Forty-seven
years after I left home I have moved a dozen times in three states and have lost track of
all those people I used to know from my neighborhoods. The one thing that remains is the idea in my
mind that everywhere I go on a continuing basis, everywhere I live and
everywhere along the way in between those end points is my neighborhood. Instead of trying to ignore the passage of
time between start and finish I try to make an interesting trip of getting
there.
The
sidewalk is neighborhood just as are the apartments next door and across the
hall, and maybe even more so. There is
wondrous interactions between store owners, café waiters and the customers on
the street. You can meet the love of
your life, an old acquaintance, a future employer, some guy whose brain spews
poetry. To meet them while driving a
car, you’d have to run them down and get out to apologize. I understand that has been done, but I don’t
recommend it.
The
train, the plane, even a greyhound bus ride can make for an interesting time if
you are not too critical. After all this
is ‘being out in public.’ You get the
good and the bad. It is what you make of
the time and the encounters. I have met
some very interesting people on plane, trains and in subways. I have never met anyone interesting at a
highway rest stop. First they are all
too busy getting where they are going and all wrapped up with getting the kids
and the dog into the vehicle and all the
accumulated trash out. For them the
highway is a necessary evil to be endured between home and the National Park or
Grandma’s house.
What you
know about your neighborhood becomes part of your mental geography. Just like some people can drive around
anywhere and remain oriented, others just know how to get from one point to
another over sometimes thousands of miles of distance. Without many years of being accustomed to
public mode of travel, many people do not feel comfortable in any other mode than
flying to distant airport and taking a taxi to the hotel. The driver is supposed to know the way and
assist with stowing the suitcases in the back.
Transit
oriented travel can be just as easy if the traveler is in tune with the
methods. For example, in my mind is the
mental map of the entire trip between my Baltimore home and the house my sister
has in Gloucester, Mass. The transit
oriented trip requires 7 segments with 6 inter-modal exchanges. The automobile oriented flight requires 3
modes with 2 inter-modal exchanges. The
latter travel itinerary costs a $15 taxi ride and the commitment from my sister
to drive 2 hours for 100 miles to pick me up at Logan Airport. The former method utilizes two free shuttle
buses, a subway ride and a commuter train ticket to the end of the line in
Gloucester. It ends with a five minute
car ride by my sister from the train station to the house. Going back home is just the same.
To
accomplish the transit oriented trip one must know the details of the systems
to be used or just be well aware of how such methods work. One doesn’t have to have ridden a city’s
subway before to be aware of how subways work.
One doesn’t have to drive every Interstate highway to know how
Interstates work. It all depends on what
you put in your head.
Not
everyone is compatible with public transit modes of travel. To them, I say keep driving. We would not want reluctant participants
being forced to ride a bus or train.
They would mess up our enjoyment of the trip like so many road-ragers do
on the highways and streets for motorists.
The
future holds for us that which is inexorable truths. Fuel to operate our cars will continue to be
much more expensive and in lesser supply as globally more people want it. The roads will become more decayed even as
there are more cars and drivers wanting to drive more miles per year. The demand for “lane-space” will outstrip our
ability and our funds to build more. It
takes decades to build any road or fixed-guideway transit project so we better
get started. You are getting older and
may one day be denied the privilege of driving on a public thoroughfare because
you can’t see well enough, react fast enough or remember where you are going
and why.
The
following are still truths but we can do something about them. Homes and jobs
are getting further apart requiring longer commutes. Peoples’ incomes are getting smaller so they
will be able to afford only less.
Whether it is a big impact or a small one, too much carbon in the
atmosphere is going to do damage.
Communities
and neighborhoods are all human settlements, but not all human settlements are
neighborhoods and communities. When
people associate with each other by the choice of where they go, their home
locations are not communities or neighborhoods.
Families choose several communities for themselves that relate more so
to their preferences than their residences.
There is the school community that relates to their children. There is the church community that relates to
their faith. There is the work community
if the adults actually like where they work and want to associate with their
co-workers. Some even have a vacation
community where they visit every summer.
The world
and this county in particular will change over the next few decades. There will
the periodic variations that appear to indicate remission or even a return to
earlier times such as when global politics resets lower the price of motor fuel
for our automobiles. This will be only a temporary reprieve.
The
warmer climate may manifest as cooler summers in one spot of the globe while
increasing it in others. Some level of solar activity may dampen the heating of
the planet for some period of time, but the trend continues as we force the
atmosphere to accept all our exhaust.
Neighborhoods
will be splintered in one place while others will be made firmer and more durable.
It is for all of us to do what must be done to keep our activities part of a
System that functions for a sustainable future.
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