DC to B-more in 15 minutes

[Yada]

People also have a skewed opinion of Amtrak in this area because it's outrageously over priced. You can buy tickets in other parts of the country for DIRT cheap, I guess they need to milk the area of the country where they can actually make money.

That's totally true.  The Acela is far and away the most profitable line and underwrites losses.  Less than a handful (literally, 4) of Amtrak lines actually make money.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/interactives/2013/AmtrakRoutes

My trick back when I used to go to NYC a lot would be to buy tickets months and months in advance and if for some reason I couldn't make the trip, it was always refundable. For a long time I never paid more than $100 to $120 to get to NYC.

[atomic]

Amtrak is subsidized heavily by the gov't/tax dollars. if it lowers prices guess who pays. kind of like metro. metro loses $ on every trip.

Yeah ... and of the 47,182 miles of interstate highway (estimated cost of $425 billion), only 2,900 are toll. Guess who pays the rest? The highway system loses money everyday.

Tolls don't pay for the highways.   On Interstate highways 90 percent of the cost is picked up by the federal gasoline tax.  The rest is paid by the states.  Do you really think they need all those tolls on the short section of Deleware interstate to pay for the 10 percent of upkeep?  They are using that money for other uses. I think Maryland built a bunch of things for the port of Baltimore with the money they collect on roads that the federal government pays for.

I think Amtrak should subsidize the cost of the North East route.  Raise the gasoline tax to pay for it.   Then with gasoline saved with more people using public transportation we can export gasoline and help the countries economy.

[chaz]

That's totally true.  The Acela is far and away the most profitable line and underwrites losses.  Less than a handful (literally, 4) of Amtrak lines actually make money.

http://www.brookings.edu/research/interactives/2013/AmtrakRoutes

This is a great chart.  Acela alone is profitable enough to make up the slack for over half of the lines that lose money.

[slappy]

Amtrak is subsidized heavily by the gov't/tax dollars. if it lowers prices guess who pays. kind of like metro. metro loses $ on every trip.

Yeah ... and of the 47,182 miles of interstate highway (estimated cost of $425 billion), only 2,900 are toll. Guess who pays the rest? The highway system loses money everyday.

Tolls don't pay for the highways.   On Interstate highways 90 percent of the cost is picked up by the federal gasoline tax.  The rest is paid by the states.  Do you really think they need all those tolls on the short section of Deleware interstate to pay for the 10 percent of upkeep?  They are using that money for other uses. I think Maryland built a bunch of things for the port of Baltimore with the money they collect on roads that the federal government pays for.

I think Amtrak should subsidize the cost of the North East route.  Raise the gasoline tax to pay for it.   Then with gasoline saved with more people using public transportation we can export gasoline and help the countries economy.

Yes, I realize the tolls don't pay for the highways.
Actually 70% of the total is funded by fuel taxes. The rest are bonds, property and other local taxes.
I just included tolls to head off the reply of 'What about tolls'. Most toll roads were originally intended to become free but got grandfathered in by Congress.

My point is simply we're paying 'to subsidize' one way or another.