1ºEveryone thinks they have the simple answer for this, but there are so many factors at play even once you move past the typical blame it on politics, fat Americans in cars, or "Europe does it", etc excuse. It would be incredibly expensive, it definitely would have to be government subsidized because your small town of 10 residents in Montana aren't going to make that revenue back. Y'all complain about taxes already, how would you react when they raise your taxes to fund infrastructure? Even if you look back 150 years ago, the railroads we have today barely were able to be built. There were so many insurmountable challenges and concessions that had to be made back then that the young country was able to overcome that we probably wouldn't have the will to do today. You mention "Europe" and "Asia" as examples, but those are continents, not countries, and their rail system isn't universal across the various countries. Within those continents, most of the countries within actually don't have that great of a railroad system. The one's that do are typically mega-economies with dense populations and country sizes that are a fraction of the US, which make the cost of constructing and sustaining such a system more digestible. Look at Australia, a country with a developed economy and much more progressive politics compared to the US with a similar size and population density. You don't really hear about them in the passenger rail debate because their country has similar challenges that a US pax rail system would face!
2ºOur train tracks were laid by the elite rich 100 years ago. They were never public properties, even though labor was provided by government programs to improve employment opportunities. Working lines are STILL OWNED by billionaires. Some of the nonworking lines have been taken over by government to make hiking trails. (One went through our front yard with a wide access strip on both sides,. We still owned the land, but could not use it. We still had to mow it and pay taxes on it though.)
Billionaires own the tracks, the trains, etc
THEY DON'T NEED FUNDING.!!!
THEY DO NEED MOTIVATION.
3ºIn the US, we lack representation in Congress as our elected officials are beholding to corporate interests, not the people's, and it's been that way for decades. It only became more acute since the Citizens United ruling by the disgraced Supreme Court. Now we have to pretend that corporations and the wealthy give to political campaigns out of the goodness of their hearts and not that they expect repayment in kind. So until the citizens of the US wake up and demand a government of, by, and FOR the people, we can expect to read more and more articles like this one.
4ºDennis Williams obviously you don't have a clue, if they don't collectenough for the roads, why does a portion of it go to the "education system" on top of the property taxes for education, and the lotteries for education, ect ect. They collect more in raid use taxes and fees that I listed than needed foe the roads they do do now. If so much of the revenue was not diverted/stolen, they could build roads as well as the autobahn that would last much longer and be smoother than they are building now. So many of the money is diverted and used on other things it asinine how much people have stolen from them by the government
5ºJacob Eisenhartwatch any sitcom okay from the 1970s up into today. People using public transportation well it's #1 the plot is set in New York city #2 the person doing so is doing so because everything that can go wrong has and it's the but of the joke as to why we are laughing. Or #3 it's the person that is the main person we usually get a laugh out of. So it's the message well it's okay to use public transportation if you happen to be in New York otherwise what's wrong. And as previously mentioned in real life only 46% of people in New York are using it. So in 1 of the few places ware it can be done in the U.S. we can't even get half the people to do so. So it's sad.
6ºMark Conway nearly every family benefits from good roads subsidized by our tax dollars. Roads are also subsidized by the gas tax all users pay. As for rail travel, the percentage of Americans who use it goes way, way down, much less then air travel which also doesn’t get a big share of tax subsidies. All rail properties are also exempt from paying local property tax on that land, one more perk they enjoy that other public transportation is not privileged with.
My point is that they enjoy more tax benefits then anyone else in that line of work… by far. They are able to move empty trains on a daily basis without suffering from a loss, impossible with most other forms of transportation.
7ºThe area I live in has a population of around 100K . There are no traffic jams and no one is sitting in their cars for hours. The same thing applies to most of the US. Mass transit would never work in my area. Mass transit only works when you have a mass of people who need to get somewhere. In large cities where you have huge numbers of people who need to travel into the city for work then yes, it works. For everyone else who lives within a 10 to 15 minute drive from their workplace they will never go for a tax increase that they wouldn't get a real benefit from. I don't understand how people in NY or other places can take the subway to work every day. If my son or daughter gets sick at school I can get in my car and pick them up in a few minutes.
8ºQuintin Smith that is very true. The problem with both trains and planes for travel is that when you get to where you want to go you end up spending more money on transportation to get around. This is normal if you are traveling long distances but how many people are traveling more than a couple hundred miles at a time. A big issue is who exactly is going to pay for the rail system. There isn't a lot of government ownership of companies in the US so raising taxes to pay for a private railroad system doesn't make sense and even if it did would you want to pay for something that you wouldn't be interested in using? Trains work in large metro areas because you have huge numbers of people who live in the suburbs that need to travel into the city for work. My city only has 100k so traffic is not a big problem and the next big cities are less than 30 minutes away.
9ºNick Sestrac on paper that looks good but it only takes about 3 to 4 hours to drive Dallas- Houston or Austin. HSR might be half that but consider that a car will take you door to door. HSR requires you to go to a big downtown station and you’ll want to get there at least :30 minutes before the train leaves. Then when you finally get to your destination you’ll have to take a bus or Uber to get to where you really want to go it’s just not worth it. Besides…. Do you really think you’ll get individualistic Texans out of their cars/ trucks? Got any more city pairs?
10ºDonald N. Burdwood Jr.: First, you make the assumption that everyone can drive, completely disregarding those who can't due to age, disability, or lack of a dependable vehicle. Second, there are no "empty trains" running anywhere in the Amtrak system; most are at capacity and frequently sold out. Third, gas taxes only cover around 60% of road costs, but Amtrak covers around 90% of its cost from fares. Finally, people use air and roads more because US tax policy has favored them for decades, with hundreds of billions of dollars poured into them, while demanding passenger trains be "profitable." Americans in urban ares bebefit from fast, frequent service, and Americans in rural and smaller communities benefit from Amtrak's long-distance trains, having been abandoned by both airlines and Greyhound.