CLEVELAND -- Conservatives know that the America we once had was on the whole a better place than the one we have now. Its morals were better, its manners were better and its way of life was better. Something else that was better was travel.
Even the word "travel" now sounds like an anachronism. Americans no longer travel; instead, we are "transported" like so much freight. Whether stuffed into a seat designed for garden gnomes aboard a tiny flying tube or stuck in traffic on the interstate, we rightly dread going somewhere.
Travel, in contrast, was often delightful. One reason was that we did much of our traveling on trains. Trains offer the best travel experience you can find on land. Space per passenger far exceeds anything you will find on the airplane or in a private automobile. Coach class on the train usually offers bigger seats and more legroom than first class on an airplane. Many trains offered (and some still do) dining cars, observation-lounge cars, and sleepers with private compartments and real beds for those traveling overnight.
More, trains are social; unlike in the air or on the road, you meet new people and often have interesting conversations. You also have big windows so, if you prefer, you can lie back in comfort and just watch the world go by, instead of having to stare at someone else's bumper.
Conservatives not only know the old ways were better, we want to bring them back. It is therefore puzzling that some North Carolina conservatives want to stop their state from getting more and better passenger trains.
Much of the origin of the confusion can be found in the anti-transit troubadours, critics who turn up in every state or city wanting better trains to denounce the idea. While they may call themselves conservatives, they are really libertarians, a different sort of fish. Most conservatives are common-sense, practical people. We know that issues such as infrastructure, which includes railways and passenger trains, should reflect what works, not howling partisan ideology. Libertarianism, in contrast, is a rigid ideology that starts with conclusions and then finds "facts" to fit.
One of their most specious "facts" is that trains are subsidized while highways are not. According to the Federal Highway Administration, all user fees, including the gas tax, cover just under 52 percent of the cost of roads. In contrast, Amtrak now recovers 67 percent of its operating expenses from the farebox. Amtrak's new Washington-Lynchburg, Va., train is running at a profit.
The $545 million in federal funding North Carolina recently won to improve passenger service between Charlotte and Raleigh is something that conservatives should welcome. That service has a proven track record. Ridership is up 102 percent in the first five months of this fiscal year. This isn't "high speed rail," which we cannot afford, but higher speed rail, trains fast enough to compete with automobiles. Higher speed rail is affordable. Many passenger trains ran faster in the 1930s and '40s, behind steam, than they do today.
One highly important conservative argument for more and better trains is national security. Today, our single greatest national security vulnerability is our dependence on imported oil, much from unstable parts of the world. Gas at $4 a gallon is only a warning. If the current instability in the Arab world reaches the Persian Gulf, you may not be able to buy gas at any price. And a war for oil will cost many, many times what we might pay for improved passenger trains. Iraq is already one trillion and counting.
Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of North Carolina's neighbor, Tennessee, likes to say, "How do conservative dog catchers and liberal dog catchers catch dogs? The same ways." It makes no sense to try to turn catching dogs or providing infrastructure into left-right issues. Government has funded infrastructure in this country right from the beginning, not least the highways. Now it is time to look beyond cars running on mostly imported fuel as our only option for getting around.
Conservatives know better than anyone else that many of the answers to today's problems can be found in our own past. The passenger train is one of those answers.
