BuckeyeBlog

In the push to reintroduce passenger rail in Ohio, it is often claimed that passenger rail has strong support from the public. As recent data by the Pew Charitable Trust shows, where passenger rail already exists it isn’t all that popular:

Forty-one of Amtrak’s 44 routes lost money in 2008 with losses ranging from nearly $5 to $462 per passenger depending upon the line, according to analysis by Pew’s Subsidyscope.

The line with the highest per passenger subsidy—the Sunset Limited, which runs from New Orleans to Los Angeles—carried almost 72,000 passengers last year. The California Zephyr, which runs from Chicago to San Francisco, had the second-highest per passenger subsidy of $193 and carried nearly 353,000 passengers in 2008. Pew’s analysis indicates that the average loss per passenger on all 44 of Amtrak’s lines was $32, about four times what the loss would be using Amtrak’s figures: only $8 per passenger. (Amtrak uses a different method for calculating route performance).

The Northeast Corridor has the highest passenger volume of any Amtrak route, carrying nearly 10.9 million people in 2008. The corridor’s high-speed Acela Express made a profit of about $41 per passenger. But the more heavily utilized Northeast Regional, with more than twice as many riders as the Acela, lost almost $5 per passenger.

As I explained here, when taxpayers have to pick up the tab for part (or in Ohio, most) of the cost of your ride, then it’s there just isn’t the demand for passenger rail that supporters claim.

In a short video on the NAACP website, Mayor Mark Mallory welcomes NAACP delegates to this week’s national convention in Cincinnati and gives some examples of Cincinnati’s recent renaissance, including the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center (NURF). But NURF is not the good example of revitalization that Mayor Mallory suggests it is. Like most government-funded projects, NURF has been a problem from the start. The museum’s construction was made possible only through heavy taxpayer subsidy; 46 million of the 110 million dollars for the project was provided by either the federal, state, county, or local government. This number doesn’t include the value of the land which the City of Cincinnati donated for the building. It gets worse from there. From a Cincinnati Enquirer article in June: (more…)

Now, walk me through this.

I own a quite nice building. Historic character, maybe even historic, but let’s just say it’s a nice building.

Issue is, it needs renovating, no longer meets my needs. That’s expensive. Moreover, it’s too big. I need less than only half of it. And did I say I don’t have money to burn? I can pay only what I can afford, which is enough to meet my actual business needs.

That’s not a hard business decision. I spend what I need for my business, which in this case sure sounds like a different building. I’ll be renting, buying or building elsewhere. If I’m a rich philanthropist who wants to renovate the existing building, fine, spend my rich philanthropist money.

But I’m not a rich philanthropist, I’m a businessman, so check that option off.

Maybe I can round up some speculators to invest in my building and take a flyer that renovated buildings of historic character will be worth the investment. I hear senators McCain and Obama want to put all the oil speculators out of work, so there ought to be plenty of speculators around with pockets-full of cash and nothing else to do.

But for some reason I’m not finding them, so check that one off.

Oh, what to do, what to do. Hey! Why didn’t I think of this before? I’ll just ask the state for money–and by golly the state says yes! Except, doggone it, even the state recognizes this is a bad business decision and will still pay only the amount I actually need.

Well, that leaves just one thing: “But if granted a waiver for more time, an aggressive fund-raising campaign could be started, and leaders could hunt for building preservation grants or explore partnerships with businesses and community organizations for use of part of the building.”

And the best part is, it’s other people’s money! In fact, it’s your money.

Old Del Latta, excuse me, Bob Latta (who says we don’t have royalty), thinks “It’s very important that we thank farmers in this district and in this state right before people cast votes for me.”

Maybe I paraphrased that last bit.

Okay. Farmers feed us. Less than one percent, feeding the world, etc. But what about the bolt manufacturers? I bet it’s way less than 1 percent of the population working in the bolt industry, and what if we lost them tomorrow? All our tractors would fall apart, not to mention everything else. Everybody’d be sitting on their arses on the Interstates, like in one of those insurance and/or global warming commercials, pretending to drive a car the way a six-year-old might, but not having any car to drive.

Do you want that? Do ya? Huh? Let’s hear it for the bolt manufacturers, and maybe give them a little subsidy, what?

(I think the Blade just wanted an excuse to use the phrase, “cleans teats” in a news story. But give them kudos for the closing sentence: “Farmers know when manure is being spread by politicians.” Only, I don’t think it means what the farmers think it means.)

Geez, talk about big wind-up and no pitch.

The Enquirer thinks college costs are too high, with prices jumping crazy-like and (of course) government support not keeping up. If that were an observation that had not already been widely made and is likely widely known, then, maybe it’s worth the price of the electrons. But it has and it is.

Of course, you start out with a weak punch like that, and you’ve got more than the normal problem of how to finish it: “But the solution will require a much more comprehensive response, including cost containment by colleges and more state and federal support for students willing to work hard and set their sights high.”

Indeed. May as well add, it remains to be seen.

“While Riverview is not Mr. Shaw’s first go at real-estate development, it would be his first successful project.”

Ouch.

It’ll be enough victory that, if he fails, he takes only investors’ dollars with him, and not taxpayers’.

And ditto if he succeeds. Good luck, Mr. Shaw.