The Future: We're Apparently Not Included

Passenger trains have been called by conservatives "rails to nowhere". California, so plagued by transportation problems, traffic overload, a highway system that is redundant rather than efficient, having an automotive pollution output equivalent to a whole slew of states combined, is the last vibrant hope for a passenger rail network. Conservative legislators backed by oil companies know that if they can stall it in California, they will have removed what will otherwise become a shining example to the rest of the country of a sustainable and modern form of transportation for the 21st century and the imminent post-fossil-fuel world. Just a few years ago, there was serious talk about creating a national rail network for people, but poor turnout by progressive voters in the mid-term elections caused this prudent design for the future of mass transportation to be sabotaged by the election of a coterie of conservative governors who rescinded federally-funded programs for passenger trains. The conservatives almost have us exactly where they want us: at the utter mercy of a gas-pump with unrestrained price calibrations. But if California gets its peoples' rail system built, the rest of the country will have real food for thought. We will know then that there are material options, possibilities, alternatives. In fact, we will know that the rest of us have a place in the future. The real road to nowhere is the highway system. Fossil fuels are making our climate toxic to living things. Passenger trains are a major economic means and incentive to turning this destructive trend around. Transportation has always been one of the pillars of civilization. And yet, we have conservative political forces that seem to want to set up a new Dark Ages for our future, where only the wealthy will have the means to master distance. I'm with Governor Jerry Brown, and I'm not even from California. I'm from Ohio, one of those states recently robbed of a progressive rail system for the future security of its mass transportation, a state where far too many of our citizens can barely afford gasoline, cannot afford decent vehicles, and cannot properly maintenance the ones they have because it requires a computer rather than their own two hands to fix. So are we going to be included in the future of America? That depends on whether the passenger trains can happily whistle back into our lives. Trains liberated people from poverty a hundred years ago. They can do so again. If California gets its passenger trains, the rest of the country will demand their passenger rails back too, and the tide will turn again in favor of the common citizen of these United States of America. The successful construction of California's passenger rail network could be our signal to grab a second chance at a positive future for all Americans. Let's not get caught sleeping again. There are some that would seek to lock us out forever.