Overheard at the Opening, pt. 2
Yesterday, I mentioned listening in on a conversation about how it is that we cannot expect to deal with transportation issues and therefore we should not develop any more, unspoken was the Barbara Kerr-ism “unless we build more bridges and increase our road capacity.”
I wanted to quickly address the rather nihilistic second tenet of this argument: “that once a behavior is set, it will never change.”
Obviously the first response to this argument is, “then we should give up now.” Using this argument, we never should have tried to tackle the littering problem in this country in the ‘70s, why bother with sex ed, or health education. People act the way they act, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
In fact, under this rubric, the marketing folks on Madison Ave. are out of a job, because they are just wasting their time as well. Human behavior is set, nothing will ever change.
Of course, this isn’t exactly the argument that is being made. Rather it’s a stand in for classic mindset, The Onion captured it perfectly, “98 Percent Of U.S. Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others.”
In terms of travel time, driving will often be the quickest way for people to travel, as long as their trips are made off the main commute routes. Trips around Alameda will always be quicker by car than on foot, by bike or by transit. But this transportation equation leaves out the external costs of these decisions. Cost such as congestion, degradation of neighborhood quality of life, auto emissions, reduction of the pedestrian environment in Alameda’s historic neighborhoods.
The “nobody will change” ignores the changes that are being documented right now, showing that people are starting to make meaningful moves towards transit and biking due to rising gas prices which show no sign of slowing down. This increase coincides with gains being made in available transit service as funding for these services is starting to increase in order to counter the lack of investment made over the past 50-60 years.
At the heart of this argument is “don’t tell me how to behave.” Which is a fair sentiment. Though I can’t think of anyone who is saying “you must ride the bus” or “you have to ride a bike.” The arguments in Alameda, and around the Bay Area, are much more based on increasing the viability of the options that are available. Thus, those people who decide they are tired of driving and congestion, or decide that the externalities of driving, such as climate change, are too much, have options that make changing their behavior possible.
Overheard at the Opening, pt. 1 « Stop, Drop and Roll
August 7th, 2007 at 7:19 am
[...] to accept as given. First, that all transportation options are equally convenient and available. Second, that once a behavior is set, it will never change. Third that there are no external factors that [...]
Alameda NayTiff
August 7th, 2007 at 6:33 pm
The common wisdom in the Bay Area in the 1970s was that development was bad. This was not something limited to Alameda. In hindsight, Measure A has its flaws — as does Proposition 13. But both of these were caused by elected officials who failed to act when action was needed. Citizens responded to these failures by passing measures — however flawed — that blunted the worst of government failure. I am not in favor of government by proposition, but when all else fails, we are lucky to have this as an option.
Also, you miss in your postings some matters that should be mentioned. It isn’t just how fast one can travel across the Island, but rather the assumption that speed is a good. Yes, the private automobile increases speed, but is that the only measure of success?
In addition, I think that you do not realize just how much the Bay Area has changed in the past 50 years. In 1957 the Bay Area was fairly small and most urban areas could be reached by public transit. As the suburbs grew, so did the communities that lacked public transit or any way to be reached by public transit. Suburbanization changed the Bay Area from one where transit was an option, to one where transit provided limited possibilities. Remember, San Francisco’s population is only about ten percent of the area’s population.
The streetcars did not expand into the suburbs. For those of us who grew up in the shadow of WWII, the suburbs were the future, the freeways were the future and the Victorians were the past. It was a different time.
To the suburbs!
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099073/trailers-screenplay-E12271-10-2
Or maybe not…