A year or so ago some Genuine Planners broached the idea that transit should be judged not on total market share but on share of "transit-susceptible trips." The idea quickly got buried, but seems to me a good one.

Transit (whether bus or rail) routinely gets buried in the noise when compared to total number of regional trips, simply because there's no way it can serve them. Transit serves a niche, though, and if well thought out can serve it well. So for instance we get rail and "BRT" (in the olde days we called those "commuter express" or "limited stop" buses) lines of various persuasions serving heavy commute corridors where there are far more persons trying to trip at certain times of day than any collection of highways and buses can conveniently carry -- so a 3-5% share is a good-sized bunch of people and actually helps. 3-5% of the "market" looks horrible, but in reality at best 50% of those trips could even be made on transit, and only 20-30% of the trips would be practical to make on transit at any supportable cost. So if compared to the 50% possible the 5% becomes 10%, and if compared to the 20% practical (given timing/connections etc) it's 25%.

This view accepts that a large number of those private vehicle trips can't be made by transit in any case (shopping for a week for a family? working in a place where transit will never go? need a car for business during the day?), and absent a financially infeasible level of transit service a good chunk of the theoretically transitable (see, it's not just the software marketers that can clobber the language!) trips can't be handled either (it it's going to take you 2 hours and 3 transfers to go 3 miles - my experience in Fresno - you find another way to get there). Weather counts too: a feasible 5-10 mile bicycle trip or transit trip involving some walking in the fall/spring isn't feasible for many of us at 105 in the summer or 25 or pouring rain in the winter - so we drive. Driving can be pleasant, too, given the right conditions or zen, and you're much less likely to be hassled by some panhandler or treated to interesting conversations at high volume like you get on transit.

Amtrak works the same way. There's a market where trains work: regional runs of 8-10 hours or so (fits a crew's day and is bearable for somebody who has to go end-to-end). How far that is depends on how fast the train is and how many stops it makes. It's no mystery why the best-patronized Amtrak runs all fit that criterion (the Surfliner is a bit of an anomaly - but it's really more like 2 lines joined at LAUPT with probably only a few passengers running through). The other thing that makes California Amtrak work is convenient or dedicated bus connections to off-line points which greatly expands the market.

HSR (for the US, basically anything that exceeds 79-90 mph so it can't fit will in mixed service with freight) in principle just extends the area you can serve in 8 hours (100 mph (60ish average with stops) Regionals in the NEC cover much more territory than 70-80 mph San Joaquins (40 or so average with stops & restrictions & the occasional freight train pause). Long-distance works as a 'cruise train' where everybody pays the premium fare, or where it has some "regional" segments that it can assist in. It's probably cheaper to go back to subsidizing (did I just hear the Teapartiers grab pitchforks?) Greyhound to serve the remote rurals than to keep running long-distance trains just to stop there in the middle of the night. And BTW if you look at the Amtrak financials there ARE some long-distance trains that don't do badly. All passenger service other than private vehicles (even taxis) lives on "boardings" - you have to churn the passengers - you lose money on those that ride a long distance without a serious premium fare. Why do you think Southwest flies routes that stop everywhere? Why do you think taxis charge by the 1/4 mile and the minute?