HULK SMASHED
Cost of living, is going to be deadly to some, VERY SOON!
OK, settle down Atrios. You're going to hurt yourself.
Almost 2xs
heh you should see how much fares cost on British trains.
Hi Nim - The drive back to hotel with your gps thingy was hysterically funny.
credit cards fill up fast a $3 a gallon
Amtrak has always been government funded, to have them raise their rates is both damaging and sensible.
I find myself torn on this. But with the cost of gas, the fed could come in and institute some kind of federal help to allow people to avoid that skyhigh price.
drive more! spend more money on gas!
Good morning batses!
Tinfoil hat time --
Is this a way to keep people driving? Run up the cost of mass transit to the point where most will say fuck it and take to their cars ayway?
I'm not sure if i'm relatively well-off, but I've definitely been kvetching. And it's not just CHights, they're ending all service to Princeton Junction from Philly from what I've been able to gather.
As usual, watertiger had the same idea and expressed it in a shorter, pithier fashion.
Sigh. Well it's a good point no matter WHO makes it. 
" Hi Nim - The drive back to hotel with your gps thingy was hysterically funny."
Hey, the you hit the road with the robot you have, not the robot you want :D
"OFF ROUTE! RECALCULATING!"
It just needs flashing red lights and a siren now.
in a related story...
Bushco will give you a chevy suburban if you promise to make that commute every day
There's only one appropriate response for the squealers ...
"Hurricane Katrina changed everything."
Bushco will give you a chevy suburban if you promise to make that commute every day
Bushco wouldn't GIVE you anything unless you were a multimillion dollar GOP donor.
They'll SELL you the rope to hang yourself with, however.
In this post Katrina world......
somebody else needs to caption this photo.
IN a WaPo story today.
Employees of private security firms are immune from prosecution in Iraq, under an order adopted into law last year by Iraq's interim government. The most severe punishment that can be applied to them is revocation of their license and dismissal from their job, U.S. officials said. Their heavy presence stems in large part from the Pentagon's attempts to keep troop numbers down by privatizing jobs that would once have been performed by American forces.
If we nuke Cuba we could fight hurricanes there, instead of fighting them over here!
somebody else needs to caption this photo.
Is that a cigarette dangling from his mouth?
Remember what President er I mean Vice President Dick Cheney said. "Conservation is a personal philosophy not an energy policy" Something like that.
Go fuck yourself Mr. Cheney!
.
As someone who is taking the train to DC for the march on the 24th, I think the timing of this fare increase is very interesting.
I'll go tend to the creases in my tinfoil hat now.
Their heavy presence stems in large part from the Pentagon's attempts to keep troop numbers down by privatizing jobs that would once have been performed by American forces.
Yuo go to war with the troops you want, not the troops you have....
While many security companies perform military-style tasks, often on behalf of the U.S. government, they are not under the armed services' command. In response to a congressional request for more information on oversight of security contractors, the Pentagon said the military's relationship with them was "one of coordination, not control."
Horst declined to provide the name of the contractors whose employees were involved in the 12 shootings he documented in the Baghdad area. But he left no doubt that he believed the May 12 incident, in which three people were killed, led directly to the attack on his soldiers that came days later on the same block.
"Do you think that's an insurgent action? Hell no," [Brig. General] Horst said. "That's someone paying us back because their people got killed. And we had absolutely nothing to do with it."
somebody else needs to caption this photo.
Commander-In-Chief Moloch receives another sacrifice.
actually let me try again, not completely dropping Princeton Junction (and North Philly) but effectively ending it for commuters going north. I think the plan is to drop the Clocker service completely, which doesn't leave many options for commuters leaving or going to those two stops.
anyway...
Rising energy costs???
Yeah, lets force more people to use less efficient means of transport because sources of energy are becoming scarcer.
Brillian.
somebody else needs to caption this photo.
What a fine little soldier! (pause) No, that's not an expression, why do you ask?
Brillian.
I can see fredo and cheneyburton standing around like those charaters in the commercial hawking beer. When they come up with yet another plan to fuck the people they raise their beer bottles and shout BRILLIANT!
" somebody else needs to caption this photo."
Yep, this one's fine! Put it in the bin, and give em their debit card!
Airfares are likely to go up, too. And bus fares. Everything will go up because everything is based on the price of oil.
$633 to $1,008, a 59 percent increase
that's just huge! From Philly to Princeton Junction it's $382, and that rate has been upped 3 times (if my memory is right) in the past year. A 50-59 percent hammer puts it close to $600.
No more Amtrak for me. With the route reductions it's been pretty hard to take anyway. On SEPTA, Philly to Trenton is $170/month and the NJT for two stops can't be too much. It's either that or die in a fiery wreck on 95.
okay, I can move on now.
$114 to go back and forth from NYC to Philadelphia is, for many, a lot of money.
If trains share costs over many riders, shouldn't it be cheaper to ride the train than to drive?
Not that I know much about economics and pricing.
Maybe Amtrak's been looking at the way SEPTA (Philadelphia's transit agency) has handled this sort of thing.
SEPTA faces a shortage of funds? They threaten to shut down the airport line, or end all service on every line on the weekends. I'm sure their goal is to antagonize the people will will call the governor's office and complain. Sounds like that's what Amtrak's doing.
It has all the subtlety of someone who is trying to get people to adopt kittens by threatening to drown any that are left behind. But it seems to work.
$114 to go back and forth from NYC to Philadelphia is, for many, a lot of money.
Amtrak fares on the NEC for travel are too expensive compared to the alternative a lot of the time for me. I visit Boston and RI from Philly on occasion and I usually fly Southwest to Providence, although I need to rely on friends to pick me up there. When we go to NY, usually drive to Port Authority, cheaper.
"Is that a cigarette dangling from his mouth?"
I think it's a sharpie. Maybe he's autographing babies?
LOL, monthly passes between Worcester and Boston (basically half the distance between NY & Phil) are only $200 on the MBTA commuter rail.
Amcrap is a joke. They contracted to run the MBTA commuter trains when I lived in MA, and damn if the service & reliability didn't suck. MBTA was looking to dump them for another contractor - not sure if they ever did.
I don't mind passenger rail - it makes especially good sense in dense areas like the northeast. But Amcrap must die. I think FEMA might be run better ... 
IRS raises mileage reimbursement rate
The Internal Revenue Service, recognizing increased gas prices around the country, on Friday increased the mileage reimbursement rate that workers claim when they use personal cars for work. The decision raised the rate to 48.5 cents a mile for the last four months of the year, after which the tax agency plans to look again at gas prices and re-evaluate the rate. IRS Commissioner Mark Everson said the change reflects that taxpayers should be entitled to a deduction that matches the real cost of operating a vehicle. Many businesses use the IRS rate as a benchmark for reimbursing their employees for travel costs.
Until and unless Amtrak can compete on price with the airlines, it will not receive increased ridership from the American public. I have never understood how or why the train IN THIS COUNTRY ONLY costs as much or more than air travel for the same route. Why in heaven's name would I pay $100 one way to Boston for 8 hours when I can get a one way for $50 on aplane? Until this is changed, only rich expense account business people, and train buffs will ride the rails.
On possible solution? Eliminate passenger travel on non-commuter long routes (i.e., LA-Chicago, NYC-Atlanta) and concentrate on the NE corridor and other discrete areas.
a good friend works for amtrak. he hasn't had a pay raise in three years+. he's too old to start over with another pension system. meanwhile they keep doing away with jobs and laying the work on those still around.
he's expecting a melt down soon. i hope too many people don't get killed when it happens.
-J.T.
Alex D.
let's flip that equation: give amtrak the same incentives/supports that the airlines get.
-J.T.
Remember, the Bush folks have been starving Amtrak of funding for 5 years now. Last year, they wanted to slash the budget for Amtrak's *entire national rail system* from $900 million to $450 million.
We spend that kind of money in a blink in Iraq. But we don't want to invest in transportation infrastructure domestically.
The timing of this announcement couldn't be clunkier, given recent events. In general, Americans' ability to move freely around our nation is being constrained at every turn.
More at my LINK.
Remember a lot of the Deleware, MD and maybe the southeastern PA congress and senate critters commute to DC daily on Amtrak. This will be interesting.
"why the train IN THIS COUNTRY ONLY costs as much or more than air travel for the same route"
Not true, actually. The proliferation of low-cost carrier in Europe means that airfares are often cheaper than rail fares.
Then again, on routes shorter than 300km or so, taking the train is often faster than flying, city-center to city-center. Compare, for example, a Eurostar journey from Brussels to London Waterloo with a Ryanair flight from "Brussels" airport (which is actually 50 km from Brussels) to Stansted (which is a similar distance from London). Eurostar is faster -- about 2 1/2 hours -- if not necessarily cheaper.
Yup. I was planning to take Amtrak from NYC to Philly, actually looked forward to it. I love traveling by train. But whoa, $53, whether I could afford it or not, seemed insane and I couldn't do it on principle.
I resigned myself to taking the Greyhoud bus from Port Authority, expecting to feel like was in steerage (remembering how the bus used to feel when I was a teen, smelly, uncomfortable and hot).
Guess what? It was on time, air-conditioned, had a movie, and was a non-stop. $21. I had a chance to talk to other commuters and they swear by it. They said Amtrak is always late and they hate it.
The bus/Amtrak thing was probably the biggest eye-opener of the entire trip. This country is so fucked up!
Yup. I was planning to take Amtrak from NYC to Philly, actually looked forward to it. I love traveling by train. But whoa, $53, whether I could afford it or not, seemed insane and I couldn't do it on principle.
I resigned myself to taking the Greyhoud bus from Port Authority, expecting to feel like was in steerage (remembering how the bus used to feel when I was a teen, smelly, uncomfortable and hot).
Guess what? It was on time, air-conditioned, had a movie, and was a non-stop. $21. I had a chance to talk to other commuters and they swear by it. They said Amtrak is always late and they hate it.
The bus/Amtrak thing was probably the biggest eye-opener of the entire trip. This country is so fucked up!
Honestly, $50/day ($1008/20 days) is not an unreasonable price for a daily round-trip Phila-NYC commute.
It costs as little as $29 to fly from Philadelphia to Providence. A train takes much longer and costs three times as much. What can Amtrak learn from Southwest?
I guess they do not want Senator Biden to commute from Delaware.
They are doing everything they can to purposefully destroy Amtrak. They want to privitize it, and quick. This is just the latest tactic.
"What can Amtrak learn from Southwest?"
Put wings and big engines on their trains and enable them to become airborne?
People commute from Lille to Paris. That's about 50 miles farther than the distance from Philly to New York. Yet the trip takes only 64 minutes; the Acela from Philly to NYC takes 10 minutes longer.
And a monthly commuter pass from Lille to Paris costs about 500 euros. They get cheaper the more often you renew them.
So maybe the question should be not what Amtrak can learn from Southwest Airlines, but what it can learn from the French railway company SNCF.
I think that a monthly pass covers ca. 50 trips, so a price per trip (in a monthly pass) between NYC and Philly increased from 12.66 to 10.16, increase of 7.50.
Driving this distance in a Honda Civic would require ca. 3 gallons of gasoline. Gasoline DID NOT increase in price by 2.50. Energy cost of a train per passanger should be many times smaller than in a car with no passangers (i.e. just the driver), probably at least 10 times.
My opinion is that the problem of Amtrak is that being consistently starved it cannot attract talented management and realize economies of scale etc. In the same time, passangers who travel by train do not contribute to hellish traffic on interstate, tunnels and bridges, not to mention that they contribute much less to energy consumption.
I live in NYC and have family in the Philly and Wilmington areas and make the trip about 8-10 times a year...and I long ago gave up on Amtrak. For the past 25 years or so, the fares seemed to rise about 5-10% each year, which is a lot when inflation is in the neighborhood of 2-3% or so.
One alternative is the relatively cheap ($30) NJ Transit/SEPTA combination...but in recent years, as more stops were added in NJ, the connections were often missed, causing me an hour or more layover in Trenton. Plus, I'd usually have to schlep onto a third long commuter run at 30th St., to Exton or Wilmington or Delaware County, and the missed Trenton connections would play havoc with the 30th St. connections.
So for the past 4 years or so, I've rented a car. The cost is about the same as Amtrak and it's faster -- and much faster than the NJ Transit/SEPTA connection. I have a trunk for packages...no more schlepping on and off up to 4 trains, including the subway, each way.
But I've yet to make the trip since the most recent spike in gas prices, so I'll have to see how that goes.
Another comparison: In Switzerland a general ticket for the whole country costs approx. $225 per month. It's good all the trains (about 1,800 miles of lines) and postal service buses (which go to every little village and hamlet, about 6,500 miles of lines), plus most city bus lines, plus excursion boats on the lakes and rivers. The 72 miles from Zurich to Berne takes a bit less than an hour.
One other point: I haven't been able to get a straight answer to this from any agency, though I suspect I know the answer. Amtrak is transferring the Clocker Service (weekday NYC-Philly commuter runs) to NJ Transit. Though no agency will say so openly, it looks like the Clockers will now originate and terminate in Trenton rather than Philly and be run as NYC-Trenton commuter expresses.
It might've been nice if SEPTA and NJ Transit had collaborated on the Clocker takeover and made the runs all the way to Philly, with NJT/SEPTA fares. Heck, even if they charged a premium, say $40-50 round trip instead of the usual $30, they might've been able to attract me back to the train.
A one year Bahn 100 pass, which entitles the rider to take any train in Germany, is 3250 Euro for second class (which is not at all bad) and 5400 Euro for first class (which is posh, from the looks of it). You do have to pay supplements on the ICE (180 mp/h trains) and for accomodations on the overnighters, though. It also functions as a year-long pass for most major city transit systems and allows car usage from some stations for 3.80 Euro/hour (presumably, gas is NOT included!)
If I didn't work on a military base and live in the sticks, I'd go carless, and maybe even treat myself to a first class ticket. Still cheaper than insurance, maintenence and fuel.
Semi-regular riders can get the Bahn 50 (50% discount) card for 200 Euro and less-frequent riders like myself go for the Bahn 25 for 50 Euro. A little gimmicky, true, but a method for rewarding riders who decide to make more of a commitment to riding.
If I have a Bahn 25 card and plan ahead a bit, I can go from Nuremberg to Frankfurt for the weekend for 28 Euro if I'm very lucky, 43 if I dithered and the cheap tickets got bought up already, or 50-58 if I walk up to the ticket counter or machine right before boarding. Round-trip! For 1.50 extra each way, I'm guaranteed a seat in the non-smoking section.
Philly to NYC is a comparable distance (actually, it might be shorter); the best I can do for the Friday evening - Sunday evening round-trip, calling myself a AAA member, is $102, and that's buying it the weekend before, online. (discount cards don't work for purchases the day of...)
I paid 96 Euro ($120) to go from rural central Bavaria to Amsterdam, round-trip with seat reservation.
I've heard complaints from Germans about how much more expensive the train is now, but Deutsche Bahn still seems to take better care of its regulars than Amtrak.
With extra investment and volume, Amtrak could decrease unit costs quite drastically.
I read that a seat in a passanger train costs 20-30k, and a gallon can carry one passanger, in a full train, for ca. 200 miles. A good train is quite durable (like a good plane!), and the cost can easily be divided into 10 years, 5000 one way trips (morning and evening), with midday and night trips, not fully loaded, being extra.
This gives the capital cost of "rolling stock" of 4-6 dollars per trip, fuel cost 1-2 dollars. Partially loaded trips would have several times higher fuel cost and "free" rolling stock. Thus without labor and tracks, the costs on Philly-NYC distance could be within 8 dollars. With labor, we are still within 10 dollars.
Thus the biggest challenge is to pay for the track, and here what is needed is volume of travel. Trains can easily be 50% faster than buses and cars. With greater volume, one could provide also many trains, and thus attractively flexible times.
To summarize: low volume passanger trains cannot be economical, and high volume passanger trains can be cheaper than any competition.
Wow, Piotr! Your reponse (2:10PM) is very hopeful. Now, let's get rid of BUshCo, and maybe public transit could have a chance.
Now, more than ever, we need excellent rail service.
Plus, even for the Rethugs should support it: What else ran cross-continent when the planes were grounded? Well, OK, buses did also--I think.
the Chinatown bus services linking NYC and Philadelphia are also a nice alternative, $20 round trip last I looked, and there's even a movie, or there was the last time I rode.
oh get over your whiney east coast privledged selves!
This is exactly what any liberal should want Amtrack to do, charge the people who can afford to pay the most the largest increase.
With as much as I and other people here in the rest of the counrty pay to subsidize your lame ass rail service when ours sucks donkey balls in comparison you could at least pay your fair share.
That kind of regular long distance transit is just insustainable. There is no good reason to move a 200lb delicate package back and forth that far every day. Live closer to where you work, work closer to where you live or arm twist your boss into more electronic time.
monchie b. monchum,
my understanding from talking to the conductors is the Clockers are NJT and start/end in Trenton come next month.
Ken Mehlman has admitted to gay club membership.
.
So much for Philly becoming the sixth borough of NY.
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