TPO Writing - پنجاه و هفت

TPO 57 – Integrated Writing Scripts

Should the government sell Amtrak and let a private company run it instead? The answer is: no.

First, losing money due to underused routes, people who complain about this fail to understand that the main purpose of Amtrak is not to make a profit but to provide needed transportation services to citizens of the United States. Some of these citizens live in remote areas and yes, it’s true, train routes to these hardto-reach areas are underused and expensive to maintain. But citizens living in these places have just as much right to government services as people living in more accessible areas do. So it would be wrong to sell Amtrak to a private company that would cut these routes.

Second, the idea that government funding of Amtrak is unfair to Amtrak’s competitors, that’s just silly. The United States support the airline industry in all kinds of ways. For example, it pays for the building of air traffic control towers and the training for the air traffic control officers. It also pays for the weather satellites that the airlines depend on to fly safely. The truth is private airlines and other forms of mass transportation couldn’t exist without lots of financial support from the government.

Third, it’s true that train travel is less popular than car travel in the United States, but that’s only because the Amtrak system is out of date. If people in the United States had trains that were affordable and fast, they’d gladly take them and leave their cars at home. We know this because that’s what people in Japan and Europe do. The governments in those places have invested in high-speed train lines and train travel is very popular. What the United States government should do is invest more money in Amtrak to improve the service.