Commentary: Permission To Think Bigger

By Jim Mathews / President & CEO

Most of you who know me know I won’t stop bleating on about the huge investments happening thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law signed in 2021 by President Biden. Before the ink was even dry, and well before actual dollars started to flow out of the granting agencies, that giant $66 billion infrastructure package produced plans, proposals, thoughts, and excitement about the future of passenger rail in places and from people who might have never thought it possible before. It was, and is, exciting!

Since then, I’ve spent a lot of my working life traveling the country talking to state, local, and tribal elected and appointed officials about what those dollars could mean for their communities. But I have to admit that a lot of the time that I have spent in meetings, and workshops, and working groups, and traveling around the country helping those people solidify their plans has left me thinking a lot these days about our addiction to status quo.

The status quo. Sometimes it feels as if the entire rail community—professionals, grassroots, railfans, engineers, planners, up and down the spectrum —can’t get past status quo. I hear over and over and over again about why things can’t change. About why this is just the way it is.

I’m told why it is perfectly reasonable for us to expect two decades to pass before we get a new train route. Or why we should just accept that building new train cars will take 15 to 20 years. Or about why Americans can’t ride in passenger coaches that are affordable, but also comfortable, modern, and safe, without going back to designs from as long as 75 years ago.

To me it sounds like hopelessness and resignation. And it’s all the more baffling when I’ve spent the past two years working with folks around the country on how best to spend $66 billion of investment in passenger rail. Talk about breaking the status quo!

About two weeks ago I celebrated my tenth anniversary leading your professional Association staff. I can’t help but remember that when I got here, I was told that when it came to getting passenger-rail investment money the best I could hope for was perhaps $8 billion over five years. Status quo.

But look where we actually wound up! Seven years after my arrival, we successfully shepherded a piece of historic legislation carving out more money for passenger rail than had been spent over the previous three decades.

I’ve spent this week at the gigantic InnoTrans 2024 rail technology exhibition, showcasing the latest in signaling, network management, seats, passenger amenities, long-distance coaches, transit vehicles, you name it. I was invited by several companies who are themselves trying to break status quo thinking about American passenger rail.

I’ve walked through some beautiful trainsets this week, with clean, modern, comfortable amenities, inviting seats, wide aisles, and first-class personal touches. They aren’t designs for 20 years from now. They’re either in service today or rolling out to operators in the next two to three months. I’ve been accumulating a big list of all of the great things I’m seeing here this week for passengers that are possible, practical, and already being done in lots of places all around the world – everywhere except in the United States.

One of my big themes for 2025 is going to be breaking the death grip of status quo thinking on passenger rail innovation and planning in America. We really can do a lot of things, if we just work hard at it, and recognize that some barriers are real while others are relics of old ways of thinking and doing business. Personally, I’m tired of being told we have to settle. Passengers in other countries don’t settle, and it’s time that we didn’t settle either.

It's not always all about funding. Sometimes it’s about needless obstacles: paralysis over decision-making, or healthy risk avoidance curdled into resistance to any and all change.

We have lots of capability in our country to do great things in passenger rail. Last week I had the chance to walk through the Alstom plant in Hornell, N.Y., and I got to see some really incredible things. I’ve also visited Siemens’ U.S. facilities, and they are every bit as impressive. Our country already has a lot of what it takes to build what we need and want for the next rail revolution. We just have to give up on status quo thinking and give ourselves permission to embrace the future, especially since that future is already here in many places around the world.

As your professional staff starts really gearing up for reauthorizing the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act/Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, my charge to the team is going to be the same as my message in every working group and advisory committee I’ve been selected to as your voice – 2025 is when we need to examine seriously the rules and provisions that are worth keeping, and those that need to be thrown away. Let’s all of us, you and I, together, give ourselves permission to think big and to break the status quo so we really can get more trains, to more places, for more people, everywhere they’re needed.