quad50cal wrote: ↑Sat Jan 04, 2020 3:46 am DeFazio isn't contradicting himself, he simply doesn't see profitability as the end-all be-all metric for efficiency.He is contradicting himself, or at least showing why it is useful to focus on financial goals rather than vague political rumblings about efficiency. Setting police staffing based on a union complaint has no real bearing on anyone reasonable definition of efficiency except the efficiency of spending other peoples money to obtain votes.
Consider how the 2010s have treated Amtrak and LIRR
- LIRR's Avg. Weekday Ridership increased from 270,000 to 381,000 (an impressive 40% increase)
- Amtrak's ridership remained largely flat while slowly approaching profitability.
Despite the progress made on profitability, Amtrak is still unpalatable to the ideologically driven congressmen that have been the most adamant that Amtrak pursue profitability over all other considerations. As recently as Fall 2017, they put forward yet another attempt to defund Amtrak completely. All in all, the 2010s have left Amtrak still unable to address the looming crisis of the decades old backlog of expensive infrastructure deficits that no amount of cutting amenities and price gouging the NEC ( Acela runs a 210% farebox recovery ratio and the NEC Regional 140% I believe) can hope to solve.
If you consider the 2010s more broadly than just lirr, the transit picture isnt great.
As for the final point, I think this is where you are the furthest off base. While trump tried to defund amtrak in 2017 it was never taken seriously precisely because amtrak had built up enough trust with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle. That is the point, not that there was a failed attempt to defund, but that it had no shot of becoming reality. Moreover, amtrak is spending more money on its infrastructure backlog than ever and recently committed a billion dollars to the virginia project. I think you are too focused on how amtrak, so far, has worked to cut losses and less on the fact that Amtrak services need more capital investment more than anything. Once you take away financial responsibility you might get lirr ridership or you might get septa, in either case, you get more waste. The reality is amtrk is not aiming to be profitable, they are trying to set up a system where ticket revenue helps pay for service improvements which brings stability. Amtrak gets more money for Congress than ever. It has ordered new electrics, reinvested in infrastructure, ordered new diesels, and set to order amfleet replacements. In the end amtraks losses are because it takes 19 hours to get from ny to chicago and it's also the reason people dont ride amtrak and partly the reason amtrak relies so heavily on the acela.
Dont get me wrong, I hate amtraks marketing department but rather than being the key piece of an operating profit they are a hindrance. Most of the improvement has come from cost cutting and increased revenue from access users due to priia 212. Logic dictates that amtrak should be maximizing acela seats which would be ten cars, exactly what they were designed to be.
