[tx]

I upmodded you because I share your wish, but unfortunately what you're asking for is impossible.

Both of my parents have been railroad engineers all their lifes, and the main thing I learned was this: railroads are not economical at transporting passengers. Nearly all countries with "decent train systems" use government subsidies to effectively sponsor passenger railroad transport. Even subways can't make any profit.

And I am against paying more taxes. Period. Therefore, no government subsidies to Amtrak from me.

[sethg]

In the US, highways get an order of magnitude more government subsidy than transit (not just Amtrak but also urban subway systems, etc). Even if you treat the revenue from the gas tax as a user fee rather than a subsidy, there's still a huge subsidy coming from other kinds of tax revenue.

Chart and link to more info here: http://www.streetsblog.org/2008/07/22/highway-funding-the-la...

[tx]

I don't get it. We aren't building any new highways (easy to check) yet our expenses are going up. WTF?!

[mdemare]

But the government pays for the roads too. Isn't that a subsidy? And without trains or subways much more people would need to use cars - where would they be parked? Who would pay for all that parking space? Trains allow people who can't drive (or can't afford to drive) to travel.

And can you imagine the traffic in New York, Paris or London if the "unprofitable" subway networks were shut down? Society has a huge interest in keeping these networks running, even if it's impossible for a private company to start a new railroad and turn a profit.

There are a lot of variables involved here. Don't be too sure you see the whole picture.

[Prrometheus]

Transportation is a good with a large demand. I am certain that, absent the government, quite a bit of transportation would be demanded and provided in the free market. The quantity of roads or rail produced might be less without all the subsidies, but I'm not sure this would be a bad thing. It would certainly be easier on the environment, since transportation tends to be resource-intensive.

The amount of transportation produced in the free market would be equal to the amount that people were willing to pay for, and that seems fair to me. Producing roads that people aren't willing to voluntarily pay for is a social loss. The people paying for the roads would rather use their money for other things. We are taking their consumption away from more highly valued goods and putting it towards lesser valued goods.

[mdemare]

Transportation may be a good, but infrastructure isn't, and there are good reasons why depending on the free market to invest in infrastructure is a bad idea. It is very hard (and wasteful) to charge for roads. Infrastructure forms a natural monopoly (worse even than the telecom industry). There are huge sunk costs. The existence of roads benefits everybody, even those who don't use them, but nobody wants to pay for them.

I like free markets too, but whenever there's something like the Tragedy of the Commons or Moral Hazard involved, free markets lose much of their advantages.

[Prrometheus]

I mentioned this in other comments, but private roads, highways, canals, and railroads (even one of the four great transcontinentals) had a long and successful history in the United States before the rise of public monopolies. Since it is clearly possible to build even very expensive infrastructure by private means, we have to ask if it fair or efficient to do otherwise. Is it okay to tax people in California to pay for highway boondoggles in Massachusetts? Is it in society's best interest for infrastructure to be built by entities that have a history of being behind schedule and over budget? Is it wise to build more highways than the free market would provide in order to have cheap transit when all side effects are considered? I'm not sure.

[gnaritas]

The free market isn't the best solution for every problem. Imagine if firemen worked like American doctors and wouldn't deal with you unless you were properly insured, or police who only helped those who could afford it or had paid their protection dues.

Some things really do benefit the whole herd and and everyone needs to contribute whether they like it or not. I'm all for minimal government where the free market works, but it's not the right solution to every problem.

Profit can't be the only motive for doing things, some things must be done because it's simply the right thing to do and profiting off of it just wouldn't be right.

Society might not be required to feed and cloth you, but it should damn sure protect you from other members of society, and it should step in and do things to prevent the free market from damaging the one world we all have to share, like decent public transportation to reduce the need for everyone to drive and continually pollute the environment.

[Prrometheus]

I've heard those points and that rhetoric before and I am not convinced. It is insufficient to say this, but I think we are approaching this issue with substantially different experience, assumptions, and background knowledge. I don't think I am contributing much to the world by spending a lot of time on a comment in this forum, so I will unfortunately leave it at that right now. If you live in San Diego, how about coffee sometime?

[gnaritas]

If I did, I most certainly would, it's an interesting discussion, but I don't so I can't. I used to be all hardcore libertarian like that, but as I get older I lighten up and see that it's a bit too idealistic and leads to anarchy which doesn't really work well in practice.

Pure libertarianism focuses too much on individual rights without acknowledging the reality that we aren't born into such a world, we're social animals and we're born into large societies that we're forced to conform to which in may ways benefits us all, but hurts us as well.

No one gets rich or wealthy alone, they get it from society and that can't be a one way street. Those people who have money to spend on roads only have it because of society, like it or not, the owe society something back for that.

Libertarians believe government doesn't work so the less there is the better, and this is mostly correct; big government doesn't work and can't because there is no one set of rules that all people will ever agree too, but local government, say city level, must work because the only alternative is lawlessness. That being the case, ridding ourselves of federal influence would allow us to segregate into like minded communities where rules can be established that all agree to. Some cities might want prayer in school, others might not, some want everyone to carry a gone while others want to outlaw guns, and that's as it should be, live and let live by recognizing that 300 million people won't ever agree so don't force them to.

The flaw in our society is not government, it's how big and non local we've let it become.

[Xichekolas]

... since we don't pay any taxes towards our road/highway system.

Private transportation is subsidized just as much as public transportation if you factor in the cost of all those eight lane interstates. It's all a matter of priorities.

I'm not saying that rail travel is a better solution... I'm just pointing out that no matter what way we go about it, the government will spend significant amounts of money. The Federal Budget allotted $67 billion for transportation improvement projects this year.[1] Add to that a huge amount spent by the states and local jurisdictions (I know my state roughly matches it's Federal grants with it's own money.) Contrast this with Europe, which spent 125 billion euros on road projects, and 73 billion on rail subsidies, and has three times as many people.[2]

You can't end a debate on rail travel by saying it's not profitable without subsidies. Roads would not happen without massive government subsidies either. Witness the need for the Eisenhower Interstate project to kickstart decent long distance highways in the 1950s.

Air travel benefits from the same things. If airlines had to build their own airports, ticket prices would be much higher. The airlines benefit from billions of dollars spent annually by states and municipalities to build nice airports, add runways, and run air traffic control.

All that comes out of your taxes too.

[1] http://www.dot.gov/affairs/dot1507.htm

[2] http://reports.eea.europa.eu/technical_report_2007_3/en/eea_...

[Prrometheus]

>You can't end a debate on rail travel by saying it's not profitable without subsidies. Roads would not happen without massive government subsidies either.

The marginal road might not be profitable, but some roads would be built without subsidies. The earliest highways in America were funded by private businessmen who thought it would be profitable to connect the towns that they lived in. Private roads have a long and successful history, even if in modern times they have been crowded out of the market by trillions of dollars of federal and state projects.

One of the four great intercontinental railroads was built entirely without government grants or subsidies. If I recall correctly, it also lasted the longest.

When I criticize the government or question the need for its existence, people often respond with "Oh yeah, how would you get around without roads? The government provides all our transportation. That's useful.". However, the argument is a straw man, historically ignorant, and blinded by the status quo. Too often people are so constrained by how things are that they can not think about how they were different in the past or how they could be in the future.

[anewaccountname]

"One of the four great intercontinental railroads was built entirely without government grants or subsidies. If I recall correctly, it also lasted the longest."

Which one? From what I've read they all got the government to make eminent domain seizures for them (so even if this one railroad paid for the land it got, it still had a government subsidy in the form of a strongarm).

[Prrometheus]

The Great Northern Railway, built by James J. Hill, a great visionary and businessman:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern_Railway_(U.S.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_J._Hill

[anewaccountname]

I don't know if a railroad funded by a railroad tycoon's other subsidized railroads counts as not being subsidized itself =P.

[Xichekolas]

Oh I agree there would be roads/railways/airports without government subsidy. Frankly there is a need for those things, so someone will build them. I should have been more clear in that 'the road system as we have it today would not have happened without government subsidies'.

Back to the topic, what I was trying to point out is that it's silly to expect unsubsidized private railways to compete with massively subsidized road/air transport and still be profitable. It's hypocritical to always expect rail to bootstrap itself while giving such massive assistance to road/air, then claim that it's somehow rail's fault when it cannot compete.

[mynameishere]

Private transportation is subsidized just as much

Don't say "just as much". People buy their own cars, perform their own maintenance, pay their own insurance, and essentially pay a subscription through gas taxes (which, in my opinion, should fund 100 percent of roadwork.)

[ajross]

You are correct, but in precicely the wrong direction: private transportation is subsidised much, much more than rail transport as a function of GDP, passenger miles, or population. It isn't even close.

And your "gas tax should fund highways" idea is laughable. Look at the numbers (there were some posted at matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com in the past few weeks). The gas tax doesn't even cover maintenance of existing road systems, much less all the new construction that we are constantly doing. And remember that it's not just the roads themselves, but all the extra costs involved in forcing society to do all that driving. Cost of delivery of goods to residential areas, for example, is much higher in the US than western europe because of all the trucks needed.

[byrneseyeview]

private transportation is subsidised much, much more than rail transport as a function of GDP, passenger miles, or population. It isn't even close.

That is surprising. Source? Also, does your source explain why someone would want to know the subsidy per person, mile, $ of GDP, etc., instead of the percentage of spending accounted for by subsidies versus other activities? It seems that the latter measures what you would actually care about -- e.g. the government probably spends more money on retirement (through Social Security) than it does on space flight. But the government spends a higher fraction of the total money spent on space flight than on retirement, so one would argue that space flight is more subsidized.

[mynameishere]

much, much more than rail transport as a function of GDP

Uh, you have to compare it with the amount of people it moves. Not the absolute amount. If taxes pay for trains, upkeep, insurance, salaries for drivers, as well as the infrastructure, then that is a greater tax burden than just the highways, PER USAGE. I considered explaining that in my post, but I figured that math savvy hackers wouldn't need it. I figured wrong.

And your "gas tax should fund highways" idea is laughable.

Oh? Please...explain why.

The gas tax doesn't even cover maintenance of existing road systems,

Oh, I see. Well, if you re-read my sentence I said "SHOULD" fund highways. "Should"

SHOULD: A word meaning, "ought", as in, you "should" parse and process each sentence properly before commenting on it. You "should" look up any words you don't fully understand. That sort of thing.

See, I figured that a bunch of well-educated hackers could understand basic language concepts. I figured wrong.

[krschultz]

So? The cost of roads, traffic lights, snow removal, and police coverage aren't factoring in? I get on a subway car each day with 100+ other people at a time, it probably gets 1,000 people on it a day, everyday, for the last 20+ years. How much could it have cost per person over that time?

Sidenote - the MTA in NYC is only 5% paid for by the city, with 95% of its operating budget coming from rider fairs. There is a big complaint from subway riders that it isn't more, the subways make the city possible, shouldn't they pay more into it?

[ckinnan]

We already give Amtrak over $1 billion a year in tax subsidies. The problem is that the company is a monopoly with no incentives to improve service or reduce costs. Passenger rail and subways can make a profit...the New York subway system was built by competing private subway companies, as was the initial national rail network. The problem is the unions and the government now have a stranglehold and there's no competition or innovation.

[Retric]

1 billion a year works out to less than 1/2 of 1% of our road subsidies.

[Prrometheus]

How does that work out on a per-passenger-mile basis?

[Retric]

Annual road subsidies are around:

(~3 trillion miles / year) / (~300billion / year) = 10c/mile or around 3$ per gallon of gas.

Amtrak = $210.31 per passenger per 1,000 miles = 21c/mile but there are significant network effects so some routs are far more subsidized than others.

And with such a long history of investments in cars and roads it's hard to calculate what's the better long term value.

[halo]

So contrary to the initial sentence, you're actually saying it isn't impossible just that you're just against funding it for other reasons...

[michaelneale]

I am pretty sure the London Underground is run at a profit, as are the private railsways that service the country side around London. Of course, the cost of using those services is pretty much the highest in the world, and they have pretty high population density, but still, pretty sure its run at a profit.

[time_management]

I'm okay with paying higher taxes if I'm getting something for it-- cheap transportation, universal high-quality healthcare. It's paying high taxes to support Bush's war and tax cuts for the rich that I have a problem with.

The problem with the train system now is that it's dilapidated, expensive, and slow, which leads to low use, leading to disrepair... and so on. However, air travel is going that way right now, and something will fill the void. Trains at 80 mph are not competitive with airlines, but maglev trains are capable of 250+.

[mynameishere]

It's paying high taxes to support Bush's war and tax cuts for the rich

Paying high taxes to support tax cuts for the rich?

I'm okay with paying higher taxes if I'm getting something for it-- cheap transportation

You do realize that "paying for something to make it cheap" just changes who pays for something, yes? Like...I'm in favor of YOU buying ME a nice present, like cheap transportation. At gunpoint.

Basic stuff.

A train passes by my office occasionally. I don't think it is subsidized. It carries coal. Now...if it was practical for that train to carry people, it would do so, without subsidies. It's not like government is actually needed to make trains profitable.

[Hexstream]

If the rich pay less taxes then the non-rich probably pay more...

[anamax]

If by "pay more" you mean "pay less", then yes.

Apart from SS, the "rich" pay the vast majority of income taxes in the US. That's not to say that all of the rich people pay taxes - there's a lot of folks who buy Munis and the like for tax avoidance (supposedly reducing the costs of various govt projects) and then there are the folks who have managed their estates so they'll never be taxed (including Warren "the inheritance tax should be higher" Buffet).

Yes - it's reasonable to exclude SS. SS is essentially a bad forced savings account. However, SS is progressive in that the less you contributed, the better your return. For folks who pay the max, it's a horrible deal. Both "contributions" and benefits are capped so Perot doesn't get $1M/month.

The rich pay a lower fraction of their income in consumption taxes than the poor, but that's because they consume a smaller fraction of their income and they don't consume as much "sin". (Most consumption taxes exempt food, which is a larger fraction of poor people's income, but poor people also spend more of their money on tobacco and alcohol.)

[Hexstream]

I think you may have misunderstood me...

time_management: "It's paying high taxes to support Bush's war and tax cuts for the rich that I have a problem with."

mynameishere: "Paying high taxes to support tax cuts for the rich?"

Hexstream: "If the rich pay less taxes then the non-rich probably pay more..."

I meant that if the rich get new tax cuts, thus paying less taxes, and the government wants the same amount of taxes overall, then the non-rich necessarily have to pay more to compensate the loss incurred.

[william42]

That, and you'll have to pay off China.