My stints working at Railway Age aside, railroads and rail-related issues are and have been a standard part of daily life, as it is for the lucky few in the U.S., including so many of my friends and neighbors. So many, yes, but certainly not all, and I need only scan the awareness levels of my own blood ties and extended family to affirm that rail's public relations status has a long, long way to go.
I often perform an "internal family review" as a useful reminder that some ideas, like increased U.S. rail reliance, will take time, maybe another generation, maybe more, to become more pronounced, and more visible – one hopes at a pace equal to the increasing reality of being oh so more necessary.
And it's going to take time, no doubt, to see those attitudes adjust. During the Christmas 2014-2015 holidays, my newest in-law began extolling the opportunities available in Charlotte, N.C., where much of his weekly business takes place. I listened with real interest to a data rundown of growing population, growing business opportunities, affordable home prices and tolerable taxes, and so forth.
I finally found a polite space in the conversation to insert, "Yes, and Charlotte's being very aggressive with its light rail and streetcar development." I thought it was in fact reinforcing the points my in-law had just outlined in lauding Charlotte's rise to prominence. Silly me, not he. "What a disaster that is," he scoffed in dismissal – no data, no justification. Just a metaphorical cleansing of the hands. The conversation died, with me taking a metaphorical called third strike.
I see such anti-rail bias a bit less often when it comes to my home turf (the Garden State segment of this stretch of the megalopolis otherwise known as the Northeast Corridor), because the true and rising price of auto-dependency is coming home to roost in so many ways, current gasoline price slump notwithstanding.
Bright economic beacons in New Jersey, amidst an otherwise dim post-Great Recession non-recovery in the Garden State, include Jersey City and my hometown, Hoboken. The mayors of both cities, along with others, howled in protest over a late December proposal, forwarded by the governors of New York and New Jersey, to slash PATH overnight and weekend service, quickly (and correctly) linking their cities' economic well-being and revival/survival to rail transit. We're not California, but at least we're learning (or remembering) here on the East Coast, and that's encouraging. Full disclosure: I'm on PATH five days a week, sometimes six.
Alas, when it comes to cross-Hudson freight rail access and use, New York City, and much of its surrounding territory, remains incredibly crippled. I'd trade for Chicagoland's congestion crisis in a heartbeat if I could; at least the CREATE (Chicago Region Environmental and Transportation Efficiency) program is addressing the freight rail needs of the Midwest – and the nation – one painstaking project after another.
But when I talk to family members, at least those sharing the Northeast Corridor with me, about such things, well, the awareness level varies, as it reasonably does with all people and most things.
The falloff comes in degrees. My youngest brother often opts for regional passenger rail service when heading for Manhattan, a place slightly less exotic (and seemingly only slightly less distant) than Singapore or Osaka, where business also has taken him.
My older brother is a light-truck disciple, and more worthy of the label "survivalist" than half the imposters on cable TV preparing for this or that apocalyptic outcome. Gratifyingly, while he almost never uses rail or rail transit, he sees the value of it, indeed saw it even before his younger brother joined Railway Age. "It's a symbol of civilization – just like hot showers," he quips. "I can get along without both for a while; that doesn't mean they're not good things."
My wife, thankfully, also has a growing awareness of rail, oddly enough focusing on freight goings-on. "Saw another double-stack train today" while passing through Conrail Shared Assets territory, she'll note. "CSX on the point," she'll add, unconsciously slipping into railfan jargon, before adding innocently, "Not the other railroad, the one with the horses," referring to Norfolk Southern. I'll take it.
My in-laws, as a group, rate less well on this score, as I've noted at times in past Blogs. They marvel at the exotic, remote nature of things like LRT (such as Newark Light Rail, pictured above), and worry about streetcars expropriating their God-given right to the whole road (and "free" parking).
One brother-in-law recently and reluctantly opted to take Amtrak's Acela Express from Philadelphia to Washington, subsequently expressing serious surprise that it was as efficient and as pleasant as it turned out to be. "I just didn't take people's word for it," he allowed. He's perhaps the most enlightened of a family unit that is auto-dominated, auto-dependent, nearly auto-worshipping – and sees railroads, freight or passenger, as largely irrelevant, if not deserving extinction.
"How can people not see?" rail advocates often cry in frustration and fatigue over the need for the U.S. to commit to freight rail, passenger rail, and rail transit options. So far, the answer to me is quite plain: It doesn't matter to most people's perceptions of their own daily lives. They're still fortunate enough to own or have access to an automobile and (at least in their minds) reasonably afford it. They still see bread on the store shelves; who cares how it got there? They haven't had a friend or loved one gunned down by an impaired auto operator or careless truck driver – a matter I've experienced more than once, and no longer am shy about bringing up in otherwise polite conversation.
And it's plain for me to see because I don't need to measure the level of interest in a governor-running-for-president, or a local office holder, or transport "experts" or even my own neighbors. I can just take the measure of my own family. Even with a rail journalist/rail advocate in their midst, the family, as a whole, is largely and happily oblivious to the rail mode.
Changing that is going to take some time and effort. I'm working on it, sometimes through Blogs like this one, sometimes one person, one family member, at a time. Not to do so would make it my familial failing, not just that of my relatives.