[LINK] "Off the Rails"

[rfmcdonald]

"Why do conservatives hate trains so much?" is the subtitle of David Weigel's Slate article. Weigel's writing about American conservatives, and the seeming paradox that at the time that the movie Atlas Shrugged with its high-speed train is coming out many Americans are hostile to passenger trains. His conclusion? It's a combination of ill-thought opposition to transport subsidies and a dislike of European-style densification, even in high-density areas, all coupled with a belief that it's just another item on liberals' list of behaviours to be (unnaturally) modified.

What, exactly, do Republicans, conservatives, and libertarians have against trains? Seriously, what? Why did President George W. Bush try to zero out Amtrak funding in 2005? Why is the conservative Republican Study Committee suggesting that we do so now? Why does George Will think "the real reason for progressives' passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans' individualism in order to make them more amenable to collectivism"?

[. . .]

Libertarians, of course, have no problem with trains (see, e.g., Atlas Shrugged). They do have a problem with federal spending on transportation, as do many Republicans. Atlas Shrugged was published in 1957; Amtrak took over the rails in 1971. Since then, conservatives will sing the praises of private rail projects but criticize federally funded projects that don't meet the ideal. Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., for example, pushed a high-speed rail initiative through Congress in 2008. By 2010, he was denouncing "the Soviet-style Amtrak operation" that had "trumped true high-speed service" in Florida. In 2011, as the chairman of the House Transportation Committee, he is interested in saving the Orlando-Tampa project by building 21 miles between the airport and Disney World. This is about 21 miles farther than local Republicans want to go.

For more than a decade, Lind and a conservative movement icon, Paul Weyrich, collaborated on papers about why conservatives should support rail. Their 2001 paper, "Twelve Anti-Transit Myths: A Conservative Critique," actually tackled 34 "myths" about rail, including "rail transit is a federal conspiracy" and "trains are noisy." It ended with Lind and Weyrich declaring of their foes: "THESE PEOPLE DON'T KNOW WHAT THEY'RE TALKING ABOUT!" Weyrich died in 2008, effectively cutting the number of conservative rail prophets in half.

"Conservatives used to be in favor of a civilized way of doing things," says Lind. "Board a train and you don't have the TSA groping you. If you think our greatest vulnerability is a dependence on foreign oil, here's a way to get around that can run on coal or electrified rails."

But conservatives hear that spiel every day. They have a response that's part economics and part culture. The economics are simple: Trains cost too much. Randal O'Toole, a Cato Institute fellow who studies transportation and is constantly cited by rail skeptics, likes to compare the total federal subsidies-per-passenger of rail to subsidies-per-passenger on highways. Amtrak got $2.2 billion in pure subsidies in 2010 and carried 28.7 million people, for around 13 cents per passenger, although some researchers estimate the annual cost at closer to 30 cents. Highways got $42 billion in funds in fiscal year 2010, but far more people use them; the estimate puts cost at between 1 cent and 4 cents per driver.

But there is another way to look at the numbers: Amtrak passengers pay more of the cost of their transportation than do drivers on the interstate. About 62 percent of Amtrak's operating expenses, according to the Department of Transportation, comes from fares. According to the Federal Highway Administration, the percentage of highway spending paid for by users—in the form of gas taxes and tolls—is headed below 50 percent.

[. . .]

Leaving aside the apparent contradiction—first rail doesn't make sense because no one would ride it, then it doesn't make sense because too many people would want to ride it—Cox's point is the conservatives' second play in their anti-rail argument: the cultural case against rail. Rail can't work because people don't want to ride it. Liberals want to fund rail because they want to change behavior.