I was berated by a reader as irrational for attempting to “scrap Amtrak”. I am not that powerful my friend, if I were, I would focus on more pressing issues, but since you brought it up, I wanted to engage in an analysis of Mass Transit. First off, Amtrak is more intercity transport, than mass transit, so dear reader, get your definitions straight. Just to head off a stupid argument foisted by this well meaning moron: “Amtrak lacked adequate funding from the beginning”. Who defines adequate? When is enough, enough? Certainly, the inability to meet rising ridership will be conveniently blamed on the lack of funding from the get go. I blame a flawed business plan that must be changed.
The premise for sustainable business is profit. Reducing the scope of Amtrak or breaking it down like AT&T was broken down, into more manageable units might be a solution. Re-formulating routes, analyzing better routes to serve the Northeast for instance could be a start. One thing to bear in mind, less available land exists now to create more tracks. A friend has since pointed out that there are abandoned tracks that could be rehabbed. Any idea on the miles of track available for rehabiliation? Yet, just looking at the Boston area, it is sad to see how underutilized our Mass Transit is, and then when you try to leave your car in the garage to go to NYC – you find that using Amtrak is expensive, inefficient and takes longer. This is on the closest destination. A linear route like Boston-Syracuse takes only 6 hours by car (ok, I can be done in 4.5 if you choose not to stop and eat power bars on the way!), but by train it is excruciating and can take up to 12 hours. So what do you do? With the increase in fuel prices train travel becomes a viable alternative, yet one cannot pour money into the entire system. It is called, getting spread thin. Rather you focus on a section of the country that would be using it more often, the Northeast comes to mind, and even then you break it down: New England, Central New York, NYC, Philly, DC-Baltimore and work on making each administrative area profitable, viable and desirable. As the adage states, “success leaves clues”, why not look at how the Europeans are able to manage their rail transit and integrate some of these solutions into our own country?
Geography - Here is an issue that will thwart us. Not the physical features of our beautiful New England territory as much as what we suffer from around the country: Sprawl. If you fly out of Frankfurt, Germany and many other European cities, you will notice that the cities actually have stopping points. Farm land pops up!. I noticed it in London too – there is no continous view of buildings and highways and streets like here in the USA. The transition in some cases is abrupt. This allows for the creation of more spurs/rail routes to accommodate vaster geographic regions. Then it is the vastness of our country vs Europe. We are huge. So we need to bite off the cake one bite at a time. The error with Amtrak was to stay set in the wrong set of paradigms and attempt to solve the issue for the entire country. This will not happen in a year and probably not in a decade. But something needs to begin - action, not just pretty words. We have wasted over 40 years waiting for the solution to improve, but cheap air tickets and gas seem to have lulled Amtrak into just being the idiot cousin of the Transportation Family, sitting on the rocking chair twiddling their thumbs instead of improving the system. By now we should have been able to hope on a train in South Station and expect to get to our destinations in the Northeast quickly and at a fair price. There should have been a thriving ridership along these rails.
Part of the delays through the NYC area are due to the fact that it is shared with MetroNorth – the commuter line that serves that hub. I recall having the train slow down on my trip between NYC and Boston owing to MetroNorth and it gets irritating, yet better schedulling and laying some track that would allow to bypass these slower commuter trains might be a solution. There are Express tracks, but it just seems that getting through NYC is excruciating. That brings me to another point – we need soften our expectations in the beginning if this is going to work – we need to be able to accept that rail can not always be the fastest way to get to a point, but if the timeline is within business acceptable guidelines, why not try it? I can take 4.5 hours to NYC from Boston if it means not bringing in my car, putting up with high parking and tolls – but the price needs to be fair.
For example, if I were to travel to NYC tomorrow for a business trip, the first train out is at 6:05 AM and it would get me in at 10:20 AM. Not bad, but the price for the one way ticket is $89.00. Acela can shave an hour, but it is $135.00 so let’s not use that example.
I want to return the same day, it is just a meeting, the return can happen at 6 PM on the Acela and it will set me back another $89.00. That is $178.00 for the day.
If I take the Boston Limoliner to New York so that I can avail myself of similar seating and a business like environment (connections for my laptop, WiFI – and if I choose, I can watch news on the tv’s) I end up spending $160.00 for the day and will get home in the same time ( a bit shorter). In both cases I need to retrieve my car at a parking lot. No biggie. But what would you choose? Some will say – choose Fung Wah!!! For $30.00 round trip you get in and out same schedule. I do not want to compare this, but it is a good point – Fung Wah is still profitable at 30 bucks round trip. The carbon footprint of a bus vs a train is much larger. Amtrak wins hands down on that one. (www.carbonfund.org) , yet explaining carbon footprints to people and business is still and arduous task owing to the WIFM factor (What’s In it for Me).
Now, if I drive with my car, the trip is about 370 miles round trip, that is 18 gallons with say $72.00 of fuel and my car’s wear and tear, parking in the city would set me back around $50.00, so that is $122.00. Not too efficient in my opinion owing to my car’s wear and tear.
My employer would reimburse me and the trip would actually be $216.45 at the new reimbursement rate. Parking would still be $50.00 – or $266.45 total. The other alternative, renting a car, would be $39.00 for the day (My discounted rate), and add in the $72.00 gas plus my $50.00 for parking that is $161.00 depending on the rental rate.
So far LimoLiner is winning in terms of less stress with the car, unless my boss is looking to torture me with some Fung Wah action. I must also state that Amtrak starts to make GOOD sense at this point (for this route). Now, why is this not publicized? Same problem – inept complacent management. The issue will be capacity and facility conditions at this point….
