jis
Permanent Way Inspector
Staff member
Administator
Moderator
AU Supporting Member
Gathering Team Member
Being an optimist does not mean that one will meet with success all the time or even most of the time. Success will come only occasionally. But irrespective of what happens one has to keep the eye on the ball, educate folks, show them how the rest of the world operates. Unfortunately, US has progressively become a most intensely navel gazing country, where the population is surprisingly unaware of anything that goes on anywhere beyond the immediate vicinity of their nose and eyes. Sharing the vision in a positive way without criticizing gratuitously, and countering false propaganda are two important aspects. In addition active participation in the planning process with the bureaucracy and even the advocates in order to try to save them from their own follies is a very useful activity too.Count me as another optimist -- though it has been difficult over these past few months, what with a governor from the Party Of "No." What do you say we at least talk about what has worked, what hasn't, in promotion of rail ?
Sometimes it even becomes necessary to kill off an out of control project for the overall health of the bigger agenda. For example ARC would have been an unmitigated disaster for any (a) regional rail plans in the future and (b) Any intra-NJ plans (because it would have eaten up all local resources and then some for a decade or more) and © any Amtrak HSR plans would have been set back by decades. While it is fashionable to lump ARC in with what happened in Wisconsin and Ohio, it actually was a beast of a very different color. And actually if there had not been a huge amount of subterfuge and trying to hide skeletons in the closet which all came tumbling out when the Feds asked a few inconvenient question, all indications are that the Governor of NJ would have happily carried on with it. The basic lesson to learn from ARC is to be absolutely straightforward and get the truth out earlier rather than later. Unfortunately indications so far are that NJT has learned nothing from it. They are still battling NJ OPRA requests, and losing each of them and having to disclose the real truth eventually, thus reducing their credibility even further in a stepwise fashion. One thing that well meaning optimists can do is help blow the whistle on this kind of nonsense as early as possible so that so much time is not lost in bureaucrats lining their nests.
The bottom line is if you are an optimist you must be able to recover from a failure rapidly and join the battle for the next round, start building new coalitions, bring in new people who have been on the side lines or uninvolved. That's how the game is played. It is hard to keep people excited about a negative message for too long.