NCI Conference Explores Outreach to Presidential Candidates

I had the privilege of attending the The Carmichael Conference On The Future of American Transportation For North American Transportation Advocates and Leaders this past Monday and Tuesday in St. Louis.  The event, sponsored by the National Corridors Initiative, was named in honor of former FRA Administrator Gilbert Carmichael, who continues to this day to advocate for a strong, balanced transportation system that includes intercity passenger rail.

The main objective of the meeting was to “develop a unified Transportation Advocates’ Statement on the Future of American Transportation for presentation to all of the Candidates for the Presidency of the United States.”  I’ll share that with you as soon as it is finalized.  You’ll see that NARP was one of the sponsors of the conference and advocates’ statement.

One of the consistent themes of speakers and participants—including myself—was that the Presidential candidates have not given any attention to transportation in their campaigns.  The group came to consensus that this was a) not a partisan issue as neither party has spoken out and b) there are two main reasons why.

First, transportation is neither an emotional nor a “sexy” issue.  It doesn’t grab headlines.  If anything, Americans have become complacent with the problems we have and while they may complain, they just accept it “cause that’s the way it is.”

Second, fixing the transportation mess we have will take money.  A lot of money.  It will almost certainly require raising the gas tax.  How many politicians do you know that have run on a platform of raising taxes and had a successful campaign?  If anything, the candidates have to compete to see who can go the lowest on tax cut promises.  That doesn’t mean that there aren’t problems to solve.  But, the bottom line is that it is incredibly difficult to drum up support for something that’s going to cost a lot of money in the context of a political campaign.

NARP has reached out to the Presidential candidates and, along the lines of my discussion above, have received no response.  But rest assured we will keep putting the message out there.  It’s quite possible that issues will become more focused and refined as the field shrinks to two viable candidates in each party and in the near future to one.

—Dave Johnson