Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
With regard to the relative costs of highways and railroads, it is worth
noting that 1 mile of fi rst-class railroad track is cheaper to build than 1
mile of highway.
Amtrak
The railroad system most familiar to passengers today is Amtrak
(National Railroad Passenger Corporation), a quasi-governmental cor-
poration started in 1971 to provide intercity passenger train service. It
uses 1,500 passenger cars on 21,000 miles of track that is mostly owned
by other railroads that carry freight and serves 500 destinations in forty-
six of the contiguous forty-eight states (South Dakota and Wyoming are
not served). In 2008 Amtrak enjoyed the sixth consecutive year of record
ridership. Despite the growth, the United States still has one of the lowest
intercity rail use rates in the developed world. The most heavily traveled
routes are in the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington,
D.C.. Amtrak is not required by law to operate a national route system.
Although Amtrak served 28.7 million passengers in 2008, rail travel
is a bit player in passenger transportation, accounting for only 0.1
percent of U.S. intercity passenger miles (5.7 million out of 5.3 billion
total, of which private automobile travel makes up the vast majority).
The 25 million passengers served by Amtrak stands in sharp contrast to
the 700 million served by commercial airlines. The American love affair
with the automobile and the interstate highway system funded by federal
funds since the 1950s was the death knell for nationwide passenger rail
service.
Amtrak does not pay its own way and needs federal subsidies to stay
in business. Each budget cycle, many lawmakers complain about this
continuing subsidy, saying that a transportation system that cannot pay
its own way does not deserve to exist. These congressional representa-
tives do not seem to, or do not want to, recognize the subsidies regularly
given to the air travel and automotive industries. If Amtrak were simi-
larly treated, it would be highly profi table and convenient, and a much
greater cross-section of the population would use it.
Many decades ago, in the days before the airlines and the industries
associated with car travel increased their lobbying efforts, the railroads
received enormous federal subsidies. Today Amtrak receives about $2
billion each budget cycle. In contrast, the Federal Aviation Administra-
tion, essentially a large subsidy for the airlines, has a yearly federal
budget of at least $15 billion. Embedded federal subsidies for travel by
road (construction, repair, expansion) are about $47 billion annually.
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