Why can't we reactivate the nation's rail system, particularly the passenger

[Skidmore]

rail, to more areas of the nation than just the major urban areas? We have the infrastructure there, and updating it would be a good public works project providing jobs. Hell, any public works project on the infrastructure, including repairing our schools and public buildings etc. would be good. But I'm interested in the railways. I drive by unused tracks and old depots all the time. The tracks that are used are only for shipping goods. Why not try to get this system working again?

[datasuspect]

1. it isn't cost effective

to commit significant trackage to passenger use.

airplanes and cars killed rail in this country.

[Skidmore]

3. It's even less cost effective to maintain individual automobiles and

and airway system that sucks up major amounts of fuel and is not affordable to use. I disagree. There are plenty of tracks out there that are not used. Reactivate them and create capacity.

[datasuspect]

13. from a global perspective, you are correct

but the problem lies in the population served.

no one would give up the convenience of air travel unless it is forced upon them. same thing with cars.

i'd go even further than what you propose: prohibit private passenger vehicles from the interstate highway system and only allow interstate common carriers: buses and freight transport. commit 50% of the existing interstate ROWs and alignments to rail conversion.

the reduction of traffic flow could free up some lanes or put medians to use.

get a vigorous high speed rail program in place. invigorate the bus industry and offer varying levels of service so people aren't stuck with just greyhound.

[Selatius]

26. It may simply be easier to impose a luxury tax on all automobiles.

Of course, the luxury tax would have to come in a time after the mass transit infrastucture has been adequately restored to handle the influx of passengers who no longer view buying a car with a large luxury tax on top as attractive as before.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

29. Convenience of air travel!!!!

:rofl:

Have you flown lately?

Have you ridden the trains in foreign countries?

[datasuspect]

32. in the us it doesn't take 2+ days to cross the country via airplane

we are talking about rail travel.

i don't fly, so i'm guessing 4 - 6 hours NYC to LA. do the math.

sounds pretty convenient.

in case you haven't actually read my posts, i'm not advocating air travel. just saying it poses a significant hurdle to convincing people to give it up to modes that require more time investment to get from point a to point b.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

35. I'm not talking about cross-country rail travel, I'm talking about short hops

like Minneapolis to Chicago or Los Angeles to Las Vegas.

For the Minneapolis to Chicago trip, it's about six hours by car, maybe slightly longer (but more relaxing) by train, a little over one hour by air, but you have extreme hassles on both ends that make the whole trip more like three hours.

Japanese business people can leave central Tokyo at 6AM (like Minneapolis business people flying to Chicago for meetings) and arrive in central Osaka by 8:30 AM. (Osaka is 325 miles from Tokyo, so slightly closer than Chicago from Minneapolis.) During the trip, there's plenty of room, they can get up and walk around, and get breakfast either from the vendors or from the snack car.

Trains leave every five minutes. Literally. The fare is predictable and constant, except for occasional special roundtrip deals. A business or leisure traveler who doesn't need a reserved seat (not necessary in the middle of the day) can just buy a ticket from a machine and walk onboard.

The 750 miles between Tokyo and Fukuoka on the island of Kyushu are covered in about 5 hours. The one-way fare for this trip is about $180, but that's for everyone. There's no charging business travelers four figures just because they made the decision to travel suddenly.

(By contrast, the walk-up fare for Portland-Minneapolis, a route I flew many times in 19 years, was about $2100, with the advance purchase price all over the map.)

[datasuspect]

38. short trips between regional hubs in the midwest and northeast

are bearable via rail in the US.

chicago to minneapolis is quite a haul though. shouldn't be.

[Skidmore]

47. I would just like to have available shortlines between

more rural areas or suburbs and the nearest population centers where people go to work. I have no need to travel long distances by air more than once every 5 or 6 years. I'm talking about being able to go to work, to shop, or to conduct routine business without having to rely on cars so much. Perhaps it is time to argue that investing in sensible infrastructure is the patriotic thing to do.

[Clark2008]

50. But price sometimes outweighs convenience.

Many Americans are now living paycheck to paycheck and can't afford sudden airfare (say there's a family emergency and they must travel) or they'd like to take a vacation and can't afford it. Or, gasoline prices finally go through the roof and working people can't afford to drive.

I think many people would consider rail travel if their pocketbooks demanded it. Sure, it's not as fast and convenient as airplanes and cars, but it might soon be the only way poor and working class people can afford to get from A to B.

Just a guess.

[datasuspect]

52. the least expensive option many times is riding coach on amtrak

i've notice $20 - 50 price differentials between amtrak and greyhound on same day travel. but it depends on whether you're on one train and how far you go.



same day travel on airlines is often beyond insane.

[libnnc]

5. I wonder could that ever change?

Or is it too late?

[datasuspect]

9. it could change if people became less selfish and centered on instant gratification

ny to la takes more than 2 days on rail.

i don't see people giving up the convenience of getting there quickly via air travel, even if it does help the planet.

[libnnc]

12. I know. We took the train from Greensboro to NYC

earlier this year. I liked not having to worry about getting felt up by TSA. But it was sad to see our train in such disrepair.

The food was good, though.

[datasuspect]

15. i routinely travel by train or bus

it's getting to where i prefer greyhound as it is the least intrusive method of travel. you don't even have to show id in most places.

there is practically zero security involved. but then the population that uses it is a discardable constituency: the poor and the minorities.

still, it makes you wonder. why are they not concerned with monitoring and tracking the movements of poor people as they are with tracking the movements of people with relatively more money (who can use air travel as a default method)?

[Hugin]

17. Great quote...

"discardable constituency"

*sigh* that would be just about all of us "have nots".

[EstimatedProphet]

16. Yet people take the bus for that trip

The problem really is, that the train, which takes as long for travel as a bus would take, is priced more expensively than first-class air travel. That's on purpose, and it needs to change.

[datasuspect]

19. the quickest greyhound schedule

is 2d, 14h, 30m NYC to la.

other schedules can take up to 3 days.

this of course supposes ideal conditions across the various regions of the US.

it is not a trip for the faint of heart.

[EstimatedProphet]

60. I used to regularly travel from Missouri to Saskatchewan and back on Greyhound

Took just under 2 days. 2 miserable days. I would happily do it on a train though, because at a minimum you can move around on a train, they are more comfortable, and there's things to do. However, a train ticket would cost 4-5 times the cost of a bus ticket, which is ridiculous.

[Wiley50]

30. As the fascists take over more fully, train travel will return

because, as everyone knows,

Fascists make the trains run on time

[H2O Man]

22. I agree.

When you look back at when "auto's for individuals" began to replace trains as the major form of transportation, the "instant gratification" played a role. Also, even before WW1, the oil industry was gaining power at the exact rate that consumption increased. Trains helped home heating go from the wood stove & fireplace to the coal furnace; by WW2, when trains were deisal, coal was being replaced.

It's interesting to consider how transportation reflects the larger society. Stage coaches gave way to railroads, which gave way to the automobile and plane. Thus, when people advocate an increase in the rail system, it is generally viewed as a quaint call to return to a simpler time.

[mod mom]

34. Edwin Black's Internal Combustion gives an excellent historical perspective

of the undermining of public transportation by robber barons. Trolley car lines were bought up and destroyed to move the public away from public transportation.

Also, the electric car was developed in the late 1800's and Thomas Edison attempted to put them into production in the early 1900's. A "mysterious" fire burned down his concrete fireproof research facility in 1914.

I was fortunate enough to have dinner w Mr Black and attended a lecture afterward. I highly recommend the book and/or hearing him lecture to get a better understanding how we got to where we are today. Robber Barons then, as today worked to further personal wealth over what is best for the country.

[Hugin]

11. At one time I thought so too...

But, I've come to realize the rails did themselves in by eliminating their own
'feeder' lines in the late '60s.

Oh, and then there's that joke AMTRAK.

[datasuspect]

18. an increase in air travel in the 60s

combined with a decrease in freight, mail, and passenger operations in rail during the same time period killed it.

i think at one point by 1970 73% of ridership was by air and 7% by rail. i cannot source this, i'd have to look it up.

but that was a time of relatively cheap fuel.

[Hugin]

20. It was all hype...

Howard Hughes in the depths of his insanity saw that jets made no sense for
short to mid haul transportation... Yet, they forced him to switch from props
to turbines.

It was heavy govt subsidies which even came close to making wide spread jet
travel viable... even then.

Again, no sources. But, we're just talking this out. ;)

[OzarkDem]

40. No form of public transportation is "cost effective"

All require some form of government subsidy, whether its building and maintaining airports and air traffic control systems or spending billions on highways and bridges.

Part of the campaign to end passenger rail in favor of automobiles included brainwashing the public into thinking public subsidies were bad. Its surprising to see those old propaganda techniques are still effective today.

[datasuspect]

44. i'd have to look into it

but i'm thinking public transit companies prior to the automobile revolution (interurbans/street cars) were solvent without government subsidies in the late 19th/early 20th century.

still, they might have got kickbacks from developers and the railroads for providing services to the newly formed inner ring suburbs they were servicing in principal cities.

i'm in favor of committing funds to develop a coherent public transportation alternative.

but the prevailing attitude in places like houston, tx (cf. the entrenched battle and big money that went into fighting light rail) predominate nationally.

additionally, i don't think you could convince people to use a transportation model that requires them to sacrifice speed or time.

[OzarkDem]

46. False choice

Modern rail service wouldn't have to force people to sacrifice speed or time. With long waits at the airports today, its not always the fastest alternative, either, particularly for short to mid distance flights.

The savings in fuel usage alone make it worthwhile.

[datasuspect]

48. in hub to hub transit in midwestern and northeastern markets

rail at this point is a somewhat realistic alternative. it can be tricky, but you can get around the NE corridor on amtrak with some consistency and if you are in chicago, you can get all over the country on amtrak.

however, greyhound and amtrak have decommissioned many small stops in favor of direct transit to large population centers. this was a market air travel was never intended to serve. and the need is there. private vehicle use and fuel consumption on that basis alone would be alleviated if they reinstituted route schedules from just 15 years ago in the greyhound and amtrak systems.

but it still isn't enough to convince people to abandon their private vehicles for short and mid distance trips.

still, if you consider chicago to houston a mid distance flight, it takes 1 day on greyhound or amtrak to do that trip.

it takes 3 or so hours on an airplane.

you could get high speed rail and that might alleviate some of the time consideration, but you're still going to have to change people's conceptions of instant gratification.

[OzarkDem]

51. I agree

but rising gas prices may take care of some of that. It should provide sufficient motivation, as long as the government provides a level playing field with regard to subsidies.

[Eurobabe]

65. Oil/gas lobby killed rail

[Lasher]

2. Railroads are at a competitive disadvantage.

In all other modes of transportation the government pays for most or all of the transport infrastructure. Railroads must pay for the railways on which their trains run.

[OzarkDem]

41. Exactly, they also pay property taxes

on the land where their trackage runs. Imagine how difficult it would be for commercial and public highway traffic had to pay out of pocket to maintain the roads they drive on as well as pay taxes on the property too.

[A HERETIC I AM]

59. You do that already.

Imagine how difficult it would be for commercial and public highway traffic had to pay out of pocket to maintain the roads they drive on as well as pay taxes on the property too.

Commercial motor freight companies pay road use taxes based on the weight capacity of their vehicles as well as taxes on tires and motor fuel. Automobile drivers pay road use taxes through licensing and motor fuels and excise taxes on tires.

The land under a highway belongs to the state.

[napi21]

4. I think it's been neglected for sooo long, the cost to

reactivate it to be efficient would be prohibitive.

[ixion]

6. yeah, much of the track is gone, the land sold, or is dilapidated beyond repair

so it would be expensive to try and pull off, IMO.

[izzie]

7. We all have a 'horse' in the barn to get to work

I am trying right now to get rid of my car and their is no way to get any place but for that thing, in the back woods. Our culture wants to back private travel. Even bike trails are hard to get in. As always the govt. really does what the people want and they wanted private travel. Until that passes the RR and buses will be out. Look at some of the cities for things to come. In 1979 I was in NYC and I saw few private cars. It is to costly. I stayed in SF for a few weeks and only had to rent a car to get out of the city and had come in on a plane.. The train to Boston has re-started in this state so as culture changes the results with change.

[Deja Q]

8. I saw an advert on the telly a couple months back...

How freight railroad can work, and would use far less gasoline to ship the same amount of goods.

As rail is still being used today (albeit not as much), it is not dead and could be revitalized.

I'd like to see roadways converted to light rail. A lot of infrastructure is fairly in place and would need minor augmentation. (from my limited understanding.)

Yes, it would cost a little now.

Long term benefits, for us, and for the NAU, would be tremendous.

[KharmaTrain]

10. The System Infrastructure There...

I'm very big advocate of local mass transit...especially building more light rail systems in suburban areas.

Unfortunately, re-invigorating a national passenger system would cost billions. Many towns that had stations no longer do...or the stations that are still standing were inadequate decades ago. The other problem is the habit people have of driving. A local train route with dozens of stops along the way would still encourage people to drive as a quicker way to get places. A feeder system would solve some of these problems, but again, the costs would be high and then who would pay for it?

Tracks that handle freight aren't always suitable for passenger traffic. Maintenance for a passenger line is a lot more labor intensive. There have been many plans for developing more high-speed and inter-city rail systems, however the money never gets to these programs...instead going for airport or road improvement...things that get more votes.

[Clark2008]

55. But it may not take as long when one considers how bad

traffic has become in urban areas.

It takes me 40 minutes to go 15 miles during rush hour. That's ridiculous. And I know it's even worse in larger cities.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

69. Portland Tri-met is putting in a new Commuter train just a few blocks from me...

It's very cool.

http://www.trimet.org/commuterrail/index.htm

[AngryAmish]

14. Because trains suck

Hear me out. I've lived and commuted from a suburban town with about the best rail service in the nation (Metra in Chicago's suburbs) and I've lived in Chicago with light rail. Metra is a nice ride with clean cars. However missing a train means waiting an hour for another unless is strictly a 8 to 5 worker which I never was. The el in Chicago is dirty and smells. Both ways my car is nicer.

Now if I took public transportation it would mean an hour long bus ride or a 20 minute drive. Guess what I do?


As to providing jobs: Where do you get the money to do so? By taking it from people who could spend it as they choose.

[Hugin]

21. "Where do you get the money to do so?"

By diverting the tax money already taken from the taxpayers to pay airline subsidies
and redirecting them to rail transport.

[baldguy]

23. Because public transportation has been under-funded for 60 yrs

Particularly public rail service. While cars have been subsidized. If we treated cars the same way we treated trains, you'd have to pay $.75 - $1 every time you got on a major road.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

36. Doesn't sound very Amish of you :-)

Trains "suck" in this country because they've been seriously underfunded.

Look at the intercity trains and public transit in other countries before you declare categorically that "trains suck." Chicago's trains are really pretty poor on a worldwide scale.

[Selatius]

24. You got 200 billion to reactivate the neglected, dilapidated rail lines?

Amtrak has an 80 mph speed limit in certain places because the track is in such disrepair that it simply isn't safe at any higher speed without serious possibility of track failure.

If you want the money for such a project, I point at the Pentagon. This year, they received a 600+ billion dollar spending package by Congress and the White House. Start cutting the money there.

[Skidmore]

25. Do we have billions to repeatedly bail out the airline and auto

industries every few years?

[Selatius]

27. We have the monetary capital to do what all needs to be done.

The problem is we don't have the political capital. Government used to work for people, but the point of democracy is kind of defeated when so many people vote against their own interests. Then you just have a government that listens to lobbyists.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

31. $200 billion would be

would be the cost of 800 days of the Iraq War.

Amtrak's cumulative subsidy over it's entire existence has only recently surpassed the $35 billion given to the airline industry all at once after 9/11.

Amtrak does a great job for a service on a starvation diet.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

28. I've been saying that for years

Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, and most of Europe are modernizing and upgrading their rail systems. Even the UK, which is widely held to have the worst rail system in Europe, is light years ahead of us.

To those who say that the country is too big for rail service, how about concentrating on building it region by region, and then connecting the systems in the final stage? If we had Japan's system, a downtown-to-downtown train trip between the Twin Cities and Chicago would be a little over 3 hours instead of taking all day as it does now.

That would be downtown-to-downtown, not suburban airport to suburban airport, which is a much more irritating and wasteful trip. Imagine the trip between Minneapolis and Chicago (or between your nearest large city and another large city 400 miles away) without the trip to the airport, without security lines, without delays on the runway, without being strapped in, with the ability to get up and walk around and plenty of leg room when you were seated, with a dining car and a bar car, with scenery, without turbulence, without waiting for your luggage on the other end, and without having to find ground transportation on the other end. That's what trips between, say, Tokyo and Kobe are like.

[CurtEastPoint]

39. Lydia, you are spot on... high speed rail, maglev, etc. is the way to go

And from the post below, if we weren't in this idiotic war, those $$ could pay for it, plus put a lot of people to work. Plus solve a huge transportation problem here.

Imagine... a clean, non-polluting, quiet (relatively!) train traveling at 300 mph. This is not fiction. It is being done now.

So...leave NYC at 8pm, arrive in LA at 8am, with intermediate stops in, for example, Chicago, Denver, Las Vegas. Compare to spending 5 hours in the air plus adding 2 hours on both ends for typical airport/airline/tsa/luggage/commute bullshit and the difference is negligible, IMHO.

To paraphrase: "Some see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not."

We as a nation can do this..we have the smarts and the technology. Guess who/what will hold it back?

[OzarkDem]

43. Kind of amazing, isn't it?

We Americans marvel at these technological advances in our amusement parks, but don't consider putting them to practical every day use.

[OzarkDem]

42. As a former railroader, I agree

Its an investment that must be made and will pay off in the long term and one that would go a long way towards reducing pollution and dependence on foreign oil.

One would have thought after 9-11 with the grounding of all air traffic, we would have seen the need to have a decent passenger rail infrastructure in place. Instead we continue to ignore it.

State, local and federal governments place many unfair cost burdens on rail carriers that make it difficult for them to compete with other forms of transportation. The GOP has gone a step further by reducing Amtrak subsidies even further, in hopes of driving them out of business and allowing private investors to take over. Believe me, those investors have a reason for getting into passenger rail, they don't plan on losing money.

Here in Ohio, the interstate highway system is overburdened carrying traffic between major population cities. I would much rather take a train from Cleveland to Columbus and Cincinnati than fight traffic on crowded I-71.

Railroads abandoned many branch lines not as much for the high cost of maintaining them, but the high cost of taxes they have to pay on the property. Most roadbeds and much of the track of abandoned rail lines is still in place and would be less expensive to rebuild than expanding highways. A mile of track is cheaper to build than a mile of 4 or 6 lane highway.

The public has just been conditioned to view passenger rail in a negative way and that needs to turn around.

[Red Zelda]

33. Simple answer: PROFITS

Greyhound didn't build the roads.
USAir didn't build the sky.
Railroads build and maintain their OWN rights of way. Freight RRs can't make money on passenger trains.

You want extensive passenger rail, then it has to come a subsidized government service. And the only thing WE in Dumbfuckistan subsidize is the military-terrorism complex.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

37. TPTB don't want it done

That's the real answer. There's not enough obscene profit to be made from it. Personally, I've wanted high speed rail for the entire nation for a long, long time.

[HamdenRice]

45. The East Coast is a potential model

On the Boston-New York-Washington corridor, rail is quite competitive. Many business travelers take the train between NYC and DC. When you compare the amount of time it takes, surprisingly, rail is almost as fast and convenient. Even though the shuttle flight is only about 1/2 hour, if compare the amount of time flying takes -- to get from Manhattan to the airport in Queens, check in, wait, fly, and get from Dulles to downtown DC -- to taking the train from midtown Manhattan to downtown DC, they are pretty similar.

Also the NY rail corridor has been upgraded and high speed trains are now running in the Acela Express.

By some estimates, Amtrak, including its Acela Express, have captured half of all intercity NYC-DC travel!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acela_Express

It can be done in other areas of the country, and as several posters have pointed out, the amount of waste and looting in the Defense budget is more than enough to cover upgrading our rail system.

The Europeans, Japanese and Koreans know what the future requires and are doing it. Our bought and paid for Congress, however, simply doesn't have the capacity to plan for the future under the current system.

[JanMichael]

49. Because we're owned. Period. Remember trams?

They were in many large & mid-sized cities in America until GM (and broad public policy) had the tracks paved over. Now there are practically none in places like Wichita. Many used to though.

We could as a people do what you suggest but not with the current status quo corporate regime.

[rucky]

53. Not passenger...FREIGHT. n/t

[Joe Fields]

54. For one thing, it isn't the "nation's" rail system.

The thousands of miles of tracks are owned by many different corporations. A lot of those systems lost tons of money trying to provide passenger service. They can make a profit hauling freight, but there isn't enough passenger traffic to sustain a rail line's profit margin. That is exactly how Amtrack came into being. When the last of the passenger rail services finally gave up, the government stepped in and provided the service.

Aside from "specialty" passenger lines, like the one at the Grand Canyon, and a very few others, you will never see passenger rail service again, save for Amtrack.

[haele]

56. Because from the 1950's on, the rail infrastructure has been sabotaged -

Between the auto manufacturing and lobbying for their highways, and the airlines, rail has been the bastard stepchild in the woodshed. Rail rightaways have fallen into disrepair and frankly are dangerous. Suburbia has shifted population centers that will need to be addressed. And even more than NASA, the rail lines have been losing their national subsidies to remain operational, putting more burden on operators to maintain otherwise public railways. Railways, like communication networks, have common public use networks, different companies with different usages use the same rails to go from point a to point b, so by rights, some of their support should be publicly funded.
30 years of shoddy administration insured that AMTRAK is no longer capable of handling large amounts of passengers, even though most of their commuter runs can be very profitable when handled right.
High speed rail might help between hubs, but can you see the airlines not fighting for their monopoly on commuter travel?

Haele
(who, if not in a time crunch, prefers rail travel because while the service may not be that great, the seats are so much more comfortable and a passanger can actually move around...)

[JVS]

57. Because the train is a fucking ripoff

[JanMichael]

61. All trains or a train?

Not sure if I follow.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

62. It has to charge a lot because it receives no subsidies

However, I've done the Chicago-Minneapolis run for $110 round trip, which is cheaper than airfare most times.

[JVS]

63. I'd just drive that, maybe in the winter I'd take the train instead

[Lydia Leftcoast]

64. Ah, but you can't sleep or read while driving

I hate to drive, and I'd rather sleep or read or both any old day.

Have you experienced train travel in Western Europe or Japan?

[JVS]

67. That's what you think!

;-)

Oh yeah, in Europe the train is fine. But here it's too expensive and inconvenient. But I've seen train tickets here that cost more than driving too and from a the destination and then theres the matter of transportation when you get there. Too much and until train tickets get cheaper or gas is $8 with train fares and public transport unchanged, I don't see the train being a preffered method for me.

[Catchawave]

58. Join NARP !

The National Association of Railroad Passengers

http://www.narprail.org/cms/index.php

It's a good source for railfans and politics :)

[JBear]

72. DONE! Thanks! (nt)

[AllieB]

66. Subsidies to Amtrak have been decimated since Bush took office

Of course, this impacts the Northeast corridor most of all, where Amtrak actually turns a profit. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that the Northeast is largely Blue?

I take the commuter rail from North of Boston 4x a week (telecommute on Friday). I can tell you that it beats sitting in traffic for 1.5 hours to go 18 miles each way. That is at least 3 hours a day that could be better spent with my family.

[AwakeAtLast]

68. Because the "Big Three" crushed rail travel years ago

I would love to think that rail travel could be resurrected, but it would take some serious funding.

Thanks for posting a great question! :hi:

[Forrest Greene]

70. When The Right People

...are able to profit from it, rebuilding the rails will suddenly become an essential national priority.

[JacquesMolay]

71. We're going to have to because of Peak Oil, but the main fear ...

... is of suburbanites who don't want 'outsiders' taking the trains to their neighborhoods to cause crime. Most of these people are stupid enough to think that the car paradigm is going to last forever, despite the ever-increasing ebbs of gas prices. I love my car, but I know at some point that way of living is going to have to give way to one that is sustainable.

[Toasterlad]

73. There's a Major Section of the Philadelphia Suburbs Not Serviced by Rail

The tracks are in place, but have only been used by freight carriers for decades. Meanwhile, the major artery that services that area, Rt 422, is jam-packed every morning with commuters who have no choice but to drive into the city. A plan to reestablish commuter rail service was developed, but nixed because the feds wanted more money to come from local means, and the locals said no. So the tracks just sit there, and thousands drive who would otherwise take the train. It's criminial.