by TurningOfTheWheel
electricron wrote: ↑Fri May 28, 2021 8:36 amIn the interest of defending my field of study, allow me to first address your criticisms of "global warmers." You may see a lot of temperature comparisons going back to the late 1950s; that is due to the availability of CO2 data from the Mauna Loa Observatory, which opened in 1958. Other comparisons are often to "pre-industrial levels," which makes sense, as that was before we began pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere in large quantities. If you have other questions or doubts related to climate science or anthropogenic climate change I would be happy to answer them in PMs.STrRedWolf wrote: ↑Fri May 28, 2021 6:59 am ...or they factored in the COVID-19 limitations into that number.That's why I have avoided using post pandemic data, and why I will continue to do so.
We don't know how they calculate those numbers.
But mark my words, the very people who say it is unfair to use FY2020 and FY2021 ridership data because of the pandemic ridership hit will be the first to include them when stating how large the ridership rises over the next few years, using these data as the low starting point with future ridership growth.. They will not see how unfair that will be a few years from now.
Much like global warmers like to start present heat up rates from the mini ice age from the 1950s and ignoring the earlier heat wave that caused the dust bowl from the 1930s. Partisans will always look for the data sets that reinforces their point of view in the best light possible. That's life, but it is just as unfair.
I agree with you that there are no datasets that make LD's market share look good. It doesn't perform well in the national transit marketplace. I would argue that it's a challenge of accessibility, frequency, and quality rather than some inherent issue with intercity rail itself. You can make the (correct) observation that the current LD system is broken, but to what end is this observation if you do not offer solutions? I would love for Cleveland to have an eastbound train to Erie that departs later than 6 AM, or for there to be more than three trains a week in each direction serving the entire city of Cincinnati, or for it to take less than 22 hours for me to reach Boston from Chicago. So would many prospective riders! It truly does boggle the mind that on a railfan forum, ostensibly a gathering of people who enjoy rail transit and wish to see it do well, there are so many people who are frankly so defeatist in their approach to the LDs or Amtrak as a concept. We know, by and large, why the market share for LDs is so low. If we fixed some of those problems, which Amtrak has failed to do for a half-century now, we might actually see an increase in ridership!