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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices

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To: TimF who wrote (356990)	11/4/2007 12:18:09 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) of 1574273

The trains received more subsidies per passenger mile than mot other forms of transportation. They have only be "starved" if you define that as either not receiving as much subsidies as you think they should, or alternatively as receiving a ton of subsidies but still not being able to have the system run as well as you want it to. First of all, Tim, its not always about the money.........see the spending habits of the Republican Congress from 2000 to 2006. CO2 emissions are becoming more and more important and trains tend to emit less emissions than cars and planes: gner.co.uk Secondly, the newer trains are more fuel efficient than either cars or planes with the possible exceptions of the A380 and 787 Dreamliners.......their numbers are not out yet. Finally, assuming that you are correct and trains do have greater subsidies per passenger miles[and I would love to see a link that backs you up on that premise], that subsidy per passenger mile would go down if the trains were attracting more passengers per train. Some transcontinental routes are running with only 20% occupancy. That won't happen until tracks and speeds are improved and increased respectively. The LA/SD route recaptures 80% of its operating costs through the sale of passenger tickets because it has one of the highest occupancy rates of any train routes in the country. And trains can't drop routes that are unprofitable like the airlines because Congress won't allow it. When the US finally recognizes that trains are no longer 19th century technology and that trains are an excellent means of travel for all countries dependent on outside sources for its oil like the US, then and only then will we start making rational energy choices. train ridership has been increasing for most of the 21st century and not just in the last year as your blogger lies Where in the post does it say "ridership has only increased during the last year"? Answer it doesn't. Like with most rightie literature, it strongly implies it and leaves out data that would counteract that impression: "Also, while Ezra suggests rail is trapped in some kind of vicious cycle of falling ridership and higher ticket prices, Amtrak did apparently have a record number of passengers this past year." The comments above clearly tries to leave the reader with the impression that last year was the first year of increasing ridership after going down for some time. I won't accuse you of lying but your being pretty sloppy with your responses. "Amtrak did apparently have a record number of passengers this past year." doesn't imply that there was a sudden massive jump up, after years of declining ridership. The smarter righties don't lie outright like Rush etc. Instead they create impressions by manipulating facts and omitting important information. Those of us not on the right are very familiar with the technique. After all, the technique is responsible for people still believing that Saddam had WMD and was linked to al Qaida.

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