Why do I advocate? Why do you?

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Green Maned Lion

Engineer
Joined
Dec 27, 2007
Messages
8,337
Location
NJ
A few weeks ago or something like that (I don’t remember the time frame, forgive my ailing mind) I made a half joking post advocating for the discontinuance of the AutoTrain because it was (it is) a train of the privileged class of citizens who are permitted to operate a car. I do believe that it is a train of the privileged class, and I did find it very irritating that the one train in the system still to offer something approaching a true first class experience (excluding the Coast Starlight) was a train that could only be ridden either by a person who drives, or by a non driver who got their by someone else’s sufferance. But I don’t believe in removing services from a privileged class, just because a non-privileged class doesn’t- I have always believed in the other way around- which is why I got into advocacy.

But one poster, “I always rode the Southern”, made a post that happened to touch a nerve, and I flew off the handle. First of all, I want to personally apologize to you for doing that. You didn’t deserve as vehement a response as I gave you. You are not evil, simply ignorant of both the problem that has fueled the rage that’s been driving me to do something about it, and the implications of it. And I understand that, because most people in this country, even most people who ride transit, are completely ignorant of it.

I joined this board in December of 2007. I think it was within the context of a trip I was taking with my wife that year, I think to Albany. I was not particularly an advocate at the time. I was a railfan. I advocated mentally for improved trains, but never went to any lengths about it. I really liked riding trains, and I enjoyed it. I liked the efficacy of public transportation in New York City, and liked the idea of more of it. But I was not motivated to do anything about it. After all, people could get around quite well with a car. Public transportation would be a nice convenience, but you could get most anywhere in this country by Greyhound, or plane, or train, or in a few cases, you could use a taxi.

I believe it was late in 2008 that things started to change. I was on the Lake Shore Limited with my wife heading to Chicago for Pizza at Giordano’s. The point of the trip was Pizza- we were scheduled to take the Capitol Limited to Washington the next night, and return to New York on the next Regional out of Washington. As I said, I was a rail fan, and a food fan. I was in the lounge car talking trains and such with the two Conductors, when a guy they knew as being a member of NARP’s board (not accurate- he lost his seat not long before hand in that board reshuffling at NARP around that time) named David Peter Alan, the chair of the Lackawanna Coalition.

He introduced himself in his official capacity at that time (and presently), and also as a member of the board of a group called RUN (Rail Users Network) and a journalist for National Corridors, and suggested that I join the Lackawanna Coalition. I, as a great many people who hear of us for the first time, thought we were an organization lobbying primarily for the Lackawanna Cutoff, and thought it would be interesting to join. We had an enjoyable chat that night, and I went to bed.

The next morning I ate breakfast in the dining car (or rather, Diner Lite at the time), and went back to the lounge. We were running several hours late due to freight congestion, and Dave missed his connection with (IIRC) the Hiawatha. I invited him to join us for lunch, and he accepted. We enjoyed our meal, at which point Dave invited me to join him for a meeting with a man named Fritz. We went up to his office where I had a long and extremely enlightening chat. It was the first I heard of something I call our country’s “Mobility Crisis”, the fact that without a car, a person has an incredibly limited amount of mobility. Less than 5% of this country is accessible without the use of a private automobile. I had not known it was anywhere close to that bad. Not even a clue.

I didn’t change from a railfan to a transit advocate at that very moment. But the switch was flicked in that office. It was my understanding of that Mobility Crisis that overcame my fear about actually joining an organization, meeting a bunch of old men who I was sure were going to consider me a naive kid. And so on the fourth Monday of that month, I found myself sitting in a town called Millburn, at a restaurant called La Strada, eating a pre-meeting dinner with a bunch of old men, including Dave, a former Director of Planning for the Long Island Rail Road named Joe Clift, several gifted engineers, and one of the greatest political advocates who ever lived, rocket scientist and Bell Labs alumnus James T. Raleigh.

At first I didn’t say much and didn’t get too directly involved in the groups actions. I didn’t know nearly enough to open my mouth much. I have an engineering background in some ways, but not as it applied to railroading. But I am a bright guy, so I did what any bright guy does in that situation. I sat there, mostly with my ears open, my mouth only opening to ask questions. And I learned a heck of a lot. I became friends with Jim Raleigh, who took my under his wing and taught me almost everything I know about politics, the political process, and political advocacy. I learned a hell of a lot about the nitty-gritty of railroading operations, transit logistics, and all kinds of other stuff.

And after being there for a year and half or so, I started to know enough that I started to form opinions that were relevant and based on a good knowledge of the subject. Some of them got rebutted by the people who still knew more than me, and I adjusted my positions and opinions in accordance with it. And I started to understand, finally, just how enormous the problem’s we were fighting were. Somewhere in this process, the foamer in me died. In fact, you may notice, I call myself a Transit Advocate, not a Rail Advocate. Because frankly, I don’t believe in rail for all purposes, and refuse to push for rail in situations where I think doing so will simply result in no mobility being gained by the people who are not mobile.

In this country, one out of five adults are not permitted to operate an automobile. Some of those have suspended licenses, and interesting statistic, suspended licenses are usually not caused by too many points or drunk driving- usually other things like a failure to pay fines in a timely fashion. Its kinda cool, really. People who can’t pay fines are penalized by greatly reducing their opportunity to get a job and make the money needed to pay the fine. But the majority of them are simply unable to get a license.

There are all kinds of reasons why. The biggest is probably vision impairment. A small percentage of them are legally blind, of course (visual acuity in their best eye worse than 20/200 when corrected to best possible vision). But most of them aren’t- in New Jersey, you need 20/50 corrected, and in most states I think the most lenient is 20/70 with a doctors note. Thats a long range, 20/70 to 20/200. If you are legally blind, you can of course receive governmental assistance to help with your mobility. But for that vast range in between driving vision and legal blindness, you are SOL. If you can’t pass your vision test on a driving retest, and live in a place that isn’t transit accessible, well I think the best phrase for where you find yourself is “Under house arrest”.

Another reason are all kinds of epilepsy-class disorders. If you are prone to seizures (the precise standards vary from state to state) you can not operate a motor vehicle. If you do not have good enough reflexes, or enough attention span, to pass a driving test (testing anxiety can cause this), you are not permitted to operate an automobile.

Now please keep in mind that quite a bit of this is entirely arbitrary. I have 20/100 vision at best when I am not wearing glasses. I can operate a car without them. I can see enough to maneuver the car safely on roads where I am familiar with the territory and therefore don’t need to read roadsigns at a distance. Not to say I do it normally, but it has been done when, for instance, my glasses broke, or my dad dropped my car off at a train station for me and forgot to put my glasses in it. Many people with epileptic disorders know many minutes in advance when they are going to have a seizure, or can control it well enough that they can pull off the road and park the car before a problem occurs. And certainly there are people who can operate a car safely, even though they simply get too nervous when being tested to actually pass a license test.

While many of these people are intelligent, capable human beings who, but for the lack of permission to operate a car, could live full and capable lives, have successful careers, and add greatly to our society, they are second class citizens. They often can not get places they want to go, and even if they can, they can’t get there at the time they need to get there. The avenues open to them for a successful life are extremely limited. Furthermore, they are greatly deprived of choice.

They have to live in places where transit access is something approaching excellent. There are only a few cities where that is the case- New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco. Other cities have good transit, sure. But it doesn’t go everywhere, it often doesn’t operate at good hours, and in quite a few cases, does not operate every day of the week. For instance, the city of Reading, PA has a pretty good network of busses. If they all operated half-hourly or better from 5:30 AM to 11PM, seven days a week, it would be a city you could live without much compromise. But it doesn’t. Many lines run bi-hourly mid-day, have little or no late night service, and nothing operates on Sunday. It also has practically no connections to the outside world, or didn’t until the Harrisburg connection trial started a few months back.

But the places where transit access is excellent requires great wealth, with possibly the exception of Philadelphia. To live in a SAFE area with good transit access, you generally need to have money. And please don’t tell me that these people can carpool or get rides with other people, or things like that. Most of them can’t at any point, and none of them can get it enough to live a normal life.

And then we can talk about the people who shouldn’t be driving, but still are. People who are in states without a vision retest whose vision has gotten bad enough that they shouldn’t drive. But they keep on doing it, because they have to be able to drive to live. The older senior citizens who know damned well they are not safe driving car, but keep on doing it because they want to maintain their independence. And more people along those lines. People who suspect or even know they have driving-debilitating illnesses that they can’t get medical help for, because if they get diagnosed with it, they’ll lose their licenses and therefore their mobility. IF GOOD FREQUENT EFFECTIVE TRANSIT EXISTED, THEY COULD BE INDEPENDENT WITHOUT A CAR.

I drive. I counter the people who suggested in that thread that I do not. In fact, I more than drive. I am, or perhaps was (I’ve started to feel like maybe I’m losing enthusiasm for it) a automotive enthusiast. I have owned more Mercedes sedans then I can quite remember, I owned an Alfa Romeo, and a Porsche 912. I have raced cars fairly extensively, and sometimes successfully. I even restored, excluding the engine and transmission, from the ground up, a 1979 Mercedes 300SD.

I know my vision is slowly deteriorating. I have prayed long and hard that automated cars become a reality before I can’t see well enough to actually drive. So yes, perhaps I have a personal motivation in this. But my main motivation is not for myself. I know I am not going to get this during my life time. My main motivation is for the people that come after me. In fact, perhaps I am a fanatic, but if I could give my life to guarantee that good, effective public transportation would become available to everybody who needed it, I’d gladly do so.

And yes, there are other reasons, many of them good and just, and I welcome the support of those. That includes things like efficiency, community, the environment, getting cars off of our highways, and so on. But that has never been my reason for fighting. My reason for fighting has always been, for as long as I have been fighting, to get equal rights, equal mobility, voting equality, and equal class of citizenship for people who can’t drive.

They don’t have that now.

So tell me, now that I've spilled my guts on the subject, why do you advocate?
 
And then we can talk about the people who shouldn’t be driving, but still are. People who are in states without a vision retest whose vision has gotten bad enough that they shouldn’t drive. But they keep on doing it, because they have to be able to drive to live.
We had a situation in my town this summer where a woman who could no longer obtain a drivers license for vision reasons continued to drive (people in town mused that she would drive to the grocery store and stand a hands-breadth away from the items in the aisles to be able to read the labels.)

She ended up hitting an Amish buggy, killing the 17-year-old driver and landing his sister in the hospital for months. Our county is much too sparsely populated to warrant public transportation (at least as public transportation stands today) and this woman had no family to drive her to church. It's a sad example of the transportation gap you speak of.

Edited for more pleasing grammar
 
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Choice. I believe pasengers should have a choice of modal options. You can fill in the "whys" with all sorts of granular detail. "Dont like to fly/auto/train. Serve small communities. Like to see country/educational. Want to get their fast/slow. Spirit of community. Enjoy/don't enjoy the other modes. Health. Preferences based on nothing....."

Having choices is a GOOD thing. Having several GOOD choices is even better. "Fair and Balanced" transportation options are always a good thing.
 
Thank you so much for sharing your story.

I'll probably write up a longer version, but for now, here's the gist: I advocate due to a combination of personal circumstances, concern for the future of the planet, and my belief in the educational value of travel--especially the sorts of travel where you meet people who aren't like yourself.

I am hopeful that the 20th century's obsession with the automobile is beginning to make way for a 21st century in which many types of transportation are available. And not a moment too soon.
 
I'm kind of coming from a similar place to you, GML, though I think about it differently.

I can drive, and I'm actually a much better driver than average. But this means that I have a sharp awareness of my own limitations. I can drive for an hour at a time -- maybe two -- if I'm not tired or sick. Which I am frequently. My fiancee has arthritis -- she can drive less than that, and can be in bad shape after sitting in a *passenger seat* for an hour. Driving *sucks*. Even just within my little town, I've had to cancel appointments when I wasn't feeling up to driving (especially when the weather was god-awful).

This country is ridiculously auto-dependent. It should be possible to get around without driving a car.

I understand that in highly rural, low-population areas, cars are really the most practical method of transportation, and it's not worth it to build extensive public transportation, because there just aren't enough people. In rural areas, not coincidentally, there's also no traffic, making it much more comfortable to drive. But most of the nation's population doesn't live in these areas -- most of the nation's population lives in areas where there SHOULD be public transportation, and often where there USED TO BE public transportation. I grew up in a suburb built around streetcars which were ripped out in the 1920s. Indeed, most of the population lives in even denser areas where cars are horrendously impractical and slow.

As for buses, they're fine for short distances, but I get seriously motion-sick after less than an hour. This makes them barely a tolerable option for long distances. For short distances in cities, they need to not get stuck behind cars, which usually means bus lanes, which never get built. At that point it's usually preferable to have urban rail (light rail, trams, etc.)

Like you, GML, I also prioritize urban rail and sidewalks, and even *good* bus service (if it's possible) above intercity rail. And I think this is pretty standard among advocates younger than me.

The first train I rode, as a kid, was the Boston T, and it was a revelation -- I could actually *go places* without having to be driven. It worked like magic. I think subways are the reference point for most rail advocates my age or younger.

However, where I am, we need intercity rail more than local rail. (And again, I don't think buses are worth much most of the time, because they're routinely slower than cars, with most of the same unpleasantnesses and dangers.) The long-term political value of intercity rail services should not be underestimated, in that they enable people from auto-dependent locations to visit cities (such as New York or Boston or Chicago) where they can get around without a car -- and to do so without bringing a car. It makes it possible to conceive of a non-car-dependent life. And in the long run, intercity service makes it possible for people in small towns like mine to make do with bicycles or with cheap short-distance electric cars.

Anyway, so that's where I'm coming from.
 
Part of the social contract for rail was that it be a "common carrier" and as such was granted rights-of-way all across America. Until rail companies everywhere in America relinquish those rights, I advocate for them to honor that social contract to it's fullest, not just to maximize profits.
 
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