The House of Representatives agreed to extend reauthorization for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for four months and for surface transportation for six months. That’s not as long as the two years the Senate wanted for surface transportation, but apparently House Republicans weren’t ready to give up the gas tax (which would otherwise have expired at the end of this month) as a bargaining chip for a more sensible reauthorization bill.
Reauthorization of the FAA has foundered on the essential air service program which subsidizes commercial airline service to about 100 rural communities in the lower 48 states and another 45 communities in Alaska. This subsidy cost about $170 million in 2010, some $12 million of which went to the Alaska airports.
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Now the American Bus Association has proposed to replace this air service with buses in 38 of the cities. This, they say, would require a much lower subsidy, saving taxpayers nearly $89 million a year. The report was also sponsored by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Taxpayers for Common Sense, and Reason Foundation.
The Antiplanner thinks this is a great idea, but it will be a hard sell. Supporters of the essential air service program want the subsidy not because they really want airline service to their communities but because they think having airline service will promote economic development. With city leaders convinced that streetcars will stimulate economic development in ways that buses would not, it will be hard to convince them that buses can do the same as planes.
Even if they save 89 million who’s to say they won’t piss it away on something else. Or ask for keeping the money to run unneccesary buses to other areas. Or spend the money on more expensive luxury buses. Alaska gets more government pork than almost any other state.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EWFPhlZtp4
The Antiplanner wrote:
Reauthorization of the FAA has foundered on the essential air service program which subsidizes commercial airline service to about 100 rural communities in the lower 48 states and another 45 communities in Alaska. This subsidy cost about $170 million in 2010, some $12 million of which went to the Alaska airports.
Two things make Alaska different from other states, and make at least some federal airline and airport subsidies in that state reasonable.
(1) The enormous land area of the state; and
(2) The reality that many villages in Alaska are not on the highway network (and a fair number are not served by the state ferry system either, especially “inland” Alaska and areas along the Bering Sea and Arctic Ocean coasts).
There are a few places in the coterminous 48 states that are not on the highway network (this is one), but most places receiving subsidies for air service could probably make do with bus service and without the federal subsidies.
The Antiplanner also wrote:
Supporters of the essential air service program want the subsidy not because they really want airline service to their communities but because they think having airline service will promote economic development. With city leaders convinced that streetcars will stimulate economic development in ways that buses would not, it will be hard to convince them that buses can do the same as planes.
Excellent point.
Wonder if there are any places receiving both subsidies for air travel and subsidies for streetcar/light rail construction?
LazyReader wrote:
Even if they save 89 million who’s to say they won’t piss it away on something else.
Though that is the kind of reasoning that’s used to keep all sorts of wasteful projects funded, especially at the federal level.
Or ask for keeping the money to run unneccesary buses to other areas.
Though we can run an awful lot of bus service for what is demanded for subsidies to air travel and wasteful passenger rail projects.
Randall:
@$214 per passenger trip, that is a higher subsidy than the worst performing Amtrak lines.
About 30 of these cities are already served by Amtrak trains subsidized by the government. Why not just send them to the train station? No additional subsidy of any kind is required – the train is already running.
CPZ:
Though we can run an awful lot of bus service for what is demanded for subsidies to air travel and wasteful passenger rail projects.
How? Because subsidizing buses is magically not “wasteful” while subsidizing planes and trains is?
I’m with CPZ: in AK you need planes.
DS
In all of these communities, especially in Alaska, I would recommend providing no subsidy. If private carriers cannot provide services at a profit, so be it.
One community I know about, Victoria, TX is an hour’s drive from Hobby airport and on the bus route from Houston to and from the RioGrande Valley. Numerous passenger buses pass through Victoria daily. Yet, they get 1.5 million dollars to have an airplane carry them to IAH. Ridiculous.
I live an hours drive from IAH, perhaps the government will shell out 1.5 million so that I can have the convenience of flying from Ellington field(by my house) to IAH. I hate making that drive to IAH.
I love Mason City but there is no reason that the rest of the country has to pay money so a few lawyers and business people can fly out of Mason City / Clear Lake airport on scheduled passenger service rather than chartering their own plane or driving to Rochester, Waterloo, Des Moines or the Twin Cities like the rest of folks do.
Or the same with a place like Pueblo, they can’t drive or take a bus 20 miles to Colorado Springs?
Is it appropriate to mention the name Gallitin?
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I live near Jamestown, NY (Lucy’s hometown!). It supported scheduled air service through the eighties but can’t anymore. It is now the recipient of these subsidies to maintain two flights a day to Cleveland. Buffalo Airport is 65 miles away and is the second cheapest airport to fly out of in the U.S..
In this case, the subsidy is nothing more than an attempt to save face for a dying town. Some cases [Alaska, Montana] may have more merit, but I think that if people want to live in the sticks, they should face the difficulties of living in the sticks.
They need to merge the train station and bus station with the airport, along with regional passenger rail & buses, and sunset the law that prohibits airlines from owning railroads. IF passenger rail is such a good idea then connecting them with air travel, and buses makes sense
The villages in Alaska are a lot different than resort towns in the contiguous states.
Most people in the Alaska villages didn’t move there. Their families were there before the Pilgrims or Columbus. The United States claimed sovereignty over them without conquering them or even asking them. They now have all the rights of any other US Citizen, plus a bunch of legal obligations the Congress and Supreme Court has provided to them regarding healthcare, education and other services.
The US has spent trillions of dollars to provide roads, rails, subways, bridges, airports, postal delivery, etc. to most of its citizens. It would cost at least a trillion dollars to build roads or rails to these villages. The distances are enormous.
So, the government has decided to fund an essential air service, because it is the cheapest alternative. Or the government could just not provide services to them that they provide to every other citizen, and just to try to force them to move. After all, the government could use the funds to maybe shave five minutes off the trip from LA to Las Vegas on Friday nights.
In one case, the environmentalists are blocking a road between two remote Alaska villages (Cold Bay and King Cove). The enviros want Congress to subsidize an experimental hovercraft for transportation. The villages would rather have a single lane dirt road.
http://articles.boston.com/2005-04-17/news/29223567_1_cold-bay-hovercraft-medical-emergencies
Jardinero1, I respectfully disagree (in part) – and I agree with the reasoning expressed by Sandy Teal regarding Alaska.
The Essential Air Service should be limited to places that are not on the national highway network. There are a few places in the coterminous 48 states that might qualify (including islands with substantial year-round populations in East Coast states like Maine, Massachusetts, Maryland and Virginia, and off the Pacific Coast), but in general, this is service that should be funded only in Alaska, Hawaii, and perhaps the U.S. Virgin Islands and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands
CP Zilliacus,
I would single out Alaska, especially, for elimination of this subsidy. If you look at the document, most of the subsidy in Alaska goes to operators of four seat, single engine or six seat double engine planes. These same planes can operate on a charter basis to these same locales without subsidy.
Sandy’s point is just plain silly. If they were there before Columbus, without scheduled airservice, why do they need it now? I agree with Craigh “if people want to live in the sticks, they should face the difficulties of living in the sticks.”
Jardinero1 Posted:
I would single out Alaska, especially, for elimination of this subsidy. If you look at the document, most of the subsidy in Alaska goes to operators of four seat, single engine or six seat double engine planes. These same planes can operate on a charter basis to these same locales without subsidy.
If those places in Alaska had access to the highway network (perhaps even including the Alaska Marine Highway System), I would almost certainly agree with you – the service could be supplied by conventional motor vehicles (probably vans or maybe 4×4 SUVs) at little (or lower) subsidy.
But the places I speak of in Alaska do not have any highway connection to the outside world.
That’s why I agree with your point about Victoria, Texas. According to Google Maps, these are distances from Victoria to reasonably nearby major airports:
(1) About 145 miles to Houston Intercontinental Airport;
(2) About 133 miles to William P. Hobby Airport;
(3) About 120 miles to San Antonio International Airport; and
(4) About 98 miles to Corpus Christi International Airport.
I stand corrected, the lions share of the subsidy is on three routes:
Cordova, pop 2242 gets 72 seats a day for 2.7 million.
Petersburg, pop 3224, gets 72 seats for 670 thousand.
The route that takes the cake is Adak, Alaska; population 326. It gets 1.5 million to subsidize 72 daily seats to Anchorage. WTF!… 326 people get 72 seats a day for 1.5 million. It would be cheaper to move them to Anchorage permanently. Of course, I don’t know how many of those in Adak were there before Columbus.
CP, I don’t see the connection between charter air service which can be had all over Alaska and the highway network. If charter service exists and is available, then there is no reason subsidize any kind of air service. Access to highways is utterly unrelated.
Jardinero1 wrote:
I stand corrected, the lions share of the subsidy is on three routes:
Cordova, pop 2242 gets 72 seats a day for 2.7 million.
Cordova is on the nmainland, but not connected to any of its highway network (rather like Juneau), but it is served by the Alaska Marine Highway System (though the ferries are a relatively slow mode of transportation).
Petersburg, pop 3224, gets 72 seats for 670 thousand.
On an island in southeastern Alaska. Also served by the Alaska Marine Highway System.
The route that takes the cake is Adak, Alaska; population 326. It gets 1.5 million to subsidize 72 daily seats to Anchorage. WTF!… 326 people get 72 seats a day for 1.5 million. It would be cheaper to move them to Anchorage permanently. Of course, I don’t know how many of those in Adak were there before Columbus.
Adak is pretty far to the southwest of “mainland” Alaska, out along the chain of the Aleutian Islands. According to Wikipedia, “Flight time to Anchorage is three hours or longer depending on weather.” The Wikipedia entry also says that there are two round-trip flights per week, and the Alaska Airlines Web site seems to confirm that.
You might want to double-check the supply of seats to the destinations in question in Alaska.
Again, proximity to the marine highway or any other highway is immaterial. Charter service is available to every one of those points.
Adak is the most ridiculous of the three. Even with only two flights a week, it’s stupid and a waste. The residents receive a net subsidy of 4601 dollars per person for the convenience of twice weekly service. The part that really chafes is that not only were those 326 current residents not there before Columbus, but they weren’t even there before 1998. The island had been completely abandoned in 1997 and remained deserted until mid 1998. And now the taxpayer is supposed to subsidize the migration to nowhere. I stand resolutely with Craigh “if people want to live in the sticks, they should face the difficulties of living in the sticks.â€
Interesting that those towns get the bulk of the money in Alaska — they are all big commercial fishing ports. Cordova and Petersburg aren’t even traditional Alaska Native villages — they were established to be commercial fishing towns relatively recently.
If you watch “Deadliest Catch” then you know that 90% of the commercial fishing in Alaska is done by boats that come up from Seattle or elsewhere, and almost all the crew just flies in from other states or Mexico. So that data would suggest the subsidy has very little to do with Alaska residents, and a huge amount to do with subsidizing flying fish to markets.
I don’t have anything to respond to Jardinero1 that hasn’t been said in hundreds of Supreme Court decisions, Presidential Statements, and findings by Congress, by all political parties, over the last 100+ years.
Even if you think the federal government should not fund bridges over rivers or highways between cities or subways from upper to lower Manhattan, because charter air service is available, you might want to look at a map and think about the international strategic location of Adak.
Sandy, I never said a word in this thread about bridges or highways or subways. I recognize and affirm that the states have plenary police power to blow money on any boondoggle they so choose. With the feds, it’s a little more murky, legally.
Our own defense department fully acknowledged the strategic value of Adak when it completely abandoned the place in 1997 and handed it over to the Inuits officially in 2003.
One of the interesting things about this is that the Senate actually voted 65-34 to limit the EAS. This was a vote to table (kill) the amendment, so No is voting to limit EAS. However, that 65 member majority was almost all the Republicans plus 40% of Democrats, and didn’t include the Senate Transportation Chair, Sen. Boxer.
That was in their long-term bill. After that, the House included the provision. However, since Boxer opposed it, she wouldn’t let a bill containing the provision get through her committee. Suspension of the rules would have allowed something by unanimous consent. However, the sponsor of the amendment limiting it, Coburn (R-OK) vowed to block any bill that didn’t limit EAS. However, Rockfeller (D-WV) vowed to block any bill that didn’t maintained EAS.
Jardinero1 wrote:
Our own defense department fully acknowledged the strategic value of Adak when it completely abandoned the place in 1997 and handed it over to the Inuits officially in 2003.
Regarding DoD and the value of Adak, it was certainly a valuable place (in strategic terms) during the Cold War, what with the (former) Soviet Union so close.
I am not so certain that the DoD should have abandoned Adak, given that it is literally a geographic outpost of U.S. territory.
But regardless of the value that the DoD places on Adak, it’s still an inhabited place of the 50 United States, and needs to be connected to the rest of the nation. That does not mean I want a (taxpayer-funded) Henry Flagler-style railroad line from “mainland” Alaska, or even something that resembles the Overseas Highway (which replaced the railroad).
Air service is probably the best way to make that connection to places like Adak, and perhaps even Petersburg, Cordova and Ketchikan (and I was and am in favor of Ketchikan’s “bridge to nowhere,” just like Sarah Palin once was).
Yes, I am saying that all (inhabited) parts of U.S. territory need to have connections to each other, and I am saying that there’s a federal (taxpayer) interest in same. Yes, you can even call it an entitlement.
I assert that such connections are much more important than (for example) new passenger rail lines, which (at their best) will merely provide some “choice” for highway users.
This is not a new concept – the Romans connected their outposts of their empire by highways (though probably not air service).
Jardinero1, please don’t get me wrong – I like and enjoy your comments here, and frequently agree with them, but on this, I think we may need to agree to disagree.
CPZ, rail(freight & passenger)compliment road transport.
You along with O’Toole, Cox, Rubin, Scott & etc. Are only against rail because, you’re greedy, you to monoplize things and control people.