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Comment by iso1210 | Hacker News Reader

It's interesting how the American view of transport (other than private cars) has to make a profit. Other countries fund transport to various degrees as it increases economic output and provides social needs.

It's a similar distance as Penzance-Exeter in the UK which has 22 trains in each direction on a weekday

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Replace "profit" with "worthwhile" and it may become more clear. Literally getting to fare-box neutral is one way of determining if something worthwhile but it's not the only one. But people are bad at comparing the value of projects that are in the billons, and the value may take decades to appear. It can take 10+ years for people to decide to start using commuter rail that was just added, even if it would have worked fine the whole time.

You're assuming the direct profit is the benefit, and ignore all externalities.

Do city streets make a profit? How about sewers?

The value of those resources is immeasurable - they enable trillions of dollars of economic benefit in the US alone.

No, I'm saying it's hard for people to see the externalities and so they're inclined to ignore them. And in the US at least, sewers are "farebox positive".

Instead of trying to nail on rail to cities it should be part of comprehensive travel planning that includes roads, etc. But selling it alone gets things like the California High Speed rail which hasn't sped anywhere, and dampens further similar projects.

Yes, the parcels along those streets pay property tax. Municipalities that supply infrastructure to vacant or low-value used are in trouble.

It’s not, and random commenters don’t mean anything.

Amtrak is a state owned enterprise. It is for profit, but it’s understood that it’s an economic multiplier.

The word "profit" has turned into a pejorative in the modern lexicon for some reason, but don't think it's unreasonable that such services should be self sufficient

If all competitors were too, and we internalized all externalities, sure. But personal car travel is currently heavily subsidized (no, the fuel tax does not cover road costs), and has some serious negative externalities (both from air pollution, and traffic accidents being the leading cause of death for people under 30).

We demand that public transit be self-sufficient, while subsidizing private personal transportation. The market is a great "figure out the most efficient solution" mechanism, but not if you skew it in favor of one particular solution as we're doing now.

We pretty obviously don’t demand that. Amtrak has lost money every year since it was created in 1971.

https://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-amtrak-train-rail...

We don't legally mandate it, but every discussion about Amtrak and public transit involves people insisting it should cover its own costs while ignoring the fact that the alternatives don't.

The conclusion here should be that gas taxes must be increased, not that we should continue to pump infinite money into the industrial sized furnace that is Amtrak.

I wouldn't go with just the gas tax, but yes, ideally we would internalize all externalities via taxation.

I'm certainly in favor of that, but my point is not "we should subsidize everything equally" so much as "pay attention to one-sided demands for self-sufficiency".

(To the extent that it's viable, I think "equal" subsidies would lead to a better outcome and uneven subsidues, since it would allow the market to sort out the most efficient way to meet people's desires, but I'm not sure that's even remotely possible.)

> But personal car travel is currently heavily subsidized (no, the fuel tax does not cover road costs)

If only there were some other way to collect funds for roads. One idea could be that governments require some kind of annual "license" that they charge you for. Alternatively, since private automobiles involve a large capital purchase, maybe we could levy some kind of fee or tax on the purchase to cover annual road maintenance.

We could, but as they currently stand, but I've yet to see any analysis suggesting those come close to it covering the difference.

Most things do just look at parking and gas tax, but licensing fees are negligible compared to gas tax. The car sales tax might be a big source to make a difference, though. A few states don't have a sales tax on cars, but most do, and that may outstrip gas tax revenue if people buy frequently enough.

Profit is not a sin. On the contrary it is a 1 to 1 match with the good that it is providing its users.

This idea that services shouldn't turn a profit is a massive problem.

Nobody reasonable is saying that profit making is a sin, the argument is that only allowing/focusing on direct profit making services is shortsighted and misses opportunities to implement services that have indirect benefits

Coca Cola provides more good to people than water, penicillin, insulin, cabbage, schools, libraries or parkland, because Coca Cola is more profitable than water, penicillin, insulin, cabbage, school, libraries and parkland?

My understanding is insulin in the US is sold at ridiculous prices for profit, where as in the rest of the world it's just something that people who need it have it, like water, cabbage and schools.

Zero-sum profit certainly requires taking from someone else to succeed. This doesn't make it immoral as such but it creates malevolent incentives.

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