[microcolonel]

For some, the grass is always greener on the other side. It is stylish today to criticize every tradeoff the U.S. has made in order to credibly claim that every habitable square foot of every state is "inhabited", but a lot of it makes perfect sense.

There is one piece of public transit which makes a lot of sense in the U.S.: the bus (both local and coach buses), but it is unstylish and so gets no attention.

Imagine how much better it would be getting from city to city if the money that went into subsidizing AmTrak (which approximately nobody uses, least of which the lower classes) was available as a grant or credit for every passenger mile on the already-thriving network of American bus carriers (Greyhound, Megabus, and 24 others in the long-distance category alone).

[ghaff]

Amtrak is very popular on certain routes, predominantly in the Northeast Corridor. And, in fact, those routes are being upgraded. But poor people certainly don't use it. They take something like Megabus. And the money Amtrak makes in the northeast covers, though not entirely, a lot of long haul routes that aren't competitive with air.

[microcolonel]

Sure, if AmTrak restructured around a lack of federal subsidies for lines in the red, the Northeast Corridor (possibly incl. Acela Express) would clearly remain in operation. It's just that a major part of the network is composed of routes where the subsidy exceeds the fare, and the fare is still too high for most people to consider.

Also, not really sure why the federal government is subsidizing $10-40+ one-way fares (receiving an average of 25 dollars in federal subsidy) as "commuter" service, even in the less-bad Capitol Corridor.