There are a lot of things in motion right now, and any one of them could shape the future of our industry for years to come.
While we were in production on this issue of the magazine, the text for the next surface transportation bill dropped: The BUILD America 250 Act. It is ambitious... in its own way. Obviously, having not been inside the halls of power where these things get discussed, I can't speak for certain on anything. However, my opinion is that the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee (T&I) leaders decided to really punt on any sort of framing, or funding, that could have been thought of as an act of leadership.
What is frustrating about that, from my perspective, is that one would think that is exactly their job. Take the lead. That's what they are elected to do. We send them to Washington to do the work we cannot do. Talk to the experts. Review the research. Look into how others have solved the problems we face today, and then, act accordingly. Sadly, it is this editor's opinion that, the BUILD250 Act is nothing more than a status quo move that screams: We have no new ideas.
The Future Is Already The Past
The Toyota Prius came to America in the year 2000, three years after it launched in Japan. I was fifteen years old, and the car felt like a joke to us when we were paying, on average, $1.50 for a gallon of gas. That was just a hybrid, but it felt like an incremental step towards a future that has never arrived. Well, it hasn't arrived here, at least.
Almost thirty years since that product came to market, now succeeded by Chinese EV manufacturers who are swiftly taking the world by storm, all while some people argue about its value and practicality as the American auto industry effectively sticks its head in the sand.
That move worked with the Prius. America's international economic dominance insulated Detroit somewhat from the pressure to adapt and change. But that level of economic influence was based on the power of oil, just like it has been since the mid-century. In 2026, that paradigm is no longer the security it once was, as the dominion of the petro-dollar is under serious threat.
The world is changing and, as it does, it reveals a future without the energy bottleneck that crude oil represents. As we speak, the "third-world" is undergoing a rapid and unprecedented transition to renewable energy sources by necessity. Those markets won't look back, and why would they? More poignantly, though, is why aren't we? It's cheaper. It's broadly available. Why not declare energy independence once and for all, and here on our nations 250th birthday? We've been told we can't. It won't work. You don't want it, they tell you.
Filling up your tank at the gas station, hearing the roar of your internal combustion engine has been sold to us as essential Americanism. As a result, to question that becomes a treatise on Americanism itself. But it grows harder and harder to accept, as we witness many across the globe do exactly what we have been told cannot be done.
What happens next will be painful, as all transformational events are, but there is a lesson to be learned for the generations coming up who will inherit this mess and forge a new future for themselves. Public infrastructure and public transportation must serve the public before all else, and not the corporatized private interests of a few select industries.
At one time in history, the American interstate system was a crown jewel of our nation's prominence, a sign of our economic prowess. It was a true achievement in every sense of the word. But the jewel is now a millstone, as we currently seem to have abdicated any hope of maintaining it, deciding that we lack the imagination and willpower to conceive a tomorrow that is anything other than its past.
