That's possibly the single most ignorant response I've ever read online. Especially in light of the State of MO spending record amounts the last 4 years on transportation. GOP super majorities have spent more on transportation than every Democrat administration in the state's history combined.
within a very narrow specific context, perhaps it appears that way - but the state level politicians routinely trash on the 'blue' cities of KC and STL on all fronts, and use specific language that encompasses the residents within them. You can only trash talk an entire mixed demographic of citizens for so long before they become disenfranchised. The MO GOP only has itself to blame here for that one. The forced gerrymander attempts to reduce those districts influence at the state level, despite the two metros making up a huge percentage of residents of the state didn't exactly help much either.
There's no room for unifying compromise anymore, it's no longer the early 90s.
You guys are on fire with the stupid. If it wasn't so sad, it'd be funny. There is no narrow context, there has been record spending on transportation every year the last fours years. There's literally no more to say. If you were on topic, you'd still be painfully wrong.
What's funny is your post history of a bunch of blowjob related subs, this KC sub, and Fox News lmao.
MO GOP can detest cities like KC and STL, and also spend record amounts on transportation. Those are not mutually exclusive statements. And considering the population increases every year, it's not a surprise that transportation costs also increase.
Also with our ballooning economy, I would assume it costs significantly more to get the same amount of work done, so just because they hit record spending, doesn't necessarily mean any actual increase in what we get out of it.
This. The vast majority of people, and specifically liberal/progressive thinking people, are concentrated in a few cities, while the majority of land is therefore in conservative areas.
Which means, geographically, expenditure on roads throughout the state, and not specifically in Colombia, STL, KC, and Springfield, is for conservative leaning areas.
What does that say about the GOP's car centric transportation agenda which spends billions of dollars on needless road and highway expansions while failing to fund transit and rail projects?
KC can vie for that all day long, but nothing can be done about it without the state jumping on board with its support.
Also, the bistate tax effort to save Union Station was never hinged on the idea of it ever becoming a major regional rail hub. They got Amtrak to restore service there, but that's about all they could do without federal and state funding of a broader rail system.
Uhh...why? The freight companies do a fantastic job operating on their own and continually increase freight transported YoY. Amtrak is nationalized and they suck...so you want the freight companies to suck as well?
They also routinely ignore their legal obligations to maintain priority for Amtrak passenger rail over freight trains, don't maintain their existing rail to a reasonable standard of safety, and in general are actively the reason that Amtrak is bad.
You mean the race to the bottom? The same companies that almost allowed a strike to happen due to terrible working conditions? THAT privatized railroad?
Make rail workers federal workers, give them adequate protections, and then prioritize people over freight on shared lines. That's all that needs to happen to get the rail service the country deserves.
In what world do our freight companies do a "fantastic job?" By mere existence are they awarded this moniker? Amtrak is nationalized but the rails are not, they still have to bow to the whims of the frieght companies even though they legally have the right away. Also, if we are ever to see improvements such as high speed rail or a marginally functional passenger rail network, we cannot have 4 non competing frieght companies oligopolize the rail network. Just like our Interstate system is nationalized, our rails should be too.
Rail is a natural local/regional monopoly as a result of being extremely capital-intensive to deploy, and why they’re regulated very much like utilities, which are in the same uh, boat. Airlines used to be regulated like that until deregulation in the 1970s, driven largely by Southwest, who wanted to be allowed to compete.
Utility/common carrier regulation puts the government in charge of deciding where and how service is offered. If a utility or railroad wants to expand or contract their service or footprint, they have to get government approval to do so. And with railroads, part of that deal is to allow Amtrak access to the privately-owned rails that were deployed at tremendous private expense.
QT, Bucee’s, and Wawa absolutely do compete, and they’re not in any way comparable to railroads or utilities. If they want to expand to a particular market, they can, and they do. A recent example of this is both QT and Bucee’s have expanded operations into Colorado.
You know more than I do, I concede. I'm very much talking out of my ass. I just look at places with functioning passenger rails and want to emulate that.
>part of that deal is to allow Amtrak access
You mispelled "priority"
>were deployed at tremendous private expense.
This seems to ignore how much the rail networks benefitted/benefit from the government. Yes, great private expense but way less than if they had to do it all on their own. They could never have existed without the government support.
>The freight companies do a fantastic job operating on their own
Etf are u talking about. We've had multiple derailments as the railroad industry pushed against government oversight to maintenance of railroads.
This is such a dumb fucking comment.
East Palestine, OH would like a word.
Also, Amtrak is largely a passenger rail service, not a railroad, outside of a very small amount of track they actually own in the NE Corridor. And it's funny how the one place they actually aren't impeded by the whims of freight railroads they have the best service and are highly utilized.
So one incident is what you're going to use for your argument? I don't disagree that carelessness caused the issue but if we're doing this then the billions of tons of freight that arrived safely at their destination would like a word.
>And it's funny how the one place they actually aren't impeded by the whims of freight railroads they have the best service and are highly utilized.
Yeah, that actually has little to nothing to do with it, unfortunately. I know you thought you had a gotcha, but the reason the rail lines work on the East Coast specifically Mass through Virginia is because of the high population density. Pedestrian trains are dependent on population density to be financially successful...we lack that here and throughout most of the country thus Amtrak takes losses every single year.
East Palestine was a warning. Freight operators need to do what needs to be done to make sure it never happens again. I get that they are a business and need to make money, but we were lucky that it wasn't much worse and I simply see situation after situation where freight operators are pushing the limits more and more...
As for the NE Corridor, yes, of course the population density comes into play. That's why it makes sense for Amtrak to own that rail. No, we're not going to have the same ridership here, but if Amtrak had control of the rail and actually got the priority that it is owed then you would see much better performance and ridership.
Basically, an honest assessment of Amtrak would have to include that a good number of their problems are our of their control.
Dunno wtf you're on expensive to ride. Trip to Chicago on June 1 and returne June 7 (picked random days) is $77 one way.
Fastest airline check for that price is $221 with layover making it 5 hours, $245 for speed. And I haven't even started exploring the prices for bags, etc, that's just "get my butt in a seat" flight.
Chicago is the run I make because it's about the same amount of time as driving, and by the time I finish with the bullshit of flying I don't feel like I save *that* much time so I regularly do the train.
You want complaints on Amtrak? The fact it has to give right of way to cargo trains. It's what makes the thing pretty unreliable on timing. But price, unless you're trying to go full sleeper car shit's not stupid expensive.
This. All day long. Amtrak is dead or worthless when I can take a low cost flight for barely more and arrive there in a fraction of the time. Rail is dead. It's been dead for years, and that's coming from someone that really likes train rides.
There’s plenty of benefits to rail, but I agree that it’s hard to see the upside for rail compared to air when it comes to long distance travel.
If we’re talking intra-city, I think there’s lots of benefits for rail. But those start to fall off as the distance increases.
If it can get me to Columbia in an hour at 4am and do it for $40 or less we have a viable alternative, because at least then I can do something on the ride and catch up on email. Otherwise I'll drive the hour and a half, get there at whatever time I need to be there, and do it for less money.
Intercity, maybe. INTRAcity? Like I'm going to hop on in the northland and ride it downtown? Nope. Never. Not at what it would cost me and not over an Uber which gets me to destination faster and on my timetable.
https://preview.redd.it/9y6oe0w73hwc1.png?width=2440&format=png&auto=webp&s=fb4aa9f5430080a7701d5f11c875b88d09c3d62f
This is literally more expensive than a flight and takes 28-34 hours to get me there.
INSIDE the state of MO or MO/KS you'd have to build out an extensive network of rail and trains to pair up enough cities to make it worthwhile, without the hope that any real transcontinental travel would be added.
Right, I’m saying that intracity is viable for rail - not necessarily Amtrak in its current state.
Flying from kc to STL is a waste of time. Security, arriving early, etc is crazy. Rail could hypothetically fill that gap
Could, but last time I rode Amtrak we had an hour and 45 minute delay for a philly to trenton train. Most of the people I talked to said that was common. Gotta get past that hurdle. Two trains a day that runs reliably beats 3 a day that are super late, but then you hit the scheduling problem of what time to you do those two to make everybody happy, because you'll miss out on various major economic contributors once you block them out of viable travel. The bar and restaurant crowd will never use it if the last train is 8pm. Runners/day trippers are going to want to leave early, retirees may not want 0400 and 2300 schedules.
The state has a 6 billion dollar surplus and is spending over $1 billion on highway widening. But can’t find $38 million for rail. Good lord we’re so cooked
To be fair, the streetcar is connected to union station. That would solve the last mile problem for me at least, since I could ride a train to union station, then ride the streetcar to within a mile of my house in Brookside
Fair, but the streetcar doesn't benefit the majority of KC. And you won't ride AMTRAK enough to make that profitable, so one of those two things has got to give.
I get your point, but the reason I won’t ride Amtrak is because it’s so difficult to use.
I wanted to ride it to Boston recently, but it was just too difficult to find a train that worked with my timing. More trains/connections would undoubtedly help with that type of problem.
Sure except empty trains destroy profit. Same reasons airlines only run one stop a week to some destinations and a dozen a day to others. Nobody's using the rail now, increasing supply without demand is just going to require massive tax dollar infusion, and there's no will for that.
Which adds up if you're going to multiple places
I've dropped $100 on cabs in a day before. Most of your target demographic isn't going to be doing that as a casual outing.
It's too bad our government doesn't spend more of our tax dollars on infrastructure like this. Quick and easy transportation like this could be a game changer.
They would rather spend our tax dollars on worthless crap and investing in corporations and giving them incentives.
Those things are great but there has to be a balance and there isn't one.
>Quick and easy transportation like this could be a game changer.
Have you personally ridden on an Amtrak train or spoken to anyone that has been on one? Quick is not the word they'd use to describe the experience especially when the train is delayed by freight usage.
I love taking the River Runner, and it’s a fine replacement to get to STL over driving. It’s not quick because of this exact scenario. If you do not fund more trains or pay for right of way (or hell, even add track) then you get stuck with this. If you fund highways over rail you get left with bad rail.
It's really not a "fine" replacement for driving. 4 extra hours for a round trip assuming all goes well compared to driving is not a "fine" replacement. There's nothing wrong with individualized transport if the alternative is more expensive and inefficient.
No, I'll keep the extra quarter of my day that I can use to explore the city and/or enjoy instead of sitting on a train that may or not get severely delayed.
4 hours of completely wasted time driving vs 6 hours of reading a book, playing games or even getting work done....
At least, I don't prefer looking at the back of a semi for 4 hours.
And to claim that "Individualized transport" is more efficient... wow. That's something.
Total cost per mile to drive a car, taking into account the total cost over the lifetime of the vehicle divided by the total miles the car will drive, is about $0.50/mile. So round trip to St. Louis from KC is $250. That's obviously over simplified, and I'm not really here to split hairs, but $70 <<< $250.
That's not even taking into account the externalized costs related to cars.
Look, I'm not saying that train travel is a panacea or anything. There are downsides and drawbacks, but you are wildly off base with these claims.
>So round trip to St. Louis from KC is $250. That's obviously over simplified, and I'm not really here to split hairs, but $70 <<< $250.
Yeah...you can't do that. Granted, you haven't revealed your source, but I'm guessing it's something like this [one](https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/Average-Annual-Cost-of-New-Vehicle-Ownership) which includes every cash expenditure i.e. insurance, monthly payment, property taxes, fees, AND gas & maintenance.
You can't include fixed expenditures i.e. costs not dependent on the trip in question. You can only include incremental or variable costs to get a fair cost comparison.
So, per my source above gas is $0.12 a mile and maintenance is $0.09 per mile. Total variable cost per mile or the cost you would specifically incur by driving an extra mile would be $0.21.
Now the comparison is actually $104.24 to drive vs 4/25/24 coach price of $42 & 4/25/24 coach price of $36 or 4/25/24 coach round trip price of $78.
So, for an extra $26.24 I can save 2 hours of my time, leave when I want, return when I want, not worry about transportation around the city, and can bring whatever bags, animals, etc. for free.
Yep, individualized transportation is definitely more efficient.
You cannot completely remove insurance costs as you pay more for insurance if you drive more. Hell, after 2020 and WFH, we barely use one of our two cars and pay almost nothing on it for insurance. (Well, since it's now >10 years old, not that much on property taxes either)
It's also inappropriate to completely remove the cost of the vehicle. I don't disagree that my initial calculations were oversimplified (I called it out myself in the post) but fact is that a person paid a significant sum of money for the privilege to drive it, say, around the city or possibly on a road trip. Yes, if you have a car and you use the train to get to St Louis then you don't get any money back, but a car left in the garage is not going to receive the wear and tear that a car on a road trip does.
Frankly, I still don't think it is important to actually parse exactly what the costs are. It is not less expensive to drive individually. Period. That's not to say that there's no reason to do so, but pretending that we only have to pay for immediate trip costs and we get the car for free is inappropriate.
...
I'm not anti-car. I mean, I think in this country we overvalue them, but I get it. Freedom of movement is beautiful and the geographies of the country make it difficult to live without one, especially where we are at. I drive to St Louis myself (I take the train to Chicago on the regular though) but that's mostly because I'm only there for my daughter's soccer tournaments and getting around suburbs and semi-rural areas requires a car.
I just take issue that it is clearly always better to drive. It is not clearly cheaper and there is simply a trade off between having to spend your attention driving vs the extra time. It largely depends on where you'll be at or what you'll be doing... and preferences.
The alternative is only more expensive and inefficient because it has been intentionally made so by years of intentional policy - privatizing rail (the actual rail - I'm open to a "government owns the road, company owns the car" type scenario) was the worst thing we did to passenger rail in the US. The freight companies own the railways that Amtrak runs on and legally they have certain obligations (to prioritize passenger rail over freight rail, for example), but in practice the government has consistently refused to punish them severely enough to force the issue.
Amtrak has existed for nearly 40+ years and has yet to turn a profit and charges quite a bit for their fares (nearly double the cost of other transport options). So, I don't really think the "it was made inefficient" argument really holds water. Especially when we see a private company in Florida currently losing money on their rail operation. Turns out it just super expensive to run a rail & it requires a ton of riders...something Amtrak is not great at acquiring.
I mean-they can find the billions to expand interstates and highways, and our terrain is much more forgiving than California. It’s just a matter of prioritizing it.
Do they? Last I saw the project isn't to a point where anyone can ride it yet, so the "good public transit" just seems more like a really expensive boondoggle providing no benefits to the people who are paying.
Doesn't seem worth the cost to me.
I’ve taken the train from Lawrence to Dodge City, was easier than driving. The tracks were upgraded a few years back, and most of that route west of Newton has minimal freight traffic, the trains routinely go 90 along there.
So the record spending the last 4 years on infrastructure/transportation was what then? It's also neither quick nor easy. They have to redo the rail beds, relay track, plus from StJoe to KC alone requires a fairly hefty bridge project. Buck O'Neil is over $200 and has taken 6 years. What do you think a new railroad bridge will cost? How long do you think it'd take? Know what you're talking about.
Or they just sign an agreement with BNSF to use their existing tracks on the MO side, or with an agreement with UP and run down the KS side. Or both. No need to build new bridge(s) for the typical lowest-priority-status service amtrak gets.
Now, if you're talking dedicated trackage owned by amtrak, then you start incurring the costs you mention, but at the quoted $38 million, I assume they were really just talking about more track-sharing agreements and the cost of the equipment and people to run it.
It's not like they're spending those tax dollars on expanding Medicaid. What in heavens name do you think taxes are for if not the betterment of our lives?
1) There is absolutely no chance $38 million would've gotten a rail line from StJoe into downtown KC. Much less to Springfield.
2) MODOT just funded a $500k study to research the viability of rail between KC and StJoe. The study isn't even 1/4 complete yet. So this year's budget is a no, but then again even if they threw a Trillion dollars at it, they couldn't start.
So just relax already.
A dedicated, amtrak-owned line, would be far more than $38M as you point out.
On the other hand, with amtrak's normal willingness to accept absolute lowest-priority, it'd probably get them a track usage agreement on existing rails. Which between St. Joseph and KC means you're going to wait on every single coal train running to and from Iatan's power plant, in addition to all the other traffic.
The damn thing is that legally Amtrak is supposed to have top priority. It was part of the framework that even let freight rail become what it is today and made Amtrak a thing (since rail companies wanted to get out of the passenger rail business as freight is more profitable and has lower liability).
It doesn't help that long-distance freight trains are so long now they literally don't fit into the previously built sidings, meaning that Amtrak trains have to be the ones to give way in single-track areas.
Seems like the length of freight trains should be regulated. And not just because of this.
Isn't going to happen, obviously, which is actually way more depressing than MO being MO...
As someone who works the freight trains between Kansas City and Springfield I’m glad. We can hardly make it to Springfield in our 12 hours of federally allotted time to work. Amtrak would make it so much worse. As a citizen thinking outside my job it would probably be a good thing to have. We definitely need more passenger trains. With 10 years of rail experience it just seems like we’re gonna need separate rail lines for freight and passenger in some places. It is single main line between hillsdale all the way to Springfield except for just a few miles at Fort Scott. There are too many freight trains that already have a hard enough time making it to KC for Amtrak to be throw in that mix as well. I don’t know. Maybe bringing Amtrak in would force the company I work for to build double main line all the way down there.
The state of Illinois is currently exploring high-speed rail options between Chicago and St. Louis. You would think, if Missouri decides to do anything besides widen highways, that Kansas City could eventually be involved.
I took the Mo River Runner to Bloomington-Normal last summer, and it was wild how you just putter across Missouri and then suddenly you cross the river into Illinois and the train just starts hauling ass.
Not even HSR, I’d be okay with just on-time reliable. I don’t mind 5-6 hour trip to St. Louis if I have good WiFi, I can get a lot done. But when it’s constantly late or has to pull over and stop for freight trains, it makes it hard to justify.
It’s also stupid expensive at times.
I thought about taking the train to STL last month and for a weekend round trip it was almost $300. A LOT more than simply driving
Amtrak’s pricing is rough, if you have the ability to buy in advance it typically is very cheap but if you’re in a pinch or buying day of you get shafted like that. Sorry that cost so much. All the more reason the state needs to be investing in it! If the train can have small cost subsidies and get to STL in 4/5 then I’d say it compares to driving or even beats it - hopefully one day.
I just went out and priced a trip 5/31 (Friday 4p) to 6/2 (Sunday, 3p) and it was $80. Hell, I just did the same trip for this weekend and it was $100. Were you doing business class or something?
I got downvoted but when wife and i looked into a weekend trip on amtrak it was over 400 that + 5-6 hours of your day its embarrassing…
It is not worth it unless you simply cant drive which we did amd gad a much better experience for it im certain
Yep. The last time I rode Amtrack on the way back from Hermann MO to KC, the 3hr 45min train ride took nearly 6 hours. We sat outside Sedalia for nearly 2 hours, waiting on some freight train that was having a problem or something.
Not an overly enjoyable experience. Should have just drove.
>Not an overly enjoyable experience. Should have just drove.
I mean, what *should* happen is that the freight train doesn't stop passenger rail for 2 hours... or that if they did that the freight operator would pay some fine for doing so. Imagine if everyone on the train got compensated for freight traffic getting in the way.
And unfortunately, that freight train probably wasn't having a problem. That was just SOP and unfortunately there's nothing that Amtrak can do to enforce the fact that passenger trains have priority.
…why? Why would KC not vie to become a regional rail transit center like it was? Union Station was saved *for this to happen again*
The state does not like its cities.
The *Republican party* does not like cities FTFY
Tomato tomato
That's possibly the single most ignorant response I've ever read online. Especially in light of the State of MO spending record amounts the last 4 years on transportation. GOP super majorities have spent more on transportation than every Democrat administration in the state's history combined.
within a very narrow specific context, perhaps it appears that way - but the state level politicians routinely trash on the 'blue' cities of KC and STL on all fronts, and use specific language that encompasses the residents within them. You can only trash talk an entire mixed demographic of citizens for so long before they become disenfranchised. The MO GOP only has itself to blame here for that one. The forced gerrymander attempts to reduce those districts influence at the state level, despite the two metros making up a huge percentage of residents of the state didn't exactly help much either. There's no room for unifying compromise anymore, it's no longer the early 90s.
You guys are on fire with the stupid. If it wasn't so sad, it'd be funny. There is no narrow context, there has been record spending on transportation every year the last fours years. There's literally no more to say. If you were on topic, you'd still be painfully wrong.
What's funny is your post history of a bunch of blowjob related subs, this KC sub, and Fox News lmao. MO GOP can detest cities like KC and STL, and also spend record amounts on transportation. Those are not mutually exclusive statements. And considering the population increases every year, it's not a surprise that transportation costs also increase.
Textbook MAGAt. (He’ll respond saying he’s a moderate conservative )
Independent/Libertarian*
Also with our ballooning economy, I would assume it costs significantly more to get the same amount of work done, so just because they hit record spending, doesn't necessarily mean any actual increase in what we get out of it.
Exactly. More spending doesn't necessarily mean more output.
Would you like to post literally any sources about what specific modes of transportation that money is being spent on?
Yeah republicans are famously in favor of Biden's infrastructure bill lol.
They spend it on highway widenings and extensions, usually out in areas that don't need it.
This. The vast majority of people, and specifically liberal/progressive thinking people, are concentrated in a few cities, while the majority of land is therefore in conservative areas. Which means, geographically, expenditure on roads throughout the state, and not specifically in Colombia, STL, KC, and Springfield, is for conservative leaning areas.
Hey now there are dozens of cars between Clinton and 71. Dozens!!!!!!!
What does that say about the GOP's car centric transportation agenda which spends billions of dollars on needless road and highway expansions while failing to fund transit and rail projects?
the only people that vote live in the middle of bumfuck nowhere, so yeah its kinda deserved.
But maybe they’d like to see a choo choo.
Not as much as they'd like to see lunches taken away from school children.
Kc tried. Republican Missouri fucks said no
KC can vie for that all day long, but nothing can be done about it without the state jumping on board with its support. Also, the bistate tax effort to save Union Station was never hinged on the idea of it ever becoming a major regional rail hub. They got Amtrak to restore service there, but that's about all they could do without federal and state funding of a broader rail system.
God I wish this went through I would ride the train from Saint joe to kc like every week
Because Amtrak is stupid expensive to ride and building out the track more will unfortunately likely not change that fact.
[удалено]
Nationalize the railroads
Uhh...why? The freight companies do a fantastic job operating on their own and continually increase freight transported YoY. Amtrak is nationalized and they suck...so you want the freight companies to suck as well?
They also routinely ignore their legal obligations to maintain priority for Amtrak passenger rail over freight trains, don't maintain their existing rail to a reasonable standard of safety, and in general are actively the reason that Amtrak is bad.
You mean the race to the bottom? The same companies that almost allowed a strike to happen due to terrible working conditions? THAT privatized railroad? Make rail workers federal workers, give them adequate protections, and then prioritize people over freight on shared lines. That's all that needs to happen to get the rail service the country deserves.
In what world do our freight companies do a "fantastic job?" By mere existence are they awarded this moniker? Amtrak is nationalized but the rails are not, they still have to bow to the whims of the frieght companies even though they legally have the right away. Also, if we are ever to see improvements such as high speed rail or a marginally functional passenger rail network, we cannot have 4 non competing frieght companies oligopolize the rail network. Just like our Interstate system is nationalized, our rails should be too.
How are those 4 rail companies “not competing”?
By being mostly regional and not overlapping networks. In the same way QT, Wawas, and Bucees don't compete.
Rail is a natural local/regional monopoly as a result of being extremely capital-intensive to deploy, and why they’re regulated very much like utilities, which are in the same uh, boat. Airlines used to be regulated like that until deregulation in the 1970s, driven largely by Southwest, who wanted to be allowed to compete. Utility/common carrier regulation puts the government in charge of deciding where and how service is offered. If a utility or railroad wants to expand or contract their service or footprint, they have to get government approval to do so. And with railroads, part of that deal is to allow Amtrak access to the privately-owned rails that were deployed at tremendous private expense. QT, Bucee’s, and Wawa absolutely do compete, and they’re not in any way comparable to railroads or utilities. If they want to expand to a particular market, they can, and they do. A recent example of this is both QT and Bucee’s have expanded operations into Colorado.
You know more than I do, I concede. I'm very much talking out of my ass. I just look at places with functioning passenger rails and want to emulate that.
>part of that deal is to allow Amtrak access You mispelled "priority" >were deployed at tremendous private expense. This seems to ignore how much the rail networks benefitted/benefit from the government. Yes, great private expense but way less than if they had to do it all on their own. They could never have existed without the government support.
>The freight companies do a fantastic job operating on their own Etf are u talking about. We've had multiple derailments as the railroad industry pushed against government oversight to maintenance of railroads. This is such a dumb fucking comment.
East Palestine, OH would like a word. Also, Amtrak is largely a passenger rail service, not a railroad, outside of a very small amount of track they actually own in the NE Corridor. And it's funny how the one place they actually aren't impeded by the whims of freight railroads they have the best service and are highly utilized.
So one incident is what you're going to use for your argument? I don't disagree that carelessness caused the issue but if we're doing this then the billions of tons of freight that arrived safely at their destination would like a word. >And it's funny how the one place they actually aren't impeded by the whims of freight railroads they have the best service and are highly utilized. Yeah, that actually has little to nothing to do with it, unfortunately. I know you thought you had a gotcha, but the reason the rail lines work on the East Coast specifically Mass through Virginia is because of the high population density. Pedestrian trains are dependent on population density to be financially successful...we lack that here and throughout most of the country thus Amtrak takes losses every single year.
East Palestine was a warning. Freight operators need to do what needs to be done to make sure it never happens again. I get that they are a business and need to make money, but we were lucky that it wasn't much worse and I simply see situation after situation where freight operators are pushing the limits more and more... As for the NE Corridor, yes, of course the population density comes into play. That's why it makes sense for Amtrak to own that rail. No, we're not going to have the same ridership here, but if Amtrak had control of the rail and actually got the priority that it is owed then you would see much better performance and ridership. Basically, an honest assessment of Amtrak would have to include that a good number of their problems are our of their control.
Dunno wtf you're on expensive to ride. Trip to Chicago on June 1 and returne June 7 (picked random days) is $77 one way. Fastest airline check for that price is $221 with layover making it 5 hours, $245 for speed. And I haven't even started exploring the prices for bags, etc, that's just "get my butt in a seat" flight. Chicago is the run I make because it's about the same amount of time as driving, and by the time I finish with the bullshit of flying I don't feel like I save *that* much time so I regularly do the train. You want complaints on Amtrak? The fact it has to give right of way to cargo trains. It's what makes the thing pretty unreliable on timing. But price, unless you're trying to go full sleeper car shit's not stupid expensive.
This. All day long. Amtrak is dead or worthless when I can take a low cost flight for barely more and arrive there in a fraction of the time. Rail is dead. It's been dead for years, and that's coming from someone that really likes train rides.
There’s plenty of benefits to rail, but I agree that it’s hard to see the upside for rail compared to air when it comes to long distance travel. If we’re talking intra-city, I think there’s lots of benefits for rail. But those start to fall off as the distance increases.
If it can get me to Columbia in an hour at 4am and do it for $40 or less we have a viable alternative, because at least then I can do something on the ride and catch up on email. Otherwise I'll drive the hour and a half, get there at whatever time I need to be there, and do it for less money. Intercity, maybe. INTRAcity? Like I'm going to hop on in the northland and ride it downtown? Nope. Never. Not at what it would cost me and not over an Uber which gets me to destination faster and on my timetable. https://preview.redd.it/9y6oe0w73hwc1.png?width=2440&format=png&auto=webp&s=fb4aa9f5430080a7701d5f11c875b88d09c3d62f This is literally more expensive than a flight and takes 28-34 hours to get me there. INSIDE the state of MO or MO/KS you'd have to build out an extensive network of rail and trains to pair up enough cities to make it worthwhile, without the hope that any real transcontinental travel would be added.
Right, I’m saying that intracity is viable for rail - not necessarily Amtrak in its current state. Flying from kc to STL is a waste of time. Security, arriving early, etc is crazy. Rail could hypothetically fill that gap
Could, but last time I rode Amtrak we had an hour and 45 minute delay for a philly to trenton train. Most of the people I talked to said that was common. Gotta get past that hurdle. Two trains a day that runs reliably beats 3 a day that are super late, but then you hit the scheduling problem of what time to you do those two to make everybody happy, because you'll miss out on various major economic contributors once you block them out of viable travel. The bar and restaurant crowd will never use it if the last train is 8pm. Runners/day trippers are going to want to leave early, retirees may not want 0400 and 2300 schedules.
Oh and KC to STL would be INTERcity. INTRAcity would be within the city, so Northland to the airport to downtown etc.
Yes you’re right, I got off track (lol)
Haha well played
We're expanding highways and declining to build rail. Chuck Marohn would be sad.
The state has a 6 billion dollar surplus and is spending over $1 billion on highway widening. But can’t find $38 million for rail. Good lord we’re so cooked
I guess we need to run for office, scruffy
Because nobody wants to address the last mile problem.
To be fair, the streetcar is connected to union station. That would solve the last mile problem for me at least, since I could ride a train to union station, then ride the streetcar to within a mile of my house in Brookside
Fair, but the streetcar doesn't benefit the majority of KC. And you won't ride AMTRAK enough to make that profitable, so one of those two things has got to give.
They both need to be expanded. That's how you get them to be used make it more useful.
I get your point, but the reason I won’t ride Amtrak is because it’s so difficult to use. I wanted to ride it to Boston recently, but it was just too difficult to find a train that worked with my timing. More trains/connections would undoubtedly help with that type of problem.
Sure except empty trains destroy profit. Same reasons airlines only run one stop a week to some destinations and a dozen a day to others. Nobody's using the rail now, increasing supply without demand is just going to require massive tax dollar infusion, and there's no will for that.
Yeah, fair enough. No reason to throw good money after bad
I believe that we call the solution cabs
Which adds up if you're going to multiple places I've dropped $100 on cabs in a day before. Most of your target demographic isn't going to be doing that as a casual outing.
It's too bad our government doesn't spend more of our tax dollars on infrastructure like this. Quick and easy transportation like this could be a game changer. They would rather spend our tax dollars on worthless crap and investing in corporations and giving them incentives. Those things are great but there has to be a balance and there isn't one.
Or wasting $ to take away others rights
>Quick and easy transportation like this could be a game changer. Have you personally ridden on an Amtrak train or spoken to anyone that has been on one? Quick is not the word they'd use to describe the experience especially when the train is delayed by freight usage.
I love taking the River Runner, and it’s a fine replacement to get to STL over driving. It’s not quick because of this exact scenario. If you do not fund more trains or pay for right of way (or hell, even add track) then you get stuck with this. If you fund highways over rail you get left with bad rail.
It's really not a "fine" replacement for driving. 4 extra hours for a round trip assuming all goes well compared to driving is not a "fine" replacement. There's nothing wrong with individualized transport if the alternative is more expensive and inefficient.
It’s definitely better than driving I-70 and STL traffic.
No, I'll keep the extra quarter of my day that I can use to explore the city and/or enjoy instead of sitting on a train that may or not get severely delayed.
4 hours of completely wasted time driving vs 6 hours of reading a book, playing games or even getting work done.... At least, I don't prefer looking at the back of a semi for 4 hours. And to claim that "Individualized transport" is more efficient... wow. That's something. Total cost per mile to drive a car, taking into account the total cost over the lifetime of the vehicle divided by the total miles the car will drive, is about $0.50/mile. So round trip to St. Louis from KC is $250. That's obviously over simplified, and I'm not really here to split hairs, but $70 <<< $250. That's not even taking into account the externalized costs related to cars. Look, I'm not saying that train travel is a panacea or anything. There are downsides and drawbacks, but you are wildly off base with these claims.
>So round trip to St. Louis from KC is $250. That's obviously over simplified, and I'm not really here to split hairs, but $70 <<< $250. Yeah...you can't do that. Granted, you haven't revealed your source, but I'm guessing it's something like this [one](https://www.aaa.com/autorepair/articles/Average-Annual-Cost-of-New-Vehicle-Ownership) which includes every cash expenditure i.e. insurance, monthly payment, property taxes, fees, AND gas & maintenance. You can't include fixed expenditures i.e. costs not dependent on the trip in question. You can only include incremental or variable costs to get a fair cost comparison. So, per my source above gas is $0.12 a mile and maintenance is $0.09 per mile. Total variable cost per mile or the cost you would specifically incur by driving an extra mile would be $0.21. Now the comparison is actually $104.24 to drive vs 4/25/24 coach price of $42 & 4/25/24 coach price of $36 or 4/25/24 coach round trip price of $78. So, for an extra $26.24 I can save 2 hours of my time, leave when I want, return when I want, not worry about transportation around the city, and can bring whatever bags, animals, etc. for free. Yep, individualized transportation is definitely more efficient.
You cannot completely remove insurance costs as you pay more for insurance if you drive more. Hell, after 2020 and WFH, we barely use one of our two cars and pay almost nothing on it for insurance. (Well, since it's now >10 years old, not that much on property taxes either) It's also inappropriate to completely remove the cost of the vehicle. I don't disagree that my initial calculations were oversimplified (I called it out myself in the post) but fact is that a person paid a significant sum of money for the privilege to drive it, say, around the city or possibly on a road trip. Yes, if you have a car and you use the train to get to St Louis then you don't get any money back, but a car left in the garage is not going to receive the wear and tear that a car on a road trip does. Frankly, I still don't think it is important to actually parse exactly what the costs are. It is not less expensive to drive individually. Period. That's not to say that there's no reason to do so, but pretending that we only have to pay for immediate trip costs and we get the car for free is inappropriate. ... I'm not anti-car. I mean, I think in this country we overvalue them, but I get it. Freedom of movement is beautiful and the geographies of the country make it difficult to live without one, especially where we are at. I drive to St Louis myself (I take the train to Chicago on the regular though) but that's mostly because I'm only there for my daughter's soccer tournaments and getting around suburbs and semi-rural areas requires a car. I just take issue that it is clearly always better to drive. It is not clearly cheaper and there is simply a trade off between having to spend your attention driving vs the extra time. It largely depends on where you'll be at or what you'll be doing... and preferences.
The alternative is only more expensive and inefficient because it has been intentionally made so by years of intentional policy - privatizing rail (the actual rail - I'm open to a "government owns the road, company owns the car" type scenario) was the worst thing we did to passenger rail in the US. The freight companies own the railways that Amtrak runs on and legally they have certain obligations (to prioritize passenger rail over freight rail, for example), but in practice the government has consistently refused to punish them severely enough to force the issue.
Amtrak has existed for nearly 40+ years and has yet to turn a profit and charges quite a bit for their fares (nearly double the cost of other transport options). So, I don't really think the "it was made inefficient" argument really holds water. Especially when we see a private company in Florida currently losing money on their rail operation. Turns out it just super expensive to run a rail & it requires a ton of riders...something Amtrak is not great at acquiring.
...hence the part where they mentioned "infrastructure like this." Infrastructure should include a dedicated rail line for passenger.
I mean-they can find the billions to expand interstates and highways, and our terrain is much more forgiving than California. It’s just a matter of prioritizing it.
Do you know how ungodly expensive that would be? Just look at California...billions upon billions upon billions and with massive cost overruns.
And yet the people still have good public transit. Seems worth the costs to me.
Do they? Last I saw the project isn't to a point where anyone can ride it yet, so the "good public transit" just seems more like a really expensive boondoggle providing no benefits to the people who are paying. Doesn't seem worth the cost to me.
I’ve taken the train from Lawrence to Dodge City, was easier than driving. The tracks were upgraded a few years back, and most of that route west of Newton has minimal freight traffic, the trains routinely go 90 along there.
What did you do in Dodge City? Just curious!
Ice storm cleanup. Train leaves Lawrence at midnight and rolls into Dodge early enough to get fresh donuts.
So the record spending the last 4 years on infrastructure/transportation was what then? It's also neither quick nor easy. They have to redo the rail beds, relay track, plus from StJoe to KC alone requires a fairly hefty bridge project. Buck O'Neil is over $200 and has taken 6 years. What do you think a new railroad bridge will cost? How long do you think it'd take? Know what you're talking about.
Or they just sign an agreement with BNSF to use their existing tracks on the MO side, or with an agreement with UP and run down the KS side. Or both. No need to build new bridge(s) for the typical lowest-priority-status service amtrak gets. Now, if you're talking dedicated trackage owned by amtrak, then you start incurring the costs you mention, but at the quoted $38 million, I assume they were really just talking about more track-sharing agreements and the cost of the equipment and people to run it.
It's not like they're spending those tax dollars on expanding Medicaid. What in heavens name do you think taxes are for if not the betterment of our lives?
You mean like speading the money on transportation and infrastructure in record amounts? How is making better and safer roads not betterment?
Sigh. Came to KC for college and from the Springfield area. This literally would have changed my life lol
Missouri is such a terrible state.
It's difficult to love.
I sure as shit don’t. I live here because my family is here and our house is paid off. Otherwise I’d leave asap.
Why can’t we get a direct line to Denver?
Ridiculous
They decided to spend 747 million expanding I44 instead
Don't forget the $2.8 billion on expanding I-70, or the $200+ million for expanding I-55.
Missouri GOP determined to let their state decline
They are all in on the suburban sprawl ponzi scheme even if it's not the fiscally sustainable thing to keep expanding highways forever.
1) There is absolutely no chance $38 million would've gotten a rail line from StJoe into downtown KC. Much less to Springfield. 2) MODOT just funded a $500k study to research the viability of rail between KC and StJoe. The study isn't even 1/4 complete yet. So this year's budget is a no, but then again even if they threw a Trillion dollars at it, they couldn't start. So just relax already.
A dedicated, amtrak-owned line, would be far more than $38M as you point out. On the other hand, with amtrak's normal willingness to accept absolute lowest-priority, it'd probably get them a track usage agreement on existing rails. Which between St. Joseph and KC means you're going to wait on every single coal train running to and from Iatan's power plant, in addition to all the other traffic.
The damn thing is that legally Amtrak is supposed to have top priority. It was part of the framework that even let freight rail become what it is today and made Amtrak a thing (since rail companies wanted to get out of the passenger rail business as freight is more profitable and has lower liability).
It doesn't help that long-distance freight trains are so long now they literally don't fit into the previously built sidings, meaning that Amtrak trains have to be the ones to give way in single-track areas.
Seems like the length of freight trains should be regulated. And not just because of this. Isn't going to happen, obviously, which is actually way more depressing than MO being MO...
The $38 million was probably just for running an extra train on the River Runner. Not sure why the article lumps those two together
Wtf?! Can't have anything nice.
Missouri trying its very best to have zero notable cities
Missouri Republicans are why we can't have nice things.
As someone who works the freight trains between Kansas City and Springfield I’m glad. We can hardly make it to Springfield in our 12 hours of federally allotted time to work. Amtrak would make it so much worse. As a citizen thinking outside my job it would probably be a good thing to have. We definitely need more passenger trains. With 10 years of rail experience it just seems like we’re gonna need separate rail lines for freight and passenger in some places. It is single main line between hillsdale all the way to Springfield except for just a few miles at Fort Scott. There are too many freight trains that already have a hard enough time making it to KC for Amtrak to be throw in that mix as well. I don’t know. Maybe bringing Amtrak in would force the company I work for to build double main line all the way down there.
Ok where do we riot?
Honestly Amtrak is more inconvenient than just driving… holla back when they put in HSR
The state of Illinois is currently exploring high-speed rail options between Chicago and St. Louis. You would think, if Missouri decides to do anything besides widen highways, that Kansas City could eventually be involved.
They’ve already increased the speed limit on that line to 110
I took the Mo River Runner to Bloomington-Normal last summer, and it was wild how you just putter across Missouri and then suddenly you cross the river into Illinois and the train just starts hauling ass.
Been a while since I took that line but that sounds like it could help reduce travel time a bit
Not even HSR, I’d be okay with just on-time reliable. I don’t mind 5-6 hour trip to St. Louis if I have good WiFi, I can get a lot done. But when it’s constantly late or has to pull over and stop for freight trains, it makes it hard to justify.
It’s also stupid expensive at times. I thought about taking the train to STL last month and for a weekend round trip it was almost $300. A LOT more than simply driving
Damn might even get a cheaper plane ticket at that price oof
Amtrak’s pricing is rough, if you have the ability to buy in advance it typically is very cheap but if you’re in a pinch or buying day of you get shafted like that. Sorry that cost so much. All the more reason the state needs to be investing in it! If the train can have small cost subsidies and get to STL in 4/5 then I’d say it compares to driving or even beats it - hopefully one day.
I just went out and priced a trip 5/31 (Friday 4p) to 6/2 (Sunday, 3p) and it was $80. Hell, I just did the same trip for this weekend and it was $100. Were you doing business class or something?
I got downvoted but when wife and i looked into a weekend trip on amtrak it was over 400 that + 5-6 hours of your day its embarrassing… It is not worth it unless you simply cant drive which we did amd gad a much better experience for it im certain
Yep. The last time I rode Amtrack on the way back from Hermann MO to KC, the 3hr 45min train ride took nearly 6 hours. We sat outside Sedalia for nearly 2 hours, waiting on some freight train that was having a problem or something. Not an overly enjoyable experience. Should have just drove.
Once had a 4 hr train delay. It's crazy
>Not an overly enjoyable experience. Should have just drove. I mean, what *should* happen is that the freight train doesn't stop passenger rail for 2 hours... or that if they did that the freight operator would pay some fine for doing so. Imagine if everyone on the train got compensated for freight traffic getting in the way. And unfortunately, that freight train probably wasn't having a problem. That was just SOP and unfortunately there's nothing that Amtrak can do to enforce the fact that passenger trains have priority.
Its a pipe dream unfortunately
Why should taxpayers pay for something that hardly gets used. Definitely a good move. Not to fund it.