I once had a professor who told a story about competitive advantage called “beating the bear.”

“Imagine you’re camping with a friend,” he’d say, “and in the middle of the night you’re woken up by a man-eating bear. You jump out of the tent, but this bear is fast, faster than you, and he’s hungry. Then you remember the only important thing: You don’t have to outrun the bear. You just have outrun the other guy.”

Hampton Roads is the “other guy” an awful lot of the time. We lose entire interstate highways because we’re asleep a moment longer than other regions. By the time we’re awake with our running shoes on, it’s too late.

Do you ever wonder why Hampton Roads is the largest metropolitan area without a professional sports team? It didn’t just happen. It took a concerted effort of thousands of local sports fans, over decades, not doing enough. What defines enough? Competitive advantage is is simply doing more than the other guy. If you think reading the paper, debating around the water cooler and hyping the possibility to friends is enough, wake up. History tells us the folks in Charlotte or San Jose are willing to worker harder to attract a strategic asset.

It would be grand if every top-50 metro had high speed rail within the next 20 years–but even that goal is unrealistic. The reality is that government is foremost about setting financial priorities with limited resources. At the federal and state levels, our tax dollars get pooled with everyone else’s and then doled back out. There will not be enough funding for everyone’s high speed rail projects–all any of us can do is sprint out of the tent and hope we beat the other guy.

The cost of high speed rail is usually a matching scheme of federal and state resources. Some region–maybe Tulsa, maybe us–will be getting that pot of money. A portion of it will be from their own taxes, but much more of it will be from taxpayers across the state and nation. So if you simply can’t think of it as a sound investment with your own taxes, then at least think of it as gambling with someone else’s. Someone will make it out of tent–and they’re going to use the other guy’s shoes to do it.

Direct all of your energies toward one thing: waking up the VDRPT by writing one letter, submitting one comment online or attending the (one Southside, one Peninsula) meeting this week*. If you don’t write that letter, you’re still standing around the water cooler. You’re still asleep.

It’s time to wake up. Next wake up co-workers, neighbors, family to the race toward greatness or nothing. Wake up!

Or stay down. And be eaten by a bear.

*A large attendance is encouraged at the public hearings on the EIS.
Bring a friend! Meetings begin at 5:30 p.m.
January 27 in Newport News, City Center Conference Facilities, James and Warwick Rooms, 700 Town Center Dr.
January 28 in Norfolk, Half Moone Cruise and Celebration Center, One Waterside Drive