Amtrak Funding - Proposed Omnibus Bill FY18

I’ll admit there are other issues with the bill but the bill was already signed and the bill was far from perfect and I agree congres is to blame.

This was a one year spending bill so hopefully next year we will see reduced spending and deficit reduction.problem is every year of increased funding puts us further and further behind. I disagree in that, we don’t need national long haul connectivity in rail where utilization is not justified. If one looks at the Amtrak map, its obvious we could cut parts of the network out and even relocate trackage in certain parts to cut expenses.

Cross posted from the Gateway Tunnels Project topic:

"So here are the corrected daily weekday numbers for the existing North River (Hudson) tunnels:
Total trains - 377
NJT trains - 268 --- give or take a few I may have miscounted (NJT schedules are horrible)
Amtrak trains - 119

Now about funding for Gateway:
So NJT is about 71% of the total.
Since NY gets workers and NJ gets jobs via NJT, they should split their share of Gateway funding.
There are also the other states (MA, RI, CT, PA, MD, DC and VA) that benefit form the trains that run through the tunnels. I have no idea who should pay how much, but every state on the NEC should involved in the funding. Amtrak should raise fares on every train on the NEC. They pay for the roads and airports, they should pay for the NEC rail infrastructure too.
No tunnels - no Amtrak NEC trains. Can you imagine having change to trains to PATH at NYP and again at NWK?
Are we driving our cars over a bridge built in 1910, that was damaged in 2012 and we're not gonna replace it?"

As for Amtrak total funding, the money losing long distance lines are often the only viable ground public transportation available. Much of the long distance bus service was lost to air travel, leaving only rail or cars.

https://www.citylab.com/transportation/ ... al/556106/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Isn't FY18 1/2 way over? i.e runs to September 2018?

Mr Benton,this US President seems to think short term only,not thinking about any thing long term.
He signed this bill to avoid being the cause of a government shutdown.
His morning tweets about the bill only served to cast a sense of gloom.
What works in a business setting,doesn't always, or partly works in the government setting.
Add to it a bunch of outside distractions from various sources.

Is it possible that Trump's short term thinking comes from being a business man's only looking to the next quarterly financial reports ?;

That might be possible,believe this President is learning the HARD WAY the concept that government runs on the "art" of compromise.
To get what he wants,he needs to "give" a bit,and be flexible. Start thinking long term to understand any possible short term "fixes"
may not always give the result wanted.

He doesn't seem to be much of a learner of any sort. I have little hope of any change in his attention span of 140 characters.

east point wrote:Is it possible that Trump's short term thinking comes from being a business man's only looking to the next quarterly financial reports ?;

Yes, while he would get monthly bank statements showing Daddy's money, I don't think that he has any real logic behind his style of "governance".

Backshophoss wrote:Mr Benton,this US President seems to think short term only,not thinking about any thing long term.
He signed this bill to avoid being the cause of a government shutdown.
His morning tweets about the bill only served to cast a sense of gloom.
What works in a business setting,doesn't always, or partly works in the government setting.
Add to it a bunch of outside distractions from various sources.

there's more than one way to conduct business and negotiations. This is his style for better and for worse. While business is different than dealing with foreign countries, it is not clear that his approach was always the best approach in business although his style has worked well in entertainment

Matter at hand: Amtrak funding.

Trump attention span: Amtrak = Am = I Am = I = Me Me Me Me . . . .

Tax payer subsidized airports, highways, many bus services etc, etc are not required to make a profit. Why Amtrak?

NRGeep wrote:Tax payer subsidized airports, highways, many bus services etc, etc are not required to make a profit. Why Amtrak?

You’ve just hit the “private operator, public infrastructure” argument for Amtrak. It isn’t a bad idea on its face, and can lead to a great deal of private money being invested in public infrastructure, but when implemented (see Britain as an example) it can easily lead to vastly higher fares for similar or lower levels of service. It probably wouldn’t work well for Amtrak, because even if it slightly decreases the NRPC operating subsidy, more money would have to be spent on hiring private corporations to operate trains.

east point wrote:Is it possible that Trump's short term thinking comes from being a business man's only looking to the next quarterly financial reports ?;

Doubtful, given that his empire is not publicly traded (which is where you see the obsession with quarterlies... indeed, the argument for taking companies private is generally that the management gets the freedom to think longer term). Trump's short-term thinking is more likely the result of mental illness than anything else.