (about 200 cars) from 400 miles of Interstate Highway is akin to decimal dust. The impact on congestion and emissions is incalculable.