FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE.
DEBUNKING AMTRAK MYTHS
The fight over Amtrak funding has intensified, as the full House of Representatives voted to restore the $626 million cut proposed by the House Appropriations Committee, thereby bringing the Amtrak allotment back up to $1.2 billion. The budget reduction would have eliminated all money-losing long-distance routes.
As the debate continues, Joseph Vranich, author of End of the Line: The Failure of Amtrak Reform and the Future of America’s Passenger Trains (AEI Press, November 2004) offers these facts to debunk Amtrak’s most popular myths.
MYTH: America needs long distance trains.
FACT: Amtrak ridership is insignificant.
- Amtrak ridership in 2002 totaled 23.4 million passengers, but only 3.6 million of these (16%) rode the 17 long-distance trains.
- In 2000, the 17 long-distance trains carried four million passengers, but only 18% traveled the full length of the route, while 34% only rode the shorter “corridor” portion. In other words, in some cases it may make sense to save the most intensely used portions of the longer routes to make the trains more market-relevant.
FACT: A modern airline system has made Amtrak obsolete.
- In 2001, Amtrak had 512 stations, while there were 636 U.S.-certified airports and thousands of smaller ones.
- One airport alone, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International, serves 209,112 passengers per day, more than three times the 65,753 passengers who use Amtrak nationwide. The other top three airports each serve twice as many passengers as Amtrak.
MYTH: Amtrak is politically invulnerable.
FACT: All politicians are accountable to informed voters.
- Amtrak passengers on long-distance trains receive $300 to $400 apiece in taxpayer-provided subsidies for each trip they take--more than the average airline ticket cost of $276.
- Amtrak has already eliminated 123 station stops and several long-distance routes since its inception and not a single politician has lost an election as a result.
MYTH: Amtrak is needed in case of another terrorist attack on the airline system.
FACT: September 11 did not increase Amtrak ridership.
- According to the Amtrak Reform Council, Amtrak’s ridership was 6.4 percent lower in September 2001 than in September 2000, and 16.3 percent less than what Amtrak had projected.
- Amtrak discounted fares deeply after adding extra cars for an expected boost in ridership that never came. An Amtrak passenger could travel from Philadelphia to Chicago for $16 (Greyhound charged $72.90).
These and other facts can be found in Vranich’s book, End of the Line. Vranich worked to create Amtrak in 1970-71, and later served as an Amtrak press spokesman, President of the High Speed Rail Association, and a U.S. Senate appointee to the Amtrak Reform Council. His critiques of Amtrak have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, the Chicago Tribune, and Knight-Ridder Newspapers.
Vranich is available for interviews or as a guest columnist. If you wish to contact him or obtain a copy of the book, please call or write Andrew Pappas, at (202) 862-4870 or apappas@aei.org.
