Opinion By Joseph A. Boardman, Railway Age Magazine; December 21, 2018
Today, as well as for most of its existence, Amtrak has had both its supporters and detractors focused on numbers—numbers of passengers, dollars of investment, size of deficits, miles of rail service, and statistical comparisons with others. There is a passion here that drives interest, much like the passion of sports fans immersed in statistics.
Not only does neither side win arguments by focusing solely on statistics, the exercise ignores why Amtrak exists. Sadly, for our nation, states and communities, current Amtrak management has decided to treat Amtrak as a zero-sum game, where there must be winners and losers based solely on statistics. Rural areas would have neither affordable electric nor telephone service, nor even highways, were such a narrow focus used for those public services.
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