Airline subsidies are ALSO funded by direct taxes on users through ticket taxes, freight, and fuel taxes. Both of the Highway and Airline subsidies come from TRUST FUNDS from direct taxes paid by those users. The upgrading and building of smaller, underserved areas for air transportation has come from the Trust Fund.

Rail subsidies come from 2 sources- Direct funding for Amtrak from the General Revenues. Other rail subsidies to private transporters come in the form of tax treatment of upgrades, improvements, and construction of new or existing railbeds and crossings. There are also several loan programs for upgrades to rail. There are NO trust funds or any contributions by passengers to these modalities of transportation- rail is ONLY directly funded by taxpayers from the Treasury as appropriated by Congress.

The facts are simple- 70% of all freight travels by truck across our highway transportation system. Most personal travel under 225 miles is by automobile. Travel time is a huge consideration of passengers with Air being the fastest, automobile next, surface bus and train almost tied in longest time. On some Amtrak routes, the cost of an airline ticket is equivalent to the amount of taxpayer subsidy per passenger. (LA to New Orleans route) Total ridership of all rail only amounts to roughly 1-1.5% of all transportation modes in the United States.

A study back in 2001 indicated that the average cost per passenger for the I-4 high speed rail proposed would be close to $4600. It would be possible to lease a small/midsize car every 3 years per rider, with a 10 year projection of $174,000 per passenger to construct and maintain the SunRail project. These costs have dramatically increased due to property acquisition costs of $167 million of property valued at a little over $6 million. Construction costs have increased as well over initial estimates and the acquisition of rolling stock and locomotion are enormous. At risk is the $1.2 billion in government grants from the stimulus bill that are a one time funding. After that, it’s up to taxpayers to keep it going with continually increasing subsidies. The cost to taxpayers currently for the South Florida rail is $12-15 MILLION per year.

Either you force people to use rail through restrictions of liberty in order to gain ridership, or you triple or quadruple the fairs to cover real costs of rail transportation. Thomas Jefferson warned that it is far better to err on the side of too much liberty than too little. You, or no one else I know is going to allow government to dictate HOW you are going to get from point A to point B. The only question is, are we going to continue to fund these revenue negative debacles? Unlike the movie “Field of Dreams”, if you build it they will come isn’t proving true with passenger rail.