McCain wants to abolish Amtrak...

[cynatnite]

snip:
In addition, McCain's plan proposes breaking the railroad up into three units: an operations unit, a maintenance unit and a rail reservation unit. Each unit would then be privatized within four years, and an Amtrak Control Board would be created to oversee the process.

House Democrats gave the Amtrak Reform Council's report a cool reception on Thursday, citing concerns with the potential impact of privatization.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,45743,00.html

Then there's John McCain. Well, Sen. McCain doesn't have too much to say when it comes to national transit objectives (we suppose it's a case of 'if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all'). But if there's one thing that we do know, it's that McCain hates Amtrak - at least in its current state. The Arizona Senator has been attempting for years to dissolve Amtrak and create small, privately owned rail companies. In fact, McCain has sworn that if elected, the shuttering of Amtrak would be a "a non-negotiable issue."

http://dcist.com/2008/06/05/transit_on_thur_34.php

[Liberal In Texas]

1. Privatized. There's a shock.

We're going to have an uphill fight against the corporations. They have a LOT of $.

[ColbertWatcher]

24. I came here to say this. n/t

[kevinbgoode]

2. Of course, McSame doesn't care that the permanent increase

in airfares is making flying a luxury only for the wealthy - which leaves the masses the woefully inadequate, underfunded passenger train service and the bus system. We already know that most privatization is accompanied by promises of competitive, cheaper rates. . .which are very temporary and followed by drastic, continuing price increases which price the public out of the market.

[KamaAina]

26. What bus system?

Deregulated Greyhound has been slashing routes as fast as it can, not only to small towns but even to places like Bloomington, IN! Competitors like Megabus are springing up -- but sloooowly.

[Mountainman]

3. The reason there is an Amtrak is because it was privatized and the railroads were losing money on

passenger service with out the mail contracts they use to have that were given to airlines.

[DemoTex]

10. The airline lobby greased the skids.

Just look to Texas. The Dallas-Houston-Austin triangle fast-rail was killed by the American/Southwest/Continental/BFEE cartel.

[Mountainman]

12. Plus the terminals are built by goverment.

[DemoTex]

18. Good point.

Plus the runways, taxiways, hard-stand ramps, ILS facilities, VORs, etc.

[Canuckistanian]

4. Great. And just when the railways are due to make a comeback.

Or at least they SHOULD be.

Reason #145,583 to vote for Obama.

[Swamp Rat]

5. McCain wants to abolish civilisation

[ingac70]

17. Spot on pic of McSame. n/t

[kevinbgoode]

6. If we elect McSame, public transportation will be reserved for the

wealthy, and the rest of America will be told that walking across the country or finding a good horse and buggy, was good enough for the Founders, so it's good enough for us.

[Sal Minella]

7. And all three divisions can be outsourced to Halliburton, and they can overcharge each other and

the customers for imaginary goods and services just like they do in Iraq.

Japan and France have 200 mph bullet trains and we have lunatics trying to destroy what little public transportation we have.

[anigbrowl]

16. Rail privatisation in the UK was a disaster

It costs as much to go anywhere in the UK by rail as it does to fly, it's just faster because you don't have to go to an airport. On continental Europe, on the other hand, it's both affordable and awesome.

What we need is not pri-fi (private finance), we need trains with wi-fi.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

21. Right, I was astonished to find that in the UK, train fares are like plane fares here

My trip last summer was delayed due to passport hassles (Thanks, Bushies!), and so instead of spending two days in London before going to a conference in Bath, I had to take the train to Bath the day I arrived.

If I had been able to buy my ticket even one day in advance, I could possibly have paid £9.50 (about $19) for the ride. As it was, I had to buy a same-day ticket, and the cost was a wopping £46 ($92).

It's a system only a privatizer could love. It's still miles ahead of Amtrak, though, probably because the Brits haven't had privatization long enough to TOTALLY destroy their train system.

[Art_from_Ark]

36. That's amazing

Why such a huge price differential for train tickets bought same day and one day earlier?

And here in Japan, you pay the same regardless of when you buy your tickets.
But JR is also the privatized result (kind of) of the old Kokutetsu national railway system.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

38. Same reason you pay through the nose for a same-day air ticket

It's all about the bean counters trying to micromanage revenues.

[Art_from_Ark]

40. I hope those bean counters don't make it over here

By the way, I guess you can get a discount on JR tickets purchased in advance- but you have to buy a set of tickets between the same two points (or for the same fare in the case of the Tokyo trains)-- buy 10, get one free.

[Yael]

64. Here in the corridor (DC to NYC) the trains DO have Wifi

It is a fabulous commute. You can get SO much more done than being strip searched at an airport and herded like cattle into folding chairs or sitting in traffic for hours on end.

Street to seat in under a minute, WiFi, Cell usage, electrical outlets to recharge the laptop/cell and nice, big, wide, comfortable seats.

There is no comparison.

[C_U_L8R]

8. Oh no he won't

I take Amtrak at least 3x a month...
thankfully McCain will never get anywhere near being elected

[oedura]

53. Bush wasn't elected, either.

Guess who's still the president?

[bdamomma]

9. is he going to bring back the horse and cot!!

stupid man.

[eppur_se_muova]

11. Holy McCarbonFootprint!! nt

[MercutioATC]

13. I don't agree with McCain's solution, but Amtrak needs to be addressed.

It's a joke..and a Federal money pit.

Instead of just throwing subsidies at Amtrak, we need a comprehensive plan that makes it a viable form of transportation.

[cynatnite]

14. Obama appears to have a sane solution...

From the same article...

Let's start with Barack Obama. Sen. Obama has been quietly hailed as the candidate with the most forward positions on mass transportation. Of course, this really shouldn't come as any surprise, as the Illinois lawmaker has been interested in the topic for years - he petitioned for more efficient transit through low-income areas of Chicago in 2003, and mentioned in May of this year that he's had interest in copying the efficiency of the Northeast Corridor system in the Midwest: "One of the things I have been talking bout for awhile is high speed rail connecting all of these Midwest cities -- Indianapolis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, St. Louis." Speaking of Amtrak, Obama is a big supporter. He was a backer of the Lautenberg-Lott Amtrak bill in 2007, which would provide about $11.6 billion to Amtrak over the next six years. Obama's energy and climate stance includes promises to "reform the tax code to make benefits for driving and public transit or ridesharing equal," and to change the "transportation funding process to ensure that smart growth considerations are taken into account." Obama also opposes a federal gas tax holiday - instead, he believes that high prices of gasoline should "give individuals much more of an incentive to look at trains and mass transit as an alternative."

[Firespirit]

48. Does Obama have a recommendation for the Southeast?

This area has NO public transit whatsoever outside of Atlanta, not even city buses in many areas.

The one saving grace is that gasoline is still under $4 here. At least for now.

I don't know what is practical. It's a different culture; life does not revolve around large cities like in the Northeast. I've lived in Boston before and it is a culture shock. Here, people often commute to work in a city of 30,000-40,000, and live 25+ miles away in a small town of maybe 5,000. I don't think there is a population base to support mass transit, and that's why I want hydrogen and electric cars to become mainstays. I think it's the only viable choice for the South.

But I'd be interested in what Obama would do.

[deadmessengers]

22. Amtrak is disastrously, shockingly bad.

The reasons for Amtrak being ridiculously unusable for those who do not live on the Boston-DC corridor are legion - I could spend all day talking about it. But for the rest of the country to have to pay to prop up that boondoggle is absolutely ridiculous. It provides almost no benefit whatsoever.

My mother-in-law, who lives in NYC, is irrationally afraid of flying and insists on using Amtrak to come visit us in Atlanta. Her tickets typically cost, even ignoring Amtrak's taxpayer subsidies, 50% more than an airline ticket would - even these days. In the 13 years that Mrs. Deadmessengers and I have lived here in Atlanta, with her mother visiting us on average twice per year, Amtrak has been on time ONCE. Even the much-maligned and non-subsidized Greyhound was substantially better than Amtrak, both in terms of customer service, price, and travel time.

Our average visit to the Amtrak station to pick up or drop off my mother-in-law lasts between three and five hours, during which time we have to deal with the employees there who adamantly refuse to provide any useful information whatsoever.

The airlines, with all their problems, are better at getting people to their destination on time, and are doing it 10 times faster (2 hours flight time from NYC to ATL, compared to an average of 20 hours on Amtrak), and 50% cheaper. Amtrak needs to either be fixed or allowed to DIE - but leaving it in the pathetic state that it is in now is simply not an option.

Note that above I said that Amtrak provides almost no benefit whatsoever. The reason I qualified this with an "almost" is this: People who simply can't imagine traveling without being heavily armed just LOVE Amtrak, since there are no metal-detector searches required for boarding a train. I've overheard this particular conversation on more than one occasion while on one of our interminable waits in the Amtrak station waiting room. So, people who simply feel naked without a firearm and don't want to (or legally can't) drive across country with it think Amtrak is a good thing.

[stillcool]

28. I used to use Amtrak all the time..

from Boston to NY, and then the LIRR. I never had any problems, but I guess things have changed. I wonder why?

[deadmessengers]

31. The Boston-NYC-Philly-DC corridor is great

That's the only part of the country where Amtrak doesn't suck. And, from everything I've heard, it's still fantastic up there. Of course, it's the only part of the US where there exists the population density to support intercity passenger rail profitably.

For the rest of the country, though, it's totally unusable.

[MercutioATC]

32. Thanks for confirming my opinion of Amtrak.

I wanted to take a trip with my son last year and thought a rail trip would be interesting. I expected it to take longer than a plane trip, but it took 2 DAYS longer and cost twice as much. Even discounting price and time, Amtrak offers no more accommodations than bus travel.

The economic feasibility of non-urban rail has a lot to do with petroleum prices, and I'm cautiously optimistic that higher oil prices will encourage reasonable rail travel...but I don't think that the current handling of Amtrak facilitates that.

As I stated, we either need to come up with a plan to make Amtrak viable in an open transportation market (preferable) or let it die.

[Firespirit]

50. It is excellent up there

I took the train from Boston to Washington several times. It was a bit long, but otherwise very pleasant. Right on schedule.

The other time I used Amtrak was to move out of the Southeast to the North. The train was delayed getting to the station by 7 hours, and it accumulated 5 more hours of delay en route. I understand it was because it shared rail with freight trains that were in no hurry to get anywhere on time. Decoupling passenger rail from freight, but making them share infrastructure, was a horrible mistake.

[Yael]

65. Thats my hood

It is fantastic. I love me some Amtrak. :loveya:

[Lydia Leftcoast]

39. Amtrak has been systematically starved for 35 years

It has been treated like a prisoner in a Stalinist labor camp: fed just enough to keep it alive but not enough to keep it healthy.

The airlines would be in even worse shape than they are now if there were only one flight each day between each major city and they had to defer to cargo planes at all times and they had to fly antiquated planes. That's the kind of situation Amtrak is in now.

We need to build regional high-speed rail (a demonstration project centered on Chicago, with connections to Cleveland, Detroit, Milwaukee, the Twin Cities, and St. Louis would be a start, or perhaps one centered on Los Angeles with connections to Las Vegas, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Phoenix) in several hub cities and then gradually connect the regional systems to form a national system.

Building such a system would create well-paid blue-collar jobs, something this country needs.

Four days of the Iraq War would pay for Amtrak's current annual subsidy, by the way.

[MercutioATC]

42. Like I said, I'm all for a real solution that would make it truly viable.

In its present state, it's a joke.

[Selatius]

46. It's a joke compared to French or German highspeed rail and mass transit systems.

American mass transit is nowhere near the level of ease and comfort and speed that European rail systems have attained. Then again, they actually spend money on mass transit infrastructure. The US...it has interstates.

[MercutioATC]

47. It's a joke compared to walking....

If I can get there cheaper and more comfortably by ALL other modes of transportation, there's something fundamentaly wrong with federally funding it.

We either need to come up with a real solution or shut it down.

(I'd rather see a solution)

[Mr. Blonde]

58. I realize it is true even on the short hops

but European Railroads have the advantage of having to provide service to a much smaller area. I mean think of the massive undertaking providing rail service to the major cities in Texas would be.

After riding by rail in Europe I agree that it would be nice if ours were improved, but it will take a massive influx of money to fix it. With gas prices going the way they are that influx is certainly becoming worth it and that fact will only become more true each day.

[NuttyFluffers]

56. it's pretty decent in the Capital Corridor, CA

and the Zephyr from SF Bay Area to Reno is solid, too.

it just needs to run more lines between here and LA and here and Reno/Tahoe. it has a lot of room for improvement, though. but that's what 40 years of conservative nonsense gets us.

[ramapo]

15. Exactly the wrong move

How about rebuilding our passenger rail infrastructure?? Cities are losing air links. Flying is a crappy way to travel. Europe puts us to shame. McCain's solution, dissolve it.

[mtf80123]

19. Pay attention Turn Coats

this is but ONE of the many things you will be cursed by future generations if you vote McClone.

[madrchsod]

20. amtrak runs on private railroads trackage

amtrak is given second priority when it comes to track usage. it`s never going to reach the level of the european rail system.

[mtf80123]

27. Time to change that...

Don't you think?

Recently I wanted to go from Denver to Las Vegas on vacation by train. I found that I would have to get off in Reno and take the bus the rest of the way to Vegas.

I chose to stay home instead of flying.

[KamaAina]

29. They used to have a route called the Desert Wind

LA-Vegas-Salt Lake. All you would've had to do was change trains at Salt Lake.

Guess what? Repukes like McSatan killed it.

[mtf80123]

43. This story...

is too important to be forgotten.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

41. Japan's high-speed rail lines run on dedicated tracks

that are welded together to guarantee a smooth ride.

[and-justice-for-all]

23. Gramps is an idiot..

but you all already knew that.

[Rosemary2205]

25. We need more horse and buggy.

[KamaAina]

30. Care to hazard a guess where most Amtrak service is concentrated?

Let's see... the Northeast Corridor: MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, PA, MD, DC. Midwest service centers around Chicago, IL. Pacific service is largely in CA.

Notice anything in common? All Blue states, save possibly PA. So Amtrak provides a juicy target for McSatan to shore up his conservative credentials -- which, believe it or not, are considered in some circles to be lacking! -- while ticking off almost none of his base. :eyes:

[El Pinko]

33. What a tone-deaf fucking idiot.

If anything, we need massive investment in Amtrak ASAP.

First and foremost, all Amtrak lines need a second set of tracks so that trains can simultaneously run in both directions (like they do in almost every other developed country).

If Amtrak's service could be improved, upgraded and made somewhat cheaper, it would be a highly viable alternative for trips between 50 and 500 miles.


But his is typical of the extremist libertarian-right thinking so prevalent in his state of Arizona.

[opihimoimoi]

34. Is this the best from McGimp? OMG.....

[eShirl]

54. Of all the great nicknames around for McBush

WHY would you choose that one?

[opihimoimoi]

62. Granpa McCoy from the ole TV show....

[anonymous171]

35. He really is Bush's third term.

[Art_from_Ark]

37. bu$h term No. 6

including 3 terms of bu$h Sr. as Veep and Prez

[SeattleGirl]

44. Fuck McSame. I took the train for years between Seattle and Eugene.

I didn't have a car for years, and I hate the bus, so the train was my way to get to see my family.

It's not a bad way to travel either.

McSame can kiss my ass.

[lonestarnot]

45. Eeeee gads this corn teethed degenerative disease can't win unless we let him!

[sandnsea]

49. And there goes the Hi-Line, woohoo!!!

I hope this is true and he is stupid enough to say so. He'll lose MT & ND for sure, I don't know how many other western states are as dependent on Amtrak as they are.

[The_Casual_Observer]

51. Amtrak needs a lot more money, not less.

[JDPriestly]

52. That is idiotic! Just at the time when airfares are soaring

at the speed of light. Please, please, more trains, more subsidized train fares for passengers. Trains are environmentally friendly. Please, please, more trains. Even in L.A., I ride local light rail as much as possible. It's so comfortable. Airlines squeeze you into a space about big enough for a five year old. (I'm uncomfortable and I'm a small woman so if I feel squeezed other people must feel like sardines.) On trains you have leg room and you can carry as much luggage as you want. Via Amtrack.

[NuttyFluffers]

55. well that just seals it, i refuse to vote for him now.

:rofl:

gawd, the man is such a tool. seriously, i've never seen someone so fitting of a nickname: he's absolutely McSame. Bush needs no third term to finish off the destruction of America, that's what surrogates are for.

[brooklynite]

57. because it worked so well in Britain...

...where the infrastructure company went bankrupt and on-time performance collapsed when the operating companies decided not to spend a penny more than they had to to provide service.

[mainegreen]

59. Will not happen. Many republicans in congress protect Amtrak, in addition to the democrats.

McCain can't do it.
It's simply not possible.

[Delphinus]

60. At a time when gasoline is

getting beyond reach of a lot of folks, as is flying, we need the rail system more and more.

[backscatter712]

61. We should be building more passenger train service, not less!

Airliners guzzle enormous amounts of fuel! Compared to them, and compared to the equivalent number of passengers in cars, trains are incredibly efficient.

If we want to get serious about reducing our dependency on oil, reducing greenhouse gasses, traffic congestion, etc. we should be building fewer airports, fewer cars and more trains.

We used to have train service going everywhere, and now there's hardly any to be found. Go to Europe, you can get a Eurail pass and go anywhere in the continent for cheap! Little towns have train service. Commuter rail is everywhere. Not here. The .gov doesn't want to subsidize it, and the railroads don't care.

[Yael]

63. Oh, this just pisses me off beyond belief.

K&R and bookmarking.

:grr:

[Lorien]

66. This is a great opportunity for Obama to propose a National high speed

Mag-Lev rail system. It would help to curb our dependence on oil, make all Americans more mobile, and create thousands of new jobs. So far I'm sad to say that I've heard no bold plans from the Obama camp, and that worries me.