Elect train supporters in 2016, starting today

Wednesday, November 4, 2015

The 2016 elections are a year away. It's time to start advocating for improved passenger trains now.

Many candidates don't have this issue on their radar. Others argue that would cost too much. Malcolm Kenton at Trains magazine argues that infrastructure spending is a matter of priorities.

Past mega-projects eventually succeeded because enough leaders decided that they were important enough priorities that they found a way to pay for them, committing the necessary resources to them each year for as long as it took. The same could be said about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Like it or not, two successive presidents and majorities in Congress have decided that these war efforts were important enough to spend trillions of dollars, much of it borrowed money, for which nearly everyone could think of other (perhaps better) uses.
"For conversations to end with “we don’t have the money” represents defeatist thinking. Instead, we should all be making the case that achieving the improved mobility and connectivity.

Decisions on these sorts of projects will be made not only in Washington, DC, but also in state capitols and city halls around the country. So it's up to us to make sure that our favorite candidates support passenger rail. The time is now.

-CH