John McCain and his agenda on Amtrak

In Iowa we could get to Chicago in 3 hours by train. By car, it takes all day because of the traffic jams. Why can Australia have mass transportation and we can't have it here? Trains are family-friendly and fuel efficient.

I'm a conservative, and I'm actually for spending on some infrastructure improvements such as rail.

But you're overlooking the fact that had McCain NOT blocked the federal gift to amtrak in the first place, they would never have become more efficient.

They would have continued operating foolishly and wastefully.

Funny how a company can get its act together when they're suddenly denied welfare, isn't it?

Maybe we owe McCain a thank you?

This pro-obama article seems to miss the the point that had we given amtrak our tax dollars as they wanted, it would have looked greaton paper, but the money would have been squandered. There would not have been any significant change to our rail system.

I just don't see this story as pro-obama... unless people who write for newspapers twist it that way.

And the reason that Amtrak can't be run as a traditional profit-making enterprise without government ownership, control, and bailouts is...? I'm not convinced that government involvement in this area has done anything at all to improve service. It's generally far cheaper to get a greyhound than Amtrak (and even cheaper to get a Chinatown bus) between NYC and Philly for example, and I'm willing to bet that holds throughout the Northeast.. In fact, it's even cheaper to drive between the two aforementioned cities than take Amtrak. I'm highly skeptical that simply throwing more money at it is going to do anything to fundamentally change passenger habits since there is still little incentive for Amtrak to adjust its fares.

I quite interesting how competition from the Chinatown buses has depressed many Greyhound fares throughout the northeast.... I would imagine that private competition would have the same effect on railroad passenger fares and the correspnding increase in ridership.

It's not just NYC and Philly that exhibit this phenomenon -- I was unable to find a train ride that was competitive with Greyhound between Minneapolis and Kansas City only recently. Flights (with a stop) were actually more competitive and reasonably priced, which again reflects the value that competition by low-cost carriers provides in terms of deflating prices to help the consumer.

I realize that rail requires significant infrastructure investment, but if you look at the history of this country it wasn't the government alone that perpetuated the expansion of the railroad but also numerous private and semi-private entities as well. So, I find this pro-government monopoly mindset a little bizarre, especially when we as taxpayers and consumers are paying twice as a result of what I believe to be government inefficiency-- once in the form of taxes, and once in the form of high fares (or service that we do not use).

From Manhattan... the issue of train travel, from subway to light rail to commuter to long distance is a crucial issue of our time. Aside from the obvious benefits to the environment and temper-tormenting congestions (and its wastefulness) there is an economic issue. Rich states or regions almost universally have highly-developed rail systems; poor states do not. The cities and suburbs that create an enormous percentage of America's wealth and economic activity - Boston, NY, Philly, DC, Chicago, San Francisco (LA is conspicuous by its absence) all have great - if imperfect rail systems. New Jersey, our most congested state, is working feverishly to improve. The Upper Midwest, Florida and California are ripe for higher development of rail. Now if only a Trillion dollars hadn't been spent in Iraq on a dubious adventure, how much farther along could we have been.

I am getting real tired of Mr. McCain's short-sightedness on the big picture. His bravado on Amtrak shows I'm going to be getting tired a lot over the next few months.

I hope that all of us that can will do our best to help Hillary Clinton pay off ALL of her campaign debt quickly. She deserves that. You all knew Hillary, and Bill would go out on a limb for us if they felt they had too. That's what they do. :-) As I said before Hillary Clinton was STUNNING!!!

You witnessed the greatest political campaign struggle in American history. One for the textbooks, and the history books. Hillary Clinton fought her heart out against all odds to win for all of the American people. While at the same time doing her best to prepare Sen. Barack Obama to win in November if he was the nominee. STUNNING!!! WELL DONE HILLARY CLINTON. WELL DONE! Your AMAZING! :-)

Sen. Obama could not have had a better opponent than Hillary Clinton. Nor could he have had a better opponent to prepare him for the battle royal to come against John McCain and the Republicans ahead of the November elections. Hillary Clinton was like a big Mama cat determined to teach her kitten how to hunt, and hang with the big dogs for the fights ahead. The Clinton's have won the Whitehouse twice before. They know what it will take.

Hillary Clinton took Sen. Obama to every brawl, and cat fight she could find for him to develop his fight, and his chops. She even let her men (President Clinton, Governor Rendell, and many others) loose on Sen. Obama a little bit. So as to give Sen. Obama a taste of just how rough, and tough the big boys will be to do battle with. :-)

From sea to shining sea and US territories Hillary Clinton took Sen. Obama to see all of America. To meet, and greet all it's people. And to ask for their votes and support, which he will need if he becomes President. She took him to see what he will be fighting for. And to see what she and President Clinton have fought so heroically for over so many years. Sen. Obama could not have ask for any better. Nor had any better teachers.

Bill Clinton, Chelsea, Mrs. Rodham, and the whole Clinton team were magnificent. They really showed their metal. BRAVO! TEAM CLINTON... BRAVO!

And YOU! my fellow Americans. I'm so proud of you. And proud to be one of you. You showed what you are made of. And what makes America so great. You never gave up on your Champion Hillary Clinton. Time, and time again you eagerly waited your turn to vote for Hillary Clinton. To raise her up and pass her along down the line to the rest of your waiting fellow Americans.

You never gave up on her. Just as Hillary Clinton never gave up on you. No matter how many times they counted her out. No matter how many times her detractors, and attackers brutally knocked her down. You knew she would get back up and get after it. And when she did you were ready to support her. This is your role model America. AMERICA LOVES A FIGHTER. AMERICA UNDERSTANDS A FIGHTER. AMERICA IS A FIGHTER. I'M PROUD OF YOU AMERICA!

Sen. Clinton looked a little tired her first day back at work in the senate after her history making heroic campaign. She has good reason to be tired. Doesn't she America. But with time and good attention to the basics she, and you will recover. The basics are good well balanced nutrition, hydration, rest, exercise, recreation, POSITIVE! emotional support, and time (the greatest healer of all).

Y'all be good to President Clinton. I never saw a man fight so hard for a woman, and the American people as President Clinton fought for Hillary Clinton, and you. It's going to take Bill a while. No one except Hillary Clinton could have fought any harder than President Clinton did for you.

I imagine President Clinton still remembers how the American people wailed, reached, and cried out for him as he took that last flight home as your President on Air Force One after the 2000 elections. Yes, many of us knew back then what was coming for the American people under a republican administration. Back to living like dumb animals again. Fighting over territory, and scraps of meat. You are dieing like fly's now. Republicans too. But it's ok because some people are making a lot of money off of your needless deaths. :-(

As always, Hillary Clinton, and President Clinton did their best for all of us. It was an EPIC!

YOU MADE US VERY PROUD HILLARY CLINTON! HOLD YOUR HEAD HIGH :-)

WE LOVE YOU. AND ADMIRE YOU...

jacksmith... Working Class :-)

If we had spent half as much on the rail system since WW II as we have for highways, the nation would be a heck of a lot better off. It seems ridiculous to put a load of stuff into an 18-wheeler in Boston and ship it to LA. It also seems ridiculous to have a 22-lane freeway on the west side of Houston. It takes longer now to get from one side of Houston to the other than it did in 1960. Think of the billions of barrels of oil that we would be saving each day if the roads were not loaded down with 18-wheelers and commutes with one person per car.

I recently took the train from Boston to Erie and back. The employees of Amtrak were to a person, helpful, efficient, polite and effective. The trains were pretty much on time. Their ticketing is very flexible. Amtrak needs support. Having spent a lot of time on trains in Italy last year, I can tell you - ours are run a lot better for the relative amounts of support we have and they have. They just have a lot more trains and you can pretty much go anywhere on them. Despite paying high prices for some high speed legs, even those trains were kind of crappy.

Just another reason why McCain is not good for the country. He just doesn't get it.

McCain is clearly clueless on this issue. I also love how his solution to the "oil crisis" is MORE OIL! We need NO oil, not more by drilling all over the place. We need to invest billions of dollars into expanding our federal, state, and local wildlife conservation areas so we can stop the continuing spread of suburban sprawl, we need to invest billions and possibly trillions of dollars into specific public transportation projects in our major cities around the country, (Boston urban ring), and we need to create a world class network of high speed rail that rivals those in Europe and Asia. High speed rail can eliminate domestic air travel between major cities, increase tourism by making it much much easier to travel to other cities, and local public transit system improvements can take cars off the highway and lead to a happier, more productive, and higher quality of life for the traveling public.

An example of Mc Cain's work as a Arizona Senator:
A few years back Amtrak"s Sunset Limited, a three-day-a-week train (with 7 days a week of expenses), was forced off the Phoenix line and put on a line to the south through the middle of nowhere. Phoenix, capital of Arizona, business center and Arizona's largest city, lost its three-day-a-week train, replaced by a stop some 37 miles away in Maricopa, Arizona. To better serve the people of this area, the train was resheduled to go west at 2:32AM! Even when this train is on time, 2:32 in the morning certainly NOT conducive to business. McCain let this happen......He'll not be getting my vote!

Transportation being of such importance to our great country---I would think it would be a MAJOR issue for all Americans. This Nation needs ALL modes of transport to be in top condition if we are to continue as a leader in today's world economy. Sadly it has been neglected for so long that the fixes will be painful...never the less IT MUST BE DONE!!!

re comment 2. by Spleen. There is a kind of person who says that a few billion for Amtrak is wasted, while trillions for highways, sprawl side-effects, and climate-change cleanup is money well spent. They call themselves "conservatives" but they are really just advocates for the carbon-auto industry.

"LA is conspicuous by its absence"

As an LA resident i must object to this. Rail service in the central city is workable, receives high ridership, and is largely responsible for the resurgence of Downtown and Hollywood (the neighborhood). By 2010 there will be new rail connections to East LA and Culver City. Admittedly we still have some progress to make before we catch up to "traditional" transit cities like, say, Boston. But the situation out here isn't as grim as you guys are led to believe. In any case, the redevelopment of rail accessible neighborhoods here is just further evidence of your point.

Throughout these 14 comments, I noticed that the pro-McCain-ites only numbered about 3, maybe 4. That should tell you something about lame thinking. Greater Phoenix has a population of about 4 million however, you can't catch a train anywhere. That is beyond sad. Sadder still that it's in McCain's backyard.

There's been a lot of mention of expanding passenger transportation and I'm all for it. But I'm bothered by the railroad's dependence on oil to power its trains. In the arid Southwest, it isn't easy to put trains under wire but in the northern tier of the country, where hydroelectric power is abundant, it is a shame to run diesel locomotives. For starters, a typical locomotive holds anyhere from 4,000 to 6,500 gallons of fuel. There are roughly 20,000 road locomotives in the United States. Even if a quarter of the trains were pulled by electric locomotives, consumption of diesel oil would be reduced by millions of gallons per month. It would not only be cost-effective on lines with high density traffic but the reduction in oil useage and their toxic by-products would be tremendous. Now the railroads can't afford to do this on their own. They are already saddled with maintaining their right-of-way, policing the lines, capital improvements for rolling stock, wages and insurance. Like many foreign nations, this government MUST invest in its infrastructure to get those lines converted, and the wires up to get the project jump-started.

The first stimulus to bringing this about will probably be a dollar increase in a barrel of oil and 2 or 3 major airlines calling it quits.

All rail could be powered by renewable or nuclear energy...Ugh, I hate McCain...

I once said to myself that if Hillary didn't become the dem. candidate that I wouldn't no way in hell vote for Obama because he's just as much of a smooth talker as McCain, and that I'd vote for McCain instead, but seeing how Hillary might become vice president and given the fact that Cheney pretty much runs Bush's two-bit show, I don't see why Hillary couldn't do the sme for Obama, presidents are more of a PR tool now, it's the vice pres that does a good amount of the work. It;s been that way ever since T.V. came around, in my opinion.

More rail! JUST DO IT!!! NOW!!!

We're going to have to be co-dependant on one another in the future when oil production goes down, just as it was before the oil craze. Everyone worked extra hard and then helped their neighbors, so I don' see why people can't get on a damn train and tolerate one another, it should be looked at as an asset and not a liability to ride a train with other people you don't know. If more people would just ride a train instead of an airplane or a bus, the government would take rail seriously. It's not the governments fault, it's the peoples fault, we're the ones that jump from trend to trend. Sure, the government helps peddle the trends for the creators of the new trend (cars+planes) but we're the ones who have the ability to not buy into something. Gas powered vehicals and airplanes don't make sense anymore for short distances, or even long distances within a country.

I hope McCain and his pow goiter wake the f up!!

MAY SURFACE MASS TRANSPORTATION TAX DEDUCTABLE INCLUDING AMTRAK. THE TAX DEDUCTION ON TH VA CAUSED PEOPLE TO BUY HOMES. MCCAIN SAID A TAX CUT INCREASES REVENUE. WHY NOT THIS TAX CUT.