Elon Musk won’t save us. Public Transit might.
By: Mathew Marshall
Baltimore — I always try to carry a few books that I’ve already read with me. A few of my favorite books. When I need to, I peer back into their pages for lost wisdom, forgotten memories. Over the past few months, I’ve been carrying “Public Things” in my backpack – a series of lectures delivered by Bonnie Honig. The subtitle – “Democracy in Disrepair” – connects our public things (or lack thereof) with our current democratic situation.
In her preface, Bonnie Honig makes a compelling point regarding our current public infrastructure. She talks about one of our now well established – and often menacing – public goods: airport security.
She wants to walk through the old-fashioned metal detectors, not the invasive, box shaped full body scanner. She tries to move, quietly, towards the old-fashioned machine, but she’s redirected. She has to request the opt-out. But Honig, and others, who would rather walk through this older machine, are not the only ones opting out. They’re just the ones we might see opting out.
There are those who opt out quietly – through TSA pre-check, you can quietly opt out of the security lines, moving swiftly through security. I am not calling for the end of TSA pre-check, or maligning those that take advantage of it, but it is imperative to recognize that this quiet opting out now happens throughout our democracy. That is damaging.
We not only need a reinvestment in public infrastructure, from roads to the subject of this article, trains, but also in our perception, as a people, of how public goods serve us, connecting us not only from point A to point B, but connecting us as citizens participating in complex, difficult, but ultimately worthwhile democratic pursuits. We need to re-understand why not only the what in finding solutions to our societal problems is important but also the how.
There’s two recent plans that I want to highlight: Governor Ralph Northam’s (D-VA) recent efforts to expand rail line service in Virginia, and Elon Musk’s plan to build tunnels under cities (these are not subways, he insists, but a new and brilliant solution from a savior of the people) that can not only shuffle along people in pods but also carry cars underground, somehow solving congestion by moving cars underground.
Perhaps I treat Mr. Musk too harshly, but perhaps Elon misses the point of public transit – the point is not found only in the “transit” but also in the “public”.
We need to build things together beyond those things that strike fear in our hearts – an increasingly militaristic police force, an increasingly bloated military, an increasingly invasive TSA. We must build things, together, that connect us and create opportunity for everyone, all members of this republic (lest we forget the origin of the word – res publica – the public thing).
To quote Honig again, “Public things is not about infrastructure…public things constitute citizens equally as citizens, or ought to, and can be made, sometimes, by way of actions in concert, to deliver on that promise…” (Honig, 11).
This is why I want to compare and contrast Elon Musk’s plan with Governor Northam’s plan: perhaps Elon could save us some efficiency, but it will be yet another public thing turned private, yet another reconception of spaces in which all citizens are viewed not through their pocketbooks but through their equal existence in a democratic republic. We need more of these spaces, not less.
According to an article written by The Independent, Elon Musk seeks to open the Boring Company’s first commercial tunnel in Las Vegas in 2020. Elon Musk’s goal is as follows: “By drastically reducing the time it takes to bore tunnels, the firm claims to offer a radical new option…cars and passenger pods would be pinged along electric skates through tunnels at speeds up to 155 miles per hour.”
The argument here is clear: the boring company can offer a level of efficiency in constructing these tunnels that Musk believes governments have failed to offer in recent history. He goes as far to say, in the article, that without such a new, radical solution we will continue to be in “traffic hell.”
There exist two fundamental problems with this solution, concerning a “public” understanding of our “public” transit. First, this gives those with cars the opportunity to invisibly opt-out, as referred to by Honig in the preface to her lecture series.
In this system, we cannot, will not see each other as equals – those with the ability to opt-out will do so silently, leaving them invisible to the majority of the system, separate from the rest of our democracy.
Both sides suffer from this, creating malicious myths about one another, which rarely approach fact but always create an increasingly dangerous distance between those who opt-out and those who cannot. Second, this cuts out the accountability that comes with a truly “public” public transit system.
Here, we hand over the keys to a billionaire to solve our problems when, in a more democratic tradition, a tradition we used to pursue, we could solve this problem together, through the work of our elected representatives – representatives we can politically punish and reward given the success of our transit systems, amongst other issues. We cannot let every good become privatized. Public transit, a system used by all, must be improved by all, not by Elon Musk.
That’s why we need to care about how we build our infrastructure. It reflects our goals. It reflects our morals. It reflects, well, us.
Northam’s plan, as part of a partnership between the state and CSX, will expand rail travel via Amtrak and the Virginia Railway Express (VRE) to a tune of $3.7 billion and 225 miles of track, according to WTOP. This will start with “a new round trip Amtrak [that] will be added late next year between Norfolk, Richmond, and D.C. that continues to Baltimore and New York.”
While this expansion of train travel in Northern Virginia and into Virginia Beach does not do quite enough work to connect the entire state, it’s an ambitious start that the now Democratic trifecta commonwealth can build upon, perhaps passing legislation to better connect western and southwestern Virginia to the rest of the commonwealth.
It’s important to note, as well, that “A recent state study estimated adding a lane to I-95 from the Fredericksburg area to the Capital Beltway would cost more than $12 billion, with traffic back up again soon after the lanes open,” proving that this investment not only connects the citizens of Virginia but provides a less expensive alternative to increased car traffic.
But that’s not the only point. Public transit offers a solution that saves money while connecting citizens to one another, offering a place where we exist as equals, moving across the country together.
Beyond just building a railway system that connects more citizens of the commonwealth, Virginia’s controversial Governor approved a means of transportation that requires just that: continuous approval.
If or when the trains break down, don’t run on time, aren’t kept clean, or run into any number of other problems, we know who to come to with our complaints. If those complaints don’t get responded to, we know who to elect out of office.
However, if or when the trains run well, on time, connecting people, not taxpayers or shareholders or another market-focused language, to one another, making travel between various regions across the commonwealth of Virginia more accessible, we know who to praise. We, the people, know who to reward with re-election when our public systems work well.
That’s the beauty of public things, they connect us, they force us to see each other, as humans, in a public space, and they have a clear accountability structure through which we can reward and punish those who choose to connect and/or isolate us, to bring us together or separate us by race, religion, or pocketbook size.
This is not to say that the private sector has no role – they clearly do, as this partnership was built with CSX and Amtrak - but it is to say that we must treasure our public goods and give them the resources to flourish. Alongside the actual infrastructure, we must communicate in the language that reinforces the infrastructure – the language of citizenship, of equality, of res publica.
This ultimately boils down to an essential question, one that has haunted the American republic since its conception: who is the “we” in “we the people”?
As corny as it may seem, we see one another. We see the college kid reading a book, we see the janitor commuting to work, we see the stockbroker on his way to a meeting. We see each other, as equals, in an environment in which nobody carries special privileges.
This should, if not now then eventually, go beyond the current plans and towards a publicly funded public transit system that connects citizens without shutting out the most economically vulnerable. However, Governor Northam’s plan, and similar ones, such as Governor Hogan’s (R-MD) rail expansion in Maryland around Bethesda, offers at the very least a path towards a public transit system, a place in which we can build spaces of equality, the cornerstones of democratic republics. These spaces seem to be fading away in our current American public. Democracy will not survive if we let them. Efficiency cannot be our only driving force; it must, occasionally, bend to equality. That is democracy. That is essential.