The air industry has not made a consistent profit for decades….millions of investors money been poured in…then the airports with massive municipal investments some of which have not returned .

the auto industry has enjoyed tax breaks for years from all levels of government.

not forgetting the money put into freeways and roads.

Many bus routes across the USA get subsidized and until recently Greyhound was in a sea of red ink.

So why do people get upset about the money going into Amtrak?

Having said that, Amtrak is an inefficient organisation. Compare trains in France, Korea, Spain, Germany, Holland, Norway, Sweden. Some rail lines in those countries actually make money. The overstaffed practices in Amtrak need to look at the efficiencies in those countries. eg the Paris-Lyon TGV which took a massive investment has been profitable for years.

There are incredible environmental reasons to reduce car usage ..even with electric cars there is still an enviro cost.

EDITOR NOTE–We find it mind boggling that given all the above arguments our federal government is spending tax money to bailout the auto industry to insure there are even MORE cars produced in the future.

i’m not certain about the economics of those longer hauls, but it doesn’t seem like a big streatch to put in a comuter rail system in the Treasure Valley

maybe something that would loop W from Micron through Boise, Nampa, Caldwell, Ontario then E through Star, Eagle and back to Micronland

besides that, and although i’m not quite as poetic as Jack, i’ll ride it too…and i live here

It doesn’t sound like you guys feel like cooperating with all of the me, me, I, I capitalist rhetoric crap I’m hearing so I guess you’ll be competing with everyone for the tablescraps of what tomorrow offers. Good luck with selling all of your Broncos memoralbilia for food and clothes.

Idaho really is just another name for Dumb#*&%istan!

That kind of sloppy thinking would also lead us to forgetting about purchasing the remainder of the rail spur line from Gowen Road to downtown Nampa – because “trains just don’t work”. Buying that right-of-way is necessary regardless of your position on rail-based transit, because there’s no cheaper 200-foot wide corridor of land linking Boise, Meridian, and Nampa than the rail spur line. A lot of things can happen in 200 feet – bike lanes, bus lanes, bus-rapid-transit (buses that think they’re trains) lanes, etc. These are critical alternative commute needs in the Valley that would be very expensive to retrofit into existing roadways (or I-84).

And remember, just because a politician says they want something (even a junior Senator) doesn’t mean they’ll get it. Any train-based mass transit proposal coming out of Idaho will have to compete head-to-head with all the other requests from states that have a long history of securing funding for transit – and who have in place the local physical and fiscal infrastructure to maintain the system if their grant request is successful.

The beautiful thing about the spur line is that it is so flexible in use. You can run Heavy Freight, Commuter Rail, Light Rail, Buses, and Bikes in the corridor – and all the rail-based alternatives can run on the same set of tracks. The only alternatives that can run on the main line, the one that runs south of town, are Heavy Freight and Commuter Rail (Amtrack & Acelia, et al). The NTSB prohibits Light Rail from running on Heavy Freight lines.

I’m all for giving buses a chance to work – and no one can say we’ve done a fair job at it to date. If some type of light rail system is in Boise’s future, it may be a long way off and we’ll have to grow into it. The first step is getting the rail spur line, and securing the rights to the remainder of the spurs in the valley. “We” (with aggressive & fair public private partnerships) can build-up the necessary infrastructure that could eventually service a light rail system by looking at it as a bus-rapid-transit system, even if we ultimately decide not to get light rail no money will be wasted.

I don’t want the “tail” of Amtrack’s poor performance to wag the dog of local mass transit – or to color the discussion about buying the spur line.

Dude, like I’ve been saying all along, the city should pay people to ride bikes.
Pay commuters, children on their way to school,bike messengers, anyone who uses a bike instead of a car. One dollar a day is cheap and there will be more parking for cagers (car drivers).