Passenger Rail

George,

If, as you say, train travel is socialized transportation then you better add that it is just another form of socialism for the rich. Where the real needs of transportation occur for working people is the public conveyance known as the bus. Fixed rail by it's nature is designed to go between fixed points. Once the line is in all flexibility is lost.

The real appeal to a certain class for the train is a romanticized Agatha Christie Orient Express presumably with wifi and a laptop. This has nothing to do with transportation needs within cities. It is all about amenities for the "creative class" and how they are going to get from Washington to New York or Chicago to Madison, WI or Milwaukee.

I have been involved on local transport issues where I live in Northeast Wisconsin.

One example will make my point. The Regional Planning Commission here did a survey on transportation needs this past year. They made the report to a public meeting which I attended. In that report they surveyed high school kids about their view of the bus. What they found was that these mostly well-off teenagers would only take a bus kicking and screaming if Mom or their own personal car were unavailable. The bus is seen as for the infirm or elderly or mentally ill. Mass transit is definitely not seen as something that we will all do in the future: "they" will be taking mass transit, but not "us."

Train travel is simply unimportant except as a luxury for readers of electricpolitics.com. Socialism for the rich takes a variety of forms: there is the kind of financial socialism for the rich with which we have become all too familiar. That other kind of socialism for the rich can be found to be provided for the liberal gentry in the form new schemes for fixed rail travel with a nice cappuccino and biscotti.

[Therefore passenger rail in the rest of the world is just "socialism for the rich"? Give me a break... g.]

Yes. Rail service is, indeed, socialism for the rich, but only for commuter trains.

Commuters are mostly Republicans who live in upper-middle-class and higher-income communities. It's important to note that this demographic is not true in all cases.

New York's Staten Island Ferry, carrying thousands of passengers daily, formerly with an artificially low 5-cent fare (!), is now completely free. Staten Island (Richmond County) is New York City's only Republican borough.

Amtrak has only hauled commuters in two or three regions, and has done so, mainly, as a contractor for regional agencies.

By law, Amtrak is not a commuter carrier. In most cases, Amtrak provides only skeleton service and thus, with poor monetary efficiency. Amtrak does a lot of things right, although it could be much better.

I suggest the Dutch model, with a dense network of rail lines with schedules that coordinate efficiently, getting people around nicely without the high fixed cost for building dedicated high-speed lines.

I think that it's about time for our country to provide socialized rail transportation in the same way that we should socialize our health care. It's time to join other, sensible nations.

Either this, or eliminate our socialized military and military contractors. What do these priorities do for your life? Think about it.

[If you were to ride Amtrak long distance you'd see immediately that most of the passengers aren't the rich or even the upper middle class. They're average. For confirmation, here's a relatively recent CRS report. And I'll bet that adding a lot of new trains would lower the demographic, not raise it. Indeed, riding long distance you'd also see that many, many towns between the coasts are hurting badly and that whatever "recovery" may be underway hasn't reached them. Or so I hear from Sharon who I collected yesterday from Union Station, back from Washington State via the Empire Builder and the Capitol Limited trains. g.]

These are fair arguments. What I was pointing out was that for the vast majority of the country there is no longer any culture of mass transportation but particularly for buses and by implication our "rail future." It's class-ist.

Here is another example from my own experience. A local green group which has hosted the likes of Torvald Lahti (from "The Natural Step for Communities") organized here four years ago. Early on after the Natural Step study circle was completed me and several others forwarded the idea that members of this group take the bus once in the next year — any time they like — and report back their experience. I got no (Zee Row) takers. It was at that point that I knew that there was not the will for mass transit. This was not presented as a dare. We had had a formal presentation from the Regional Planning Commission on these issues at the outset of forming the group.

Because this is recognized as a problem by the transit authority here, there is a new program to use city buses (fairly modern and metro size) to be used in place of some routes where Yellow Bluebird buses hauled high school students. The program takes place between January and June of 2010. It is this kind of effort which could change the perception of use of mass transit other than as a last resort.

From the simplistic, knee-jerk department (that would be: Me): tax the bejesus out of automotive fuels. Use the revenue to increase various forms of mass transit. Primarily rail. Use eminent domain as it is intended. Watch population re-condense to take advantage. Give agricultural and hardship exemptions (sales and use tax exemptions) where fair and equitable.

A tax on stupid would be a windfall, but I haven't figured that one out just yet.

So would a tax on crooked.

Return to greater-good-based marginal tax rates. Simultaneously revoke the right of corporations and individuals to buy politicians. Make the politicians responsive to the greater good.

Let the corporate types and the greedy rich whine and complain. Give the masses iPods with wine-and-complaint-canceling earbuds.

Stop spending all this borrowed cash on "defense." Very offensive "defense."

Trains are a good thing. 100 miles per hour is fine. 200 or 300 is not necessary, but it is doable.

Of course we can make trains here. Right in Vermont, NY and that other state... Canada.

A hard political sell. Maybe impossible. But, at this point why not try? If we don't get right with these sorts of ideas soon, well...

Yours,

Chicken Little ( but this time I'm clucking right, dang it.)

Hi George,

Please don't forget that the interstate highways are also taxpayer funded, socialised transportations systems. The original cost of the interstates in the 50s was about two or three times that of the Marshal plan.

Current budget even today (mostly for maintentance) is astronomical) - 40 billion a year, or 3 times more than given to NASA:

http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/budget/fy2008/section1.htm

Let's see the "Free Market" provide those roads!