Post-Dispatch Up and Gets Free-Market on Us …

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board is certainly capable of surprises, and this morning’s editorial about Amtrak is one such instance. I don’t have much to add; mostly, I just wanted to highlight it here because, you know, we get a lot more traffic than some old dead-tree newspaper. As they put it:

As to the rest of it, that should be Amtrak’s problem, not the taxpayers’. Taxpayers already are paying 80 percent of the cost of hauling an Amtrak passenger across the state. That’s enough. Outside of the crowded eastern corridor, passenger trains no longer make economic sense.

Facts are facts, unfortunate as they may be to someone who loves trains, like I do. It would be fabulous to somehow fix the problems and allow Amtrak to be on time with its trains, but I don’t see why taxpayers, rather than riders, should fund those fixes. It’s hard enough to argue in favor of keeping the subsidy at the current level, as the romantic in me supports, but increasing it would be wholly irresponsible.