Launched on December 11, 2000, Acela service, Amtrak’s high-speed train system, ran into trouble when they found cracks in 300 of the of the Acela fleet’s 1,440 disk brake rotors. Acela makes 15 roundtrip runs on weekdays between New York and Washington and 11 between New York and Boston. Acela accounts for about 20 percent of Amtrak’s Boston-New York-Washington weekday service carrying an average 9,000 to 10,000 passengers.
This set back comes at a time when President Bush is pushing to revamp the rail system. The President is planning to shut down funding at a time when the whole system is in dire need of additional funds.
With the airlines all increasing their prices isn’t it good to have an alternative source of transportation? Should the Bush administration pull the funding on this system that thousands of people rely on each day or should they help to improve it and make it more accessible to the public?
1 comment:
Fundamentally, passenger rail is not a business that can be profitable. There is virtually no form of transportation that can be.
The question ought to be, should government subsidize something private firms are smart enough to avoid?
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