measures of cost/subsidy

This whole area is rife with misunderstood, or perhaps I mean misleading, stats. To give just 3 examples (I could go on for hours):

Cost per passenger. Often used to show how terrible long-distance Amtrak trains are. Actually only applicable to systems where all pax pay the same fare, regardless of distance traveled (example: My local city bus service)

Cost per passenger-mile. This is the one to use for long-distance, multiple fare operations. On this basis long-distance Amtrak (for ex; the Empire Builder) runs about $0.20 ppm vs up to $0.45 ppm on some "corridor" services.

(to give a comparison, saying the EB "loses" more is like saying a car that gets twice the gas mileage costs more to run because you drive it more miles. Average EB pax goes about 600 miles)

Farebox Recovery. This is simply what percentage of costs are covered by riders fares. To give some examples, NYC subway system hovers in the high 90's and goes over 100 occasionally, my local (bus) transit is about 35 and Amtrak is around 92 the last I heard. Most big city transit systems are considered to be doing very well if they clear 50.

Of course similar measures are *never* applied to other modes. At least I've never heard anyone grousing because I-90 or 1st street "lose money!"

Basically tho, carrying people just isn't profitable. They're just too demanding compared to freight.

Subsidy is a funny word tho. My own personal definition is "any tax dollars spent *or not collected* on a transport mode." So I consider the property tax not collected on I-90 or the Spokane airport to be subsidys, well-hidden ones. Or the Business traveller who pays the walk-up fare on the airliner(or train) and then writes it off against taxes...

To bring it back(slightly) on-topic, I think that that Colorado & New Mexico would be much better off if D&RGW trains 15/115/215/315 & 16/116/216/316 were still running. At least people would have another choice of how to get around.

I also don't think the Grande *ever* really developed it's system well for local passenger service. Pull up some old schedules and try to figure out how to get from/to (to give a few examples) Alamosa-Grand Jct, Durango-Gunnison, or Crested Butte-Lake City! Then figure what % of that time would have been spent waiting for tomorrows train somewhere...


hank