Amtrak ridership breaks 10th record in 11 years

[frigidmagi]

dot.gov

You might have noticed that a number of my recent blog posts have reached a similar conclusion: that rail deserves a predictable and reliable federal funding stream. The most recent news supporting this comes from Amtrak, which recently announced their 10th annual ridership record in 11 years. Amtrak carried 31.6 million passengers in Fiscal Year 2013. And as you can see from this chart below, the railroad’s ridership has grown more than 50 percent since 2000.



Today, Amtrak’s ridership is growing faster than any major travel mode. A recent Brookings Institution report noted that the growth in Amtrak ridership is growing significantly faster than ridership growth in domestic aviation.

And, Amtrak’s ridership growth is not centered in one part of the country, but in more than 500 communities across America. Furthermore, ridership is growing across all regions. While ridership for state-supported services grew to a record 15.4 million passengers, long distance routes experienced their best ridership in 20 years. And in spite of service disruptions caused by Superstorm Sandy, Northeast Corridor services had their second-best year ever.

Other highlights from Fiscal Year 2013? How about eight individual monthly ridership records, the single best ridership month in Amtrak history, new ridership records on 20 routes, and record ticket revenue of $2.1 billion.

The key now is to continue investing in passenger rail service that is safer, faster, more reliable, and more frequent.

We’re already seeing how travelers are responding well to service improvements. In Illinois and Michigan, for example, we have invested in service that is faster --reaching speeds of 110 MPH-- and more reliable, and in new trains and stations that are more modern and comfortable. And riders are already responding well to the initial improvements: with 2013 ridership up 4 percent in Michigan and up close to 10 percent between Chicago and St. Louis.

Our investments are also making a big impact in New England. Ridership on Amtrak’s Downeaster connecting Boston to Brunswick, Maine is up 123 percent since 2005. But since we invested in extending service north of Portland to Brunswick, the number of people using the train for tourism increased 30 percent, which has the Northern New England Passenger Rail Authority considering adding more daily roundtrips.

Rail’s renaissance shows us the time has come to put rail on par with other forms of transportation. Dedicated and predictable rail funding will lead us to a more balanced transportation network capable of moving 100 million additional people by 2050 and sustaining long-term economic growth. And with record numbers of Americans looking for alternatives to clogged highways and airports, making a long-term commitment to a high-performing rail network – similar to how we built the Interstate Highway System – is simply what the American people deserve.

[LadyTevar]

It seems that riding the rail is experencing a renaissance. I wonder if this is due to the price of air travel vs rail. I know travel by rai is far more comfortable than Greyhound, and Martin preferred rail to air travel. If there had been a railroad to England, we'd have taken that instead of an airplane, and it probably would have been better for his health.

Note to self: take train to NYC, as Martin promised.

[Lys]

Amtrak was really, really close to being in the black back in the late 70s. The Carter administration then made Amtrak cut several of its unprofitable routes in an attempt to bring it over the top. What it actually did was gut tge Amtrak network bad enough that it went deeper into the red. As it turns out, the way transit networks work, branches that may be unprofitable on their own may actually have a positive system-wide effect by encouraging traffic through other branches. The head of Amtrak under Reagan did a lot to reverse the damage, but nevertheless the company has been struggling ever since.

Thankfully the combination of higher gas prices and competent management has helped Amtrak make a renaissance in recent years, but it's been a hell of an uphill struggle, especially because most of Congress hates spending money on it. Even then there's been a lot of hard knocks as the big rail companies in the US really don't like Amtrak, which makes things difficult. For example the Empire Builder service from Chicago to Seattle/Portland used to be the sterling service of Amtrak. Then after the Bakken fields opened up the line got choked to hell and back with oil trains and so it's been doing pretty bad lately. Recently the biggest issue Amtrak is facing is that they are having difficulty meeting demand in the sense that if they added more trains they could money off of them, but they don't have the money to buy the rolling stock for those trains. They're also short on sleeping cars, they're pretty popular but they have a fairly limited number of them. It's one of those need money to make money type situations.

As an aside, I would like take this moment to thank former Senator Joe Biden for securing federal monies to restore and improve the Wilmington train station, it's so pretty.

[frigidmagi]

What I really wish was there was a line from Phoenix to Oklahoma City.

[LadyTevar]

I wish to thank Sen. Robert C. Byrd for putting a clause into the Amtrak funding to say if it ever closes the Cardinal Line (from Wytheburg thru Charleston WV to Chicago), it thereby loses all Federal Funding.

[Lys]

This is why porkbarrel spending is one of the cornerstones of the Republic, as it ensured that areas that would otherwise be neglected got much needed funding and encouraged cooperation within the legislature. I think the Tea Party were thoroughly misguided in their successful effort to cut it down to near nothing by banning earmarks after the 2010 Republican Congressional takeover. I actually blame much of Congress' general paralysis and uselessness over the last few years on the destruction of the porkbarrel. Without being able to grease the wheels by spreading out the wealth, it's much more difficult to reach across the aisle and garner votes to get shit done. Killing pork did nothing to balance the budget, earmarks were less than half a percent of all federal expenditures, but it did much to make it very difficult to even pass a budget. And that's leaving aside that with how cheap debt is nowadays balancing the budget is a fool's errand to begin with.

What I really wish was there was a line from Phoenix to Oklahoma City.

There is... sort of. The station is in Maricopa is the main thing, and the train leaves at 0540 hours. There might be some sort of shuttle service from Phoenix or something, I don't know. From there you just the Texas Eagle to Fort Worth, and then the Heartland Flyer to Oklahoma City. Total travel time is 38 hours or so, and it's $156 for a coach seat if you buy a couple of weeks in advance.

When I was in Rhode Island taking the Peter Pan out of Providence to go see my Boyfriend in upstate NY was more convenient than the train, as that involved an overnight layover at Penn Station. Now that I live in Delware though, I was able to take the Northeast Regional out of Wilmington to New York City, then the Adirondacks to my destination. It's about as long a trip as the bus out of Providence, but cheaper and much more comfortable.

[frigidmagi]

Odd thing is every search for a train station in the greater Phoenix area (Maricopa county pretty much is Phoenix) comes up nil.

[Lys]

Sorry, I should have been more specific. The station is not in Maricopa county, it's in Maricopa city in Pinal county, about 40 minutes by road from Phoenix's city centre. You take I-10 going east out of Phoenix, and then SR 347 south to Maricopa.

[frigidmagi]

Well that makes it significantly more difficult to get to. But thank you for telling me. Now I just got to figure out how to get to Maricopa city.

Also, is it me or it odd that Maricopa city isn't in Maricopa county?

[Hotfoot]

I would love for there to be a train line from New York to Anywhere. I used to love flying, but the TSA violently murdered any joy I got from that.

So yes, up with rail!

[Lys]

There are train lines out of NYC to many places, but sadly not quite everywhere. Here have a system map:




Also, this is what it was in 1976, before the Carter cuts.

[LadyTevar]

There used to be train tracks to all those other states, but they were shut down for various reasons over the decades. Some were "short-line" railroads, some were small gauge (incompatable with modern trains) and some were just not profitable.

[Lys]

The only states without Amtrak service are Wyoming, Hawai'i, Alaska, and South Dakota. There used to be service to Cheyenne once upon a time, but the others never had any. Of course Amtrak itself only came into being in 1971 because passenger rail in the US was in the process of experiencing near total collapse. It might put things in perspective to consider passenger rail routes nearly a decade before Amtrak's founding: