If You Subsidize It, They Will Come
Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 By Marc KilmerYesterday Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood came to Ohio to extol the virtues of passenger rail. I hope he offered something in his talk that was more insightful than his comments as reported in the Dispatch: “if you build it, they will come” and “people like to ride trains.”
His platitudes are not only lame but they are also wrong. If you build it, they may come to the train station, but they won’t ride it unless taxpayers pay the majority of their ticket price and fully subsidize the initial start up costs. And, yes, people like to ride trains. They just don’t want to pay the full cost to do so.
I have nothing against train travel. As I explain here, I just don’t want taxpayers to subsidize it.
Tags: passenger rail
