WASHINGTON — The Trump administration’s proposed 2020 budget calls for refocusing Amtrak on routes of less than 750 miles and would slash discretionary funding for the U.S. Department of Transportation by 21.5 percent, a decrease of $5.1 billion.
“Simply put, Amtrak trains inadequately serve many rural markets while not serving many growing metropolitan areas at all,” the plan states. Instead, the administration envisions a partnership between Amtrak and bus operators to serve rural areas and requests $550 million in “transitional funding” to help states take over these routes. Grants to Amtrak for the Northeast Corridor would also be cut in half from $650 million to $325.5 million. There is no funding for the Gateway Tunnel project.
In all, the budget’s $1.49 billion in Amtrak funding represents a 22 percent cut from the 2019 figure of $1.9 billion.
The Capital Investments Grant program, which funds commuter rail, light rail, and streetcar systems along with bus rapid transit and ferries, would be cut by $800 million.
In general, the budget seeks to shift much of the responsibility for transportation project to state and local entities. “The 2020 Budget continues certain important transportation infrastructure investments,” the document states in its summary of the DOT, “but in a way that also recognizes that the federal government is not — and should not be — the primary funder of the nation’s transportation systems.”
That concept received a cold reception from Democrats, who control the House of Representatives. In a statement, Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said, “In effect, the Trump budget would shirk federal responsibility when it comes to our nation’s infrastructure, putting a massive burden on cash-strapped states and local communities and doing nothing to meaningfully address our nation’s infrastructure needs.”
There are bright spots for transportation in the proposal. The budget fully funds FAST Act programs and calls for long-term surface transportation reauthorization. It doubles funding for INFRA grants to $2 billion, which can be used for ports, intermodal, or rail projects including grade crossing separation, in addition to highway projects. And it provides $1 billion for BUILD grants, previously known as TIGER grants.
The administration also requests $200 billion for “other infrastructure projects,” but points those toward “visionary projects” such as 5G cellular communications and artificial intelligence.
The complete budget is available here.
How much has been spent by the US government on the Interstate Highway system since 1958? How much on airports & air traffic control? How much on Amtrak?
Freight Railroads are able to compute avoidable, variable and fully allocated costs for each commodity PER SEGMENT and per railroad car. AMTRAK should be able to do the same on a per passenger basis, except apparently they don’t wish to. I dare say NEC costs are much higher than shown.
If you actually want to grow traffic plans should be for 20% more space.
Right, Build Donald a toy wall. Kill every valuable resource. Maybe he forgets the defense value of our passenger trains. Amtrak was invaluable to our company during the period after 9/11, when there was no air traffic permitted.
Buses? They are the infernal torture machines on any thing except cross-town trips. Even the Marquis deSade couldn’t come up with anything that horrible.
At least, with trains you have some amenities and can move around a bit. Buses? Not so much. Planes? Even less.
It might be best to only allow decision makers to include just those who have been riding trains for a while.
The GREATEST thing that Trump could do is to cut all DOT funding. It is a completely useless department.
Charles,
Gas taxes and registration fees are not returns on interstate highways. They are used to fund many different forms of transportation, including bike paths. I don’t think I want to drive 80 mph on a bike path.
Steve, The cost of the meals is built into the sleeper fares just as they are on cruise ships and first class airline travel. Dining cars are part of the package deal and downgrading or outright eliminating them would result in a total collapse of the LD sleeper business. The current administration at Amtrak knows this very well as they are already using this devious tactic of downgrading the dining car experience to discourage sleeper patronage on The Capital limited and The Lake Shore Limited. Given the chance,they will probably falsely claim how successful this new dining car concept with boxed meals has been and try to replace traditional dining car service on the other LD trains in a veiled attempt to discourage patronage so they can better their case for eliminating all LD trains. As far as overnight coach service is concerned,there are a lot of people that do use this service,however,there are many more on the LD trains that are traveling portions of the route as passengers are getting on and off continuously all during the day and night and although some do go all the way,the vast majority of coach passengers travel on certain segments of that train’s route. This is one of the things that makes a long distance train so valuable,in that it is actually several trains within one as multiple city pairs are served within that one train’s itinerary. Frequent daylight service between city pairs would be a great enhancement to the long distance trains,but should in no way be a substitute to them,as the LD trains still would be very important to connect the corridors together and keep the system fluid. The Trump administration and Amtrak management knows full well that they will never get the slots necessary from the freight railroads to run this frequent corridor service without an astronomical investment in capacity enhancements. They also know full well that getting all of the individual states to agree on funding for these corridors is next to impossible. Therefore,this is only a plot to dismantle our national passenger train network under the guise that they are attempting to improve it.
Roger, well said, what’s happening is quite obvious.
While I don’t entirely agree with you on cost-sharing I do on largely concur the consequences of excess track-plant downsizing. I lived in Denver when the approximately 17 miles of the Santa Fe Denver-La Junta line was removed from the north end of the US Air Force Academy to the south side of Colorado Springs. All traffic shifted to the Rio Grande alignment on what was then the Joint Line used by the D&RGW, BN (C&S), and the Santa Fe. But of course the cost-cutters failed to double track (or even substantially extend passing tracks) and fluidity was compromised in ways which persist to this day.
It’s still the Joint Line–now used by D&RGW successor Union Pacific and Santa Fe/BN successor BNSF. It is indeed less crowded than before the coal-train decline, but would need substantial investment to host passenger trains–at least more than once a day.
C Springs wanted the Santa Fe alignment for a road expansion and there was always the oddity of two stations for passengers, the Rio Grande for all southbound (and all Rock Island trains), with the Santa Fe for all northbound traffic. The Rock Island route is now reduced to a short stub near the depot and otherwise lifted east to Limon.
The object of my proposal is to suggest ways that not only the states, but more importantly the freight carriers, might be shown a way that passenger improvements could really help help them. Thus my suggestion that any direct railroad contribution to new infrastructure be treated as a tax credit rather than just a deduction. This might be a way forward.
The Anderson/Gardner/Coscia talk about new corridors rising to replace or somehow supplement a down-sized “experiential” rump of the long-hauls (not to mention the Trump nonsense about “Robust” bus replacement) is just smoke and mirrors if the freight lines lack capacity for any new trains. Hell, on routes most impacted by the two-mile long Precision Scheduled Railroading drag freights like the old Southern (NS) out of New Orleans, the one existing single daily Amtrak train, the once wonderful and well-run CRESCENT, can barely move. And if they are freed from their historic obligation to host the CZs and SWCs of this world, they will hardly be inspired to welcome say an every two hour new corridor service between Chicago and Kansas City or anywhere else.
Reauthorization may simply devolve into more of the agonies of the present. But there just might be a better way.
Trump ran on a promise of real infrastructure spending. The first Trump version–80% state funded–20% Fed–was obviously a non-starter. Far from adding a trillion dollars in infrastructure investment, it simply shifted current Federal spending on rail/transit/airports etc to the states. Unsurprisingly it gained no traction on either side of the Congressional aisle. (Ayn Rand alone would have smiled)! Could we yet “make the trains run on time” by embracing some sort of compromise that might actually work?
I don’t claim to have the ultimate plan, but I do think we have an opportunity with the required Amtrak Reauthorization that ought not to be squandered in favor of further cost-shifting to the states. That, alas, is the essence of both the Anderson/Gardner/Coscia “new corridors” plan and tworse. of the USDOT “Robustitution” idea.
CARL
You bring up two points: One the cost split, state/ federal. In the end it doesn’t matter. It’s just a formula, a recipe, for endless arguments about paying money neither entity wants to pay.
Your other point. The rail system in Indiana is a parking lot. Yes, Carl, this isn’t 1971 any more. The Central is down to two tracks. The Erie and the Pennsy are essentially gone. What’s left? The former Central and the former B&O.
In the mid-1970’s, the railroads and the government fell over each other to rationalize the “corridors of excess capacity”. Indiana and Ohio were Ground Zero. Question to all the rail advocates (which category includes me). If you want more passenger trains, where exactly to put them? (By the way, speaking of rationalization of excess capacity, how many rail stations are left in Chicago for intercity trains?)
Speaking of parking lots, some people on this forum want a Denver connection to the Chief. Coal between Wyoming and Texas may or may not be down a bit since I was last in Colorado ten or twelve years ago. The lines south of Denver were two parking lots for coal trains back then, probably about the same now. Coal or no coal, this illustrates another point: When our rail system was built, no one seems to have anticipated Texas would be our Number Two state by population.
So lets really do a deep dive here on how Amtrak Reauthorization might be designed in a way which remotely (and it still is only remotely) might facilitate the emergence of new corridor services. The problems, as I will suggest, are immense, but money can cure many ills. Very importantly please also note that these are my own views and have not been either discussed or endorsed by the RPA/NARP at this time.
Amtrak’s Reauthorization could actually open a window to help here, by making the state support issue less onerous and by finding a way to make the freight carriers really see passenger trains as a positive business-line.
Originally added state-requested short-distance Amtrak Section 403B trains (created in addition to the original core Amtrak network) only required a 2/3rds state-out of pocket cost subsidy contribution. Better idea–what about 50/50, or 60/40? But this would still not be enough without freight carriers buying into to allowing more passenger trains on their most important lines.
Now it’s the states’ responsibility to fund 100% of any added (under 750 miles) service(s), based on an incomprehensible formula which is basically that a state(s) must pay whatever Amtrak says a train costs.
The States for Passenger Rail coalition is very unhappy about how opaque it all is. How could they not be? As the RPA/NARP has decisively proven, Amtrak itself can not properly break out its direct operating costs. But these ideas might also force them to finally face that analysis.
But even then, even if the cost were 50/50 or even 65/35 or any other split you like, things only work if every state on a route will play. That killed the original 1971 version of the LAKESHORE.
New York, PA, OH, IN and Il were all supposed to contribute, but could never agree on a way/formula to split the costs. Even though the initial LAKESHORE was very well used it vanished for 5 years, only to return as an “Amtrak Experimental Route” under a now-repealed part of the Amtrak law, which called for the company to start one such service every year to “see if it would work”. In the case of 48/49 it did. Sadly that process is long gone!
All this talk of new regional corridors also belies the fundamental operational problem of freight rail capacity and receptiveness. Amtrak and Virginia, for example, are ready to go with an added Lynchburg to Washington train, but NS won’t even quote a cost/shopping list for any capacity improvements they might want. In truth the slot already used three times per week for the CARDINAL from Charlottesville to DC could easily be expanded to serve what would in effect be a second section of Train 50/51 that would continue from Charlottesville to Lynchburg–where layover facilities already exist for the train that now starts in Roanoke, but NS won’t even talk.
Look finally at how recently the NS former New York Central mainline has turned, too often, into a parking lot for freight trains (and Amtrak) between Elkhart and Chicago to understand why an obviously under-served corridor like Chicago-Toledo-Cleveland may be impossible to create without massive capital investment that goes far beyond any operational subsidy demands. To make this fluid the third (and fourth) tracks the NYC pulled up long ago under Al Perlman’s direction need to be restored. Fortunately the right of way is intact, but it’s a really large cost!
If the Congress is serious, if Amtrak is serious, about developing meaningful new regional trains (a truly great idea) it must create a funding formula that actually incentivizes both the states and the freight railroads to get on board. Tax incentives for the carriers would clearly help to drawn them in, but much more important would be a recognition that the states can not alone pay the full operational freight of a true national Amtrak network. We funded Interstate Highways on a 90% Federal/10% state basis. No one said no to that offer.
Noting that it’s no longer the flush 1950s, how about a Federal commitment that the current National Network of interstate/long-distance routes is a Federal responsibility, but that existing and new services which connect to it (which would include the current state-supported links) will be cost split 50/50 for operations?
Further, the Federal contribution to needed new start capital expenses would split 60% Federal, and 40% states, but in addition if a freight carrier joined in to relieve the states/Feds of any part of that investment, it would enjoy a tax credit equal to the full value of its contribution and an annual tax deduction equal to the added maintenance expense for the new capacity.
This still does not relieve the issue of how to get multiple states to buy into corridors that of necessity would cross state lines, but perhaps we could develop a formula balancing mileage and projected ridership to help with that?
This will not be cheaper than the present system for dividing Amtrak costs, but it does not make the Feds the sole funder either. What this is is better by being more balanced, more likely to encourage growth, and more reflective of how Amtrak incorporates the ideal of why we have a Federal government in this country–because there are issues that transcend state lines. Amtrak is the perfect example.
Carl Fowler
Vice Chair
Rail Passengers Association
(The comments above are my own views)
I agree with Mr. R. Williams without the LD trains to feed into the corridors they will just be competing for the same portion of the travelling public of the corridor as the airlines, Megabus & private auto. Corridor trains will finish last!
The problem with LD overnight coach service is that very few want it. Why pay more for it than many available airfares that get you to most places in a few hours between 8:00 AM and 10:00 PM. Frequent daylight service at speeds comparable to buses and close to automobiles is the key for increasing rail coach ridership.
By the way, I never said anything about subsidization of Pullman services. I have no idea if sleeper service pays for its operating costs. It also would be nice if we had Pullman only trains to compare the others against financially as in pre-Amtrak days. It is known that traditional diner operations are a money pit but that’s what most Pullman passengers seem to want for meals.
Charles, let’s hope it’s the latter rather than the former of your two alternatives.
His whole budget is basically a non-starter, I’ll let Congress figure it out especially as their constituents start to wake up.
John McQuigg, Most of the country doesn’t have passenger trains as we speak and has not for 55 years or so. Amtrak is a token system that won’t be missed by the majority of people who don’t have it now. Either expand Amtrak or dump it. Those are the two alternatives.
Interesting to see all the animosity on this subject in the comments section. Lots of frustration out there, apparently. What happened to love thy neighbor and all of that?
My take: this is an oh-so-obvious Trojan horse proposal with would leave most of the country without any passenger trains at all. If it were to proceed as it’s presented–which it won’t.
As forecast — fast and frequent services between mega-cities.
Long distance trains — ride’em while you can.
Unless AOC suddenly becomes USDOT Secretary, which is highly unlikely.
Don – …. “The equivalent capacity with highway bridges or tunnels…” One low-stress freeway is the equivalent of all the passengers on Amtrak. Do the math. Amtrak’s daily passenger count, 85K. Wisconsin IH 41-94 in Racine County (the low spot in the Milwaukee- Chicago – Indiana corridor of I-94), 85K.
I am very skeptical that there is a “guiding principle” behind the proposed Amtrak budget other than “cut the budget”. What is surprising is that they didn’t zero it out completely.
Charles Landey – Sure I buy gas and pay Federal and State gasoline tax. I use whole tankfuls of gas and never touch a state or Federal highway – staying on county roads paid for primarily with sales tax and property tax.3
So, to say that the gas tax is a “user fee” is a stretch.
The Hudson tubes are a national resource, and part the national economy as much as I-95 is. In fact, you could make a good case for funding new tunnels with the fuel tax because it would be cheaper than funding equivalent capacity with highway bridges or tunnels.
Roger and Steve, as you counter each other’s points, you are BOTH RIGHT. It’s not the purpose of the LD trains to carry people from Los Angeles to Chicago. It’s all about the intermediate points and travel options. This is a rail forum. I’m pro rail. I’d love to see two trains across the former ATSF, building to three trains east of KC and west of San Berdoo. I’d love to see two trains across the northern transcon, building to three trains east of the Twin Cities and west of Spokane.
My point is that Amtrak has failed, in almost half a century, to build a national network. There hasn’t been a national network since the massive train-offs of the mid-1960’s.
Just as tomorrow will come for each of us, and ultimately death, tomorrow is coming and ultimately death for the LD trains. What will people in Garden City (Kansas) or Fargo (North Dakota) do without their LD trains? How will they get about? The answer is, the same way people in thousands of places big and small have done since their grandparents lost their train in 1961.
Even at their height, trains couldn’t go on any route where there was no track, and even at their height, trains were relatively infrequent. Each time I wait for a plane at BNA Nashville Airport (which is several times a year) I look at the departure board and try to imagine what rail service at its best could go to the places the airlines fly from BNA, and that many times a day and at such convenient hours. The answer is, rail at its best and at every wish from every rail advocate on this forum, pretty much shoots blanks.
Steve is right about fewer people being afraid the fly as the generations pass on. Last year flying from Cleveland to Nashville, the turbulence was so bad my head bounced off the fuselage. No one screamed, no one even said anything. All it meant is we couldn’t have our drinks.
CARL You give a detailed thoughtful and convincing presentation. Richard Anderson knows all this. He’s no dummy. He ran two hub-oriented airlines, so he knows what a hub is. As you, Carl, say. Richard Anderson knows he is destroying Amtrak.
Try to imagine the terminal Dick Anderson built for NWA (now Delta) at Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport at Romulus, Michigan. Suppose that terminal had only nine flights, 3x daily flights to Cleveland, 3x daily flights to Traverse City, and 3x daily flights to Saint Louis. That would be Dick Anderson’s Amtrak. All Aboard!
If readers will indulge me in another long-form post:
Here are some contrarian thoughts from a writer who supported his family selling Amtrak travel and tours for over 30 years, on the Anderson/Gardner/Coscia “plan” for Amtrak’s Reauthorization. The Richard Anderson-led Amtrak management team proposes significant reductions in the carrier’s intercity/long-distance network in favor of putative new corridor trains. The Trump “Robustitution” proposal simply compounds this ill-considered idea.
This concept is carried to an even more destructive conclusion in the newly released Trump FY 2020 Budget, which calls for resorting to something like last year’s (abortive) SOUTHWEST CHIEF “bustitution” plan over thousands of route miles. Somehow new state-supported short-haul corridors are supposed to emerge, but would in reality create what I call Balkan Track–a train here and a train there–but little that ever meets-up!
As the Rail Passengers Association’s President Jim Matthews has already stated, what Amtrak is offering in terms of a restructured network with more frequent corridor trains at “better” times (in lieu of the present inter-state national long-haul trains) is a false choice–a national network or enhanced corridors.
Perhaps one of the best ways to attack this is to point out that the demise of the National Network destroys Amtrak as a hub/spoke carrier. Whether Amtrak likes it or not, its long-distance riders need trains that will serve multiple markets and that means more than just in a tightly closed mileage-based corridor. For example, before Amtrak began to so closely restrict coach bookings on the CZ, there was a proven local trip market for 100+ riders per day from Denver to Glenwood Springs, CO. But that would hardly support a multi-frequency corridor. How many riders would also want to go Denver to Provo, or Glenwood Springs to Reno? Or more dramatically Glenwood Springs to Cleveland?
It is the very existence of the interconnected national network that makes such trips possible. The Anderson/Gardner model would preclude far more trip options than it would serve. If “New Corridor” trains from Glenwood to Denver, Denver to Omaha and Omaha to Chicago required constant changes, (and more likely overnights in hotels enroute), such a network would immediately fail. For example, a rider from Hastings, NB would have to overnight in Omaha to proceed to Chicago.
If the gap from Denver to Omaha could only be bridged, as under the even worse Trump plan, with a 538-mile bus ride (probably overnight) ridership would be virtually nil. The collapse of Greyhound as a national bus system in Canada and its contraction in many regions of the US, shows that users have already voted on this outcome. By contrast Amtrak was gaining ridership system-wide until the Anderson team began to deeply cut on-board services (see “New and Contemporary Dining” and the decline of LAKESHORE/CAP ridership) and train consists. The TEXAS EAGLE, for example, is now running with only two coaches over the full route and frequently turning away Dallas-Chicago riders because seats are filled with St. Louis-Chicago short-haul corridor passengers.
This sets-up a self-fulfilling prophesy scenario, not unlike the conduct of the SP in the 1960s–refuse to offer capacity to meet the demand on offer and then decry declining ridership before seeking to cancel a train. And of course degrade on-board service. Boxed meals in the diner compete for horrid acclaim with the SP’s Automat Car fare.
This is simply a formula for failure and Amtrak’s Anderson management team certainly knows it. Crucial to the viability of the airlines’ use of hubs (Anderson’s heritage at Delta) is the ease of direct and reasonably close connections and in general the avoidance of the need for more than one change. Chicago (and to a lesser degree Los Angeles, Seattle, Portland and New York/Washington) play this role for Amtrak as well.
It is also vital to note that none of Anderson’s new corridors could run without full state support/subsidy arrangements. This will be particularly unlikely if, as with Denver-Omaha-Chicago, multi-state compacts will be required. Anderson knows this as well. And there will be no chance these corridors could be fully Federally funded without a similar relief for all the other currently operated under 750 miles state supported routes.
Passenger rail advocates must frame the discussion focused on the need to retain the nationally funded interstate network and to budget/appropriate money for the new equipment it needs. These trains may only carry 15% of total ridership, (yet over 4,500,00 riders despite all), but in terms of passenger miles they generate vastly more business and this must be emphasized. Amtrak no longer reports this ridership matrix routinely. Most importantly the national network trains provide very substantial connecting business to corridor services like Chicago to Detroit, which will inevitably be lost under the Anderson and Trump scenarios.
We must come out very strongly against this even as a trial balloon. Amtrak can not be allowed to define the debate as being about how much to cut the already skeletal national network in favor of new corridors that will likely never run. The long-distance trains are the sole reason Amtrak still exists as a national service. They are well-used–not “empty trains to nowhere”. Amtrak’s true supporters need to be sure this is the key Congressional message.
Most tellingly the “new Amtrak” of disconnected corridors and bus links would provide true rail service to a minority of states and would be patently unable to win a vote for funding in the Congress. Nor should it!
Carl Fowler
Rail Passengers Association
Vice Chair
President (Retired) Rail Travel Center/Rail Travel Adventures
(Opinions expressed are my own)
Steve Foster,I think you might be missing the point that even though a train is classified as long distance,it also serves many intermediate corridors within its’ route. Passengers are getting on and off continuously and even though LD trains do operate in scenic territory,that is not the primary focus of most passengers,but it is ,of course, a good amenity. As far as people in sleepers being subsidized,I believe those people pay dearly for that service and if the truth was known,what they pay probably goes toward subsidizing the much lower coach fares. To have corridor trains,which I am all for,you still have to have the national network to keep the corridors connected and to keep the system fluid. Long distance trains provide a transportation choice that America needs now and into the future.
The Trump administration plan is somewhat similar to what has been talked about in Transportation Research studies dating back 20 and more years. Namely, provide better and more frequent daytime bus service to rural areas to replace infrequent (read once a day and sometimes a middle of the night stop) and under used passenger rail, establish frequent passenger rail operations in travel corridors serving large populations, concentrate on moving more people rather than leisurely long distance pleasure trips, and allow for multi-state authorities to run interstate passenger service instead of Amtrak. Its not all there but the framework is similar. There are some differences. The main ones I noticed are: the upper limit is 750 miles while 500 miles was the generally recommended maximum corridor; it says nothing about eliminating the requirement that Amtrak be the sole provider of interstate service (with the few existing exceptions for interstate commuter service) which would allow for private interstate, including deluxe LD, rail service; and it says nothing about modernizing the payments to the freight railroads for the use of their resources by Amtrak. I would add that these studies also call for the reduction in or elimination of subsidies for most, but not all, of the very small airports in rural areas which host 2 or 3 round trips a day using very small capacity airplanes that result in only 6-12 people per trip. Definitely if there is a larger airport within 90-100 miles [or under 2 hours driving time in the most remote areas] of the rural airport.
There are other factors impacting USA rail operations that are basically unique to the USA, Canada, and a few other countries. The first is high functioning and profitable rail freight corporations which hold their own in competition against other forms of freight transportation. The second is these rail freight corporations own their own track instead of it being government owned–which is a primary reason for their being successful. But that means passenger operations will always be secondary to the freight rail owners unless its made financially worthwhile for them to host passenger service.
All the argument about other forms of transportation being more publicly subsidized miss the point that the traveling public is doing well right now with the major exception of the most rural areas who lost their passenger rail service long before Amtrak and then lost much of their bus service in the last quarter of the 20th century. The Trump administration proposal appears to be the start of addressing their needs.
As for those who say its the job of Amtrak to provide LD scenic rail service, all I can say is what other form of LD transportation in the USA is Federal government funded because that’s a primary goal? The answer is “none”. So that’s not a legitimate reason for insisting Amtrak continue to run and pay for LD service, including the heavily money loosing deluxe diner service. In other words, just because you are retired and financially able to take Pullman whenever you travel LD does not mean the Feds should be subsidizing your LD pleasure rail trips which few working families would ever have the time or resources to use.
Once discount airlines became common they resulted in long distant trips being a cheap as [and sometimes cheaper] then a bus ticket and also less than rail coach travel. Then the writing was on the wall for traditional LD rail and bus travel. The use of jets even on commuter airlines has also helped today’s air travel. Finally, there aren’t many people left who still won’t fly. As my generation dies off there will be very few remaining. Once my children’s generation is gone (they’re in their 40’s), those who won’t fly won’t be any measurable factor in domestic travel and they would still have the bus.