I’m not sure if an opinion piece is appropriate here, so please let me know if this doesn’t fit the theme of the community, and I’ll avoid sharing such thoughts in the future.
I’m extremely frustrated with the car centric culture in my area. I live about 25 miles west of a quarry. Every day I watch trains go up and down the railroad mostly carrying gravel. This railroad stretches for several hours by car in each direction, connecting several large cities and even passing a few tourist attractions, and despite our traffic congestion problems there is little interest in trying to use this rail for actual people.
One company moved in and started running a new passenger rail service. Within a few weeks, we had protesters at the railroads complaining that drivers don’t understand railroad crossings. I saw posters about how trains were killing residents when drivers park on the tracks and get hit. I don’t understand! Where do you think the train is going to go? They don’t exactly come out of nowhere. They follow the tracks! And we’ve always had trains passing through our town before. At a later local election a candidate ran on the premise that they’re going to protect home values and our children by reducing or eliminating the number of trains passing through our town. This candidate did win our local election and sadly they succeeded in cutting down on rail investment.
Fast-forward a couple years later. Passenger rail stations were built at the endpoints of this rail to ferry tourists. I drive parallel to this rail on the way to work several times per week for almost 45 minutes each way, 20 minutes of which is heavy traffic. I get to enjoy watching people ride the train while there’s no stop anywhere near my house because our local government has sided with homeowners that a passenger rail station is “simply too dangerous.” I would have to drive over an hour to the nearest passenger rail station to ride the train, and I can literally see the tracks from my apartment.
Every time I see that train I feel bitter. I could save so much money if these boneheads would have let them build a train station in our town. Absolutely ridiculous! The train is there. The rail is there. I don’t understand why a train is such a personal, existential threat to your way of life.
Because those aren’t the actual arguments they respond to, just the face of the arguments. The real argument is that the car is an extension of the self. They should be able to drive anywhere, park anywhere, drive anything, without fear (Traffic deaths are unavoidable and unremarkable), judgment (I drive a Tesla, I’m saving the earth!), or undue cost (gas and maintenance. Sometimes tolls.) except for that which they’ve already internalized.
Public transport is by definition collective. The train is not an extension of you. It is a thing we all collectively benefit from. It isn’t tailored to your specific tastes. It doesn’t go 0-60 faster than Joe Nextdoor’s train. Everyone pays the same, you can’t show off how fancy your ticket is.
Some kid killed on the tracks is the fault of the train, because the driver could have been any of us. We are relatable people. The train is an unrelatable, unaccountable “us” that Americans will never, ever choose over their ideal “me.”
I appreciate the thoughtful response. I think I understand that the vehicle is connected deeply with identity, but no one’s threatening to take away their vehicles. I’m surprised that public transportation is taken so personally.
If you don’t like the train, you don’t have to take the train. But, that’s not enough. They don’t want the train to be available to me either. It’s weird. It’s taken one step further into a fuck you I’ve got mine attitude.