Quote:
Originally Posted by jmecklenborg
^somehow Amtrak moves a ton of people along the Northeast Corridor despite each of those cities having major airports.
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Amtrak moves around 30 million passengers nationally, just 12.5 million or so on the Northeast Corridor ride Amtrak trains.
NJT had 268 million passengers, LIRR had 89 million passengers, MTA North had 87 million passengers, SEPTA regional rail had 35 million passengers, MBTA had 37 million passengers, MARC had 9 million passengers, and VRE had 4.5 million passengers.
You think that 12. 5 million passengers on Amtrak’s NEC is an awesome statistic, well compare that number with 530 million.
Math= 268+89+87+35+37+9+4.5=529.5
530/12.5 = 42.4
Should we be surprised NJT was almost half that total?
Yes, local regional commuter trains have 42 times more riders in cities along Amtrak’s NEC than Amtrak’s intercity trains. That would be 4200% more.
Just tp put that 520 million into perspective;
JFK International served 62 million passengers
Newark Liberty served 46 million passengers
LaGuardia served 31 million passengers
Just the New York metro airports served 139 million passengers, 10 times more than Amtrak’s 12.5 million on the entire NEC. I do not wish to add the ridership totals for every city along the NEC, but rest as surely, they will only pile on to that total.
Trains can be competitive in shorter distance intercity travel, but they are not competitive in longer distance intercity travel. Trains are very competitive in even shorter commuter travel distances than intercity travel.
12.5 million for the NEC is nothing to snub about, but I would not be crowing about it either. Japan’s Shinkansen ridership is a whopping 460 million. That is worthy numbers to crow about, not 12.5 million.