Amtrak to reduce leg room on their trains? Nope. Nope nope nope nope nope.

by Ryan Vagabundo

Photo courtesy of Roger Puta and Marty Bernard

I'm an Amtrak fan. You can't catch their trains everywhere, but when you can, it's so much nicer than taking Greyhound (or even the slightly better bus services like Megabus and Boltbus).

Usually, the price is comparable or not much more, and the interstate experience is just so much more pleasant. Aside from having a much better restroom situation, and a snack car that serves beer, you've also got bigger and much more roomy seats that it's SO much easier to sleep in.

So I was dismayed to wake up and see this news item circulating the other day:

"Amtrak considering tighter airline-style economy class seating"

I hope they listen to Chuck Schumer and rethink this idea toot sweet. What good is Amtrak if it's not comfy at a reasonable price?

Now, I know Amtrak has perpetual funding struggles. But my understanding is that comes almost solely from having to maintain interstate lines with rural / small city platform stops that aren't regularly profitable to them. They make good money from California and the northeastern states, but have trains going across the middle of the country every day that are usually maybe half full.

So this funding plan actually wouldn't address the area where they need more profit ... they would just be making New York / Washington / Philly and California San Joaquin / Zephyr Reno-Sacramento passengers more uncomfortable to extract more money from those crowded lines.

There's a better solution to all this. An affordable means of interstate travel like Amtrak is a public necessity. If the private market can't do it properly (and they aren't) then the government should step in to make sure it gets funded just for the public good. You might quibble about how "necessary" it might be, but at the very least, don't you want there to be a nicer travel option other than a dirty-ass cramped Greyhound at one end and airline prices / security hassles at the other? Isn't that worth spending a little tax money on?

Trouble is, Republicans hate Amtrak, and have a long history of trying to kill it entirely. Unfortunately, guess who is in full control until 2018 at minimum. We're currently spending about $2 billion of public money on Amtrak, but a lot of that is going to upgrades and much-needed track rehab that is a temporary expense. Even if we spent that much every year, however, it would be less than a tenth of one percent of the overall federal budget. Pretty sure we can scrape that much out of wasteful military spending from somewhere or another?

Anyway. If you want to leave a comment for Amtrak's consideration, the best way seems to be the email form on this contact page. You can include your Amtrak Guest Rewards number if you're a frequent rider and maybe have some extra attention from them. Also contact your Congresscritters and tell them you support federal funding for Amtrak.