Word: rails
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...objective profit and loss have suffered too. Airlines explore the temptations of Chapter 11. Amtrak staggers ahead, feckless and insolvent, through train wrecks and slowdowns. It is time to make very large changes--to rearrange the mix of the three basic modes of mass transportation: air, rail and highway...
...Critics of expanding the American rail system make three key arguments: 1) Amtrak is hopeless; 2) building a viable rail system - upgrading old roadbeds and laying new track, clearing new right of way, buying new equipment - could cost as much as $100 billion; and 3) it would be irresponsible for government to pour so much money into a service that the market has shown it will not support. People don't ride the trains as it is, the critics say; that's why the railroads are dying...
...true that Amtrak has been badly run, but let new regional rail systems be set up on their own and forget Amtrak. Comparisons have been loaded to denigrate trains in favor of cars and air travel. It is true the rehabilitation of the nation's railroads would cost billions. But the arithmetic on costs and energy efficiency argues, in the long term, in favor of boldly creative, high-speed regional rail systems that would take the environmental and traffic pressures off highways and airports...
...fuel efficient as planes. As things stand, passenger trains receive only 4% as much in federal subsidies as the $13 billion given annually to the airline industry. Highways receive $33 billion in federal funds. Both airlines and highways have dedicated sources of federal funding: gasoline and ticket taxes. Rail systems should receive equivalent sources of income...
...halfhearted, partly realized plan will only validate the criticisms and doom the new railroads. What is needed is leadership of the kind that Charles de Gaulle demonstrated in backing France's immensely successful high-speed rail, and vision on the scale of President Eisenhower's push for the interstate highway system. The 21st century paradox is that it is not railroads that are old-fashioned and retrograde but rather those essentially inefficient flying machines...