Amtrak yesterday announced that it would be going forward with plans to raise fares across the board and cut its discount for monthly passes along the northeast corridor. By February, a monthly unlimited pass from Philadelphia to Manhattan will rise from $622 to $1,008. Amtrak officials cited rising fuel costs as one reason for the increase in fares.
So at a time when the country desperately needs to not only conserve fuel in the short-term but also to build medium- and long-term alternatives to automobile use, our national train service is actually making it more affordable to drive.
Amtrak’s problems are a long and sordid. But the central reason passenger train service is so terrible in this country is that for the last fifty years we have chosen to subsidize road-building at the expense of any other kind of mass-transit, and we continue to do so. Consider that a first class, 1-month unlimited Eurail pass, which allows travel in seventeen European countries costs only $946, not counting special promotions (of which there are many).
On the whole, Europeans use more public transportation and drive less than Americans. And, as Daniel Gross has noted, because of high taxation, Europe is less sensitive to increases in gas prices—most of what they pay at the pump is taxes. He doesn’t go into it, but that’s another way of saying that Europeans have already adjusted to high prices—in large part by taking public transportation.
If we want to survive the oil depletion era, hybrid cars are not going to be enough. We’re going to have to drive a lot less. Raising Amtrak monthly passes by 40 percent is not a good way to begin.
marks a political sea-change that is as significant as any particular proposal Obama may have articulated.
Posted by: cheap jersey | June 29, 2011 at 05:46 AM