Why? I’m from Australia so I don’t know anything about this stuff

Because there should be public transit and trains. It is a ridiculously short flight that is just polluting the world unnecessarily but a lot of people don’t have a better option. There’s so many major cities in that small area that they should have train lines between them all

okay so like, I live in Baltimore. Boston is 8 hours by car away. But! There’s a direct train that goes there so I should take it and-

the train is 8 hours. Okay no big deal at least I’m not driving I can relax and-

the train ticket will run me one way between 100-300 dollars depending on when I buy it from Amtrak.

However, I can get an 80 dollar plane ticket one way on southwest, so I do that instead.

anyway it is beyond frustrating to be in the most used part of the amtrak system and still have train tickets be so goddamn cost prohibitive. 

thats not a policy failure, its seven policy failures duct taped together

@amtrak-official pls esplain

I get given scraps by government budgets because I am expected by conservatives to become profitable which is an impossible goal. This forces prices on the services that are used to be raised

Plus Amtrak is forced to maintain the long, extremely unprofitable lines through various states because the representatives from those states demand it. So the Northeast Corridor subsidizes the rest of the system because there are enough people willing to pay even at the relatively high prices.

It's like with the post office, which is also expected by Republicans to be profitable instead of a subsidized public good. If either Amtrak or the USPS were private companies, they could cut services that are clear losses (rural mail delivery & long distance trains), but they can't because those are essential services for many of the same Republicans' constituencies. But they have to look hard on government spending so they pass laws that underfund both organizations.