As you know, President Biden unveiled his $2 trillion infrastructure and jobs plan Wednesday. You probably also know that Biden is a huge fan of Amtrak, and new Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is a pretty big fan of trains, too. Did you know that Buttigieg’s favorite board game involves collecting trains?
Anyway, Amtrak already has plans for the money it’s going to get, and though we might not get the high-speed rail network that President Obama promised us, we will be looking at some new train routes. Party train from Los Angeles to Las Vegas? It’s on!
Amtrak's response to the Biden infra plan: https://t.co/b8qRz4LIve
Proposes:
-30+ new routes
-20+ enhanced existing routes
-20m more annual riders
-Better service to cities like HOU, ATL, Cincy
-New service to unserved cities like Las Vegas, Nashville, Columbus, Phoenix pic.twitter.com/Di9BmnCsfr— Yonah Freemark (@yfreemark) March 31, 2021
Amtrak. ???
— Kerry ?? (Gab: kerry2017) (Parler: k1erry) (@K1erry) April 1, 2021
Amtrak has never made a profit
— steve (@usnjkpolk) April 1, 2021
This is their proposal with 80 billion new dollars???
— Nilo Cobau (@nilocobau) March 31, 2021
They've previously said this would cost them $25 b — not sure what share is capital vs operations, and over how long a period.
— Yonah Freemark (@yfreemark) March 31, 2021
What’s the chance they use up $80 billion before even a fraction of this becomes reality? Think about it: the L.A. Times reports that the cost of building California’s full Los Angeles-to-San Francisco system could reach $100 billion, and they’re projecting a mid-2030s startup — and that’s just one route.
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Finally, I could take a train from Phoenix to LA in only twice the time it takes me to drive from Phoenix to LA. https://t.co/QUbWvyBo3Z
— Jon Gabriel (@exjon) March 31, 2021
But you’d get to rent a car when you got there.
— mesquito (@mesquito84) March 31, 2021
This deal keeps getting better. https://t.co/5ws8zeO8bX
— Jon Gabriel (@exjon) March 31, 2021
Another upside: the train ticket will cost three times a flight on Southwest.
— Jon Gabriel (@exjon) March 31, 2021
A lot of people seem really excited about Amtrak’s new map, but Ben Dreyfuss is not among them:
I like that people care about trains, but have you guys ever been on a really long train ride? It’s not great. I’ve taken an Amtrak across the country and it’s really not an ideal way of doing that.
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) April 1, 2021
They’re obviously nice for shorter journeys
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) April 1, 2021
The idea of trains is always great but in reality airplanes are both faster and in many cases cheaper.
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) April 1, 2021
Humans have mastered flight and buddy it’s amazing.
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) April 1, 2021
The LA-NY train adventure I had a roomette or whatever it’s called but the single worst experience of my entire life was taking a train from NY to Chicago in just a normal coach seat.
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) April 1, 2021
During the height of the pandemic when I was afraid to fly and was really wanting to get out of NY I considered taking a train to the west coast and it was like a trillion dollars and 5 days long, and so I stayed in NY and gave up.
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) April 1, 2021
Even with my “I am disabled” discount it would still cost me $1200 to take a train to Los Angeles with a sleeper room. pic.twitter.com/E2LgDBbJ9O
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) April 1, 2021
Trains are stupid, there's a reason we have planes. https://t.co/ox4jYuRFaQ
— Ben McDonald (@Bmac0507) April 1, 2021
Why are people still tweeting at me about how they love trains? I don’t care. I’m not trying to take your precious trains from you.
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) April 1, 2021
One of the funnier and more surreal parts of just spouting off random opinions all the time is every once in a while discovering some random niche twitter filled with militant train enthusiasts or whatever.
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) April 1, 2021
One hundred billion insane people are insisting to me that if only there were high speed rail in the United States then they would use the train to cross the country, and, buddy, that would still be way stupider and slower than flying.
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) April 1, 2021
I mean if you want to take some slow way across the country, godspeed. Buy a fucking ox and get pulled across for all I care.
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) April 1, 2021
The three arguments for why people seem to be outraged seem to be
1) some disabled people can’t fly. (Tough situation! Idk what to tell you. Some disabled people also can’t take trains)
2) some very confused argument about how I don’t like the poor
3) global warming
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) April 1, 2021
I personally don’t believe that shaming people about flying on planes is an effective way of dealing with global warming, but your journey
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) April 1, 2021
Look, I get it: you did a semester abroad or whatever. I don’t care about how much you enjoyed taking the train in Germany that time.
— Ben Dreyfuss (@bendreyfuss) April 1, 2021
The train people are like the library people.
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) April 1, 2021
If we built state of the art high speed rail between Chicago and New York, the trip would take almost 5 hours and cost $150 for a one-way coach ticket. That's the best case scenario! This is slower and more expensive than a nonstop flight, even after airport security and traffic.
— Ryan C. Radia (@RyanRadia) April 1, 2021
There’s nothing like going to Newark Liberty in the morning and then arriving in San Diego in time for lunch. For so much less than a week on a damn train.
— Marya (@MaryaPetry) April 1, 2021
I was forced to travel on a train across Australia with my parents when I was in high school. It fucking sucked
— Christian Britschgi (@christianbrits) April 1, 2021
I mean this genuinely: Thank you for saying these obviously true things.
— Gregory Sturges (@gts109) April 1, 2021
A lot of people in the comments are reminiscing about the great train trips they took in Europe, which is nice for them. But count us skeptical that Buttigieg can have us all traveling cross country by train in the foreseeable future.
Related:
Pete Buttigieg wants to make it really clear that a mileage tax that shows a lot of promise is ‘not part of the conversation’ https://t.co/b2oihm2jF9
— Twitchy Team (@TwitchyTeam) March 29, 2021
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