Amtrak Posts Record Ridership for Fifth Year in a Row

Amtrak train

And now for a subject that unfortunately doesn't come up much on GoodCleanTech: American trains. Which is to say, Amtrak. It may get a lot of grief from just about everybody--and I have to admit, they are often late like whoa--but they are, after all, public transportation.

And they just posted their fifth straight record year in a row--for ridership.

A recent AP article notes that "The money-losing service, which relies heavily on government funding"... "Amtrak's headaches remain, and the biggest is funding. The service has never been out of the red since its launch in 1971, meaning it must rely on government handouts year after year"..." Congress is weighing how much U.S. taxpayers should underwrite the passenger service"...

Talk about kicking them when they're down! And while I admit to having complained about Amtrak being often late, expensive, and impractical (especially compared to trains in the UK, where I was spoiled rotten--they're cheap, run often, and have a tea trolley)... I'm definitely coming round to Amtrak's side.

After all: is there a train service in the world that doesn't rely on government "handouts"? I mean, I know the US is all for capitalism, competition, etc--no handouts for you!--but, as GroovyGreen notes in their post on the subject, we spend billions on highways, roads, bridges... all for the private car culture. So why not even a couple billion for a public train service?

Instead, Bush has periodically proposed not giving them any money at all. They're currently creaking along with $1.3 billion of government funding a year. In contrast, the UK spends about £3 billion per year--to cover an area that's a bit smaller than the state of Oregon.

Any hope for Amtrak? Well, there's the upcoming Passenger Rail Investment and Improvement Act, which would give about $8 billion over 2008 to 2012. It's a start. Write to your representatives and tell them to support it!

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