Outside the NE corridor, any significant amount of rail is a pipe dream. Why spent trillions to provide service that planes are already providing more than enough service to? At least I can take a plane from here to wherever I want in the United States. Rail? Oh, I'd have to travel to the nearest station (potentially hours away) and then hope it goes anywhere near where I want to go. And judging based on that map, it will go near maybe 5% of the locations I'd like to go.
And the linked article doesn't seem to take into account the massive operating subsidies that rail requires. It's a money loser nearly everywhere (except, sometimes, in the NE corridor).
"In 1970, the year before Amtrak took over the nation's passenger trains, average rail fares were about one-third less than average airfares—about 18 cents (in today's pennies) versus 27 cents per passenger mile. Four decades of Amtrak management have reversed this ratio and more: by 2011, average rail fares were 110 percent greater than airfares—about 28.5 cents versus 13.8 cents
per passenger mile (see Figure 1)." [1]
Comments
Outside the NE corridor, any significant amount of rail is a pipe dream. Why spent trillions to provide service that planes are already providing more than enough service to? At least I can take a plane from here to wherever I want in the United States. Rail? Oh, I'd have to travel to the nearest station (potentially hours away) and then hope it goes anywhere near where I want to go. And judging based on that map, it will go near maybe 5% of the locations I'd like to go.
And the linked article doesn't seem to take into account the massive operating subsidies that rail requires. It's a money loser nearly everywhere (except, sometimes, in the NE corridor).
"In 1970, the year before Amtrak took over the nation's passenger trains, average rail fares were about one-third less than average airfares—about 18 cents (in today's pennies) versus 27 cents per passenger mile. Four decades of Amtrak management have reversed this ratio and more: by 2011, average rail fares were 110 percent greater than airfares—about 28.5 cents versus 13.8 cents per passenger mile (see Figure 1)." [1]
[1]: www.cato.org/pubs/pas/PA712.pdf
Airfare also relies heavily on subsidies, but fortunately investors keep investing in airlines, so it doesn't cost the public much.