Register has his head in pretty much the right place when he places transportation in the anthropological context. I would agree with him that we have outgrown the need to travel long distances ( like the Moon or Mars) just for the hell of it. What I think he misses (or perhaps knows but does not choose to emphasize) is that people not only have a need for adventure, they have a need for productivity or purpose in their life. This assignment is particularly hard because it asks us to bring the idealistic ideas for eliminating the car back down to the most local scale. With cities already structured, we must think way into the long term.
When I travel through Ithaca, I notice that –depending on the weather—my experience with transportation changes within different modes. I hate to drive my car because there are traffic lights on every corner, not to mention pesky pedestrians, cyclists, animals and trains in my way at all times. This is evidence of the traffic calming already in place in the city, so my frustration further discourages me from getting in my car in the first place and even may cause me to rethink my choice to go forth and consume. The ideas from this past readings that get me most excited are transit systems that require no passenger involvement in navigating and returning elements of the city back to nature.
I love the idea of zoning a city into locations that vary from places of dense and varied public transportation down the rural areas on the A, B, C categorizing system. It only makes sense to provide public transportation to universally important institutions that benefit from high density like hospitals. My only concern with that idea is that people who feel very ill or who are injured often are not motivated or recommended to take public transportation. Herein lies the delema: How do we solve the problem of providing private transportation (to people who are sick, travelers with luggage or people who need to have man tools on hand for their job) while removing the personal auto? The issue of transporting sick or injured is partly already solved with the ambulance. However, due to the level of emergency and high price involved, most people would rather take their own cars. So let us institute a system of reduced car use with highly inexpensive car sharing, car renting and even taxi-like services. As for travelers, better design of transportation modes ( like convenient compartments for groceries, luggage etc) and better planned cities are the answer. But what about for Ithaca? Well, we already have Tcat ( which are loud, polluting, and nauseating) we could use only specifically designed busses for routes that involve trips to the airport or to other specialized places that would necessitate large amounts of luggage or hauling. But what about the contractor or the nurse that makes house calls? These are trips rely on the car for income, and are not necessarily solved with proximity. Perhaps there can be some way to design a tram transit system that passengers could input a location ( that also showed a map of the city) so that a computer could evaluate all the destinations of the passengers and drop them safely off to their respective destinations in an effective manner? Busses do seem to be an answer but they are so unpleasant to ride. To modify the TCAT to improve ridership, family passes or Upasses could be initiated.
I am also a big fan of Register’s Roll Back Sprawl campaign, with one exception. Well, aside from the fact that most governments and residents would not go to tearing down houses and roads that still have many, many years left to them, what will we do with all that material? Some could be recycled back into making the core more dense, but what about the asphalt? It does not seem to be structurally sound enough to use it as building material. Perhaps there is some way to create low to the ground recreation out of it, like skate and bike parks—though that would really add up. In the same vein, bio-remediation could be used in these areas to truly let nature take its course and purge itself of the pollutants we’ve placed upon it.
To really make Ithaca the most ideal place for me would be to replace the TCAT with trams and to connect a high-spped passenger train line to regional and interstate locations such as Buffalp, Rochester, Syracuse, New York City, and Cleveland (my home town!) If there was some way for me to get to a few of these places without hours of boring and dangerous driving in a car, I would gladly give up my auto.
Ithaca could be even more bike and pedestrian friendly, too. In addition to reducing the amount of paved roads, we could build bike routes that are direct and safe, and that would sensibly handle the inclines of this terrain. The idea of a sort of “you are here” mapping system on the manholes is positively fantastic! I would also opt for making use of unused space ( like the constantly-under-construction parking garage between the library and the commons into retail or recreation space by converting its use. With federal money saved on maintaining highways and roads, we could hire countless individuals (youths, seniors, people with low income) to beautify, green and maintain beautiful walkways and paths. Sidewalks would become are galleries and even history lessons or short stories (like in the example from Register reading). Not only would we satisfy our need for adventure with the constant installments of educational artwork but those modifying and maintaining the space would be fulfilling their sense of purpose while honing their skills.
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