So here's a pledge to the new Urban Secretary:
With the car industry crunching and shriveling up its the perfect time to expand and improve public transportation nationwide. I think this would be essential to not only provide a cheap, convenient and clean way of transportation, but also social development to the US as a nation as one.
We all know public transport IS cheap, because its cheap, IS convenient, because you avoid traffic and parking, IS clean because you are saving gas, congested highways, and wannabe roadkill, but what else can public transport do for us?
Personally I grew up in a German city with excellent public transport, as in most European cities. This is not because we are better over here or anything, but because we have, in Germany for example, 82 million people living on top of each other. Thats like having 10 New York Cities between NYC and VA Beach! So to get your drivers license in Germany cost you around a grand and gas is about 4 times as expensive as in the states. Quite the incentive to us public transport.
I myself recognized another benefit. Everyday as a kid I would wake up, get fly, put on my backpack with everything I needed for the day, and head on out. And I wouldn't be home till dinner. Its unbelievable the amount of different people I met along my way, and NO city spot or even "close by" city was to far away. Imagine three cities within 20 minutes of each other! VERY different cities at that... Now you can only imagine the network of people we built up and were exposed to.
You meet people from all walks of life. This is a good thing. It makes you grow up and learn about LIFE. True life. And this is exactly what America needs more of, for a better cultural understanding. Especially the land of Suburbia.
In a wrap: Quality Public Transport is the first step towards a healthy, strong, aware and open society, in which people truly get to know their neighbor and hopefully eventually become not only their brothers keeper, but their neighbors keeper too.
So get out on that bike, hop on the metro, cruise to work and observe the daily grind wake up. Get on that pulse of the city and live as one.
Peace and be safe.
1 comment:
Big up! Very true words, my man! Suburbia in US is a strange..well, dimension. Obviously, people living in big cities are different than people living in suburbs -everywhere. But to my understanding, in the US the discrepancies between suburban people and city people are just soooo VAST! in Suburbia, nothing seems to happen outside one's home, car or the local malls. To have pedestrian traffic as in walking down the street as opposed to driving, sitting in street cafes, bumping into people u know only happens in the bigger cities - everywhere else, that type of stuff happens in a mall where u have to drive to by car. In Europe, the big city/smaller one life style isn't THAT different. And in a world that ecologically troubled we cannot keep having 2 cars per person...so power to comfortable & reliable public transportation!
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