Public Transportation and Smart Growth

I live in the west. For more than two decades I have fought to try to get rapid rail along the I-70 corridor from Denver to the ski resorts and western slope and along the North-South corridor from Fort Collins to Denver and down to Colorado Springs. We have been blocked at every turn and now it is a crisis situation where the shoulders on I-70 are now being discussed as appropriate to overflow to try to put a bandaid on the solution. Tax-opposed RETHUGS have delayed any possible action so long that it is now far too expensive to widen the highway and rapid rail has now become an impossibly expensive dream.

Despite the stereotype of all westerners driving big-assed SUVs (and certainly many still do), the Denver Metro area was among the first metro areas to embrace hybrid cars--with Prius being among the most widely sold vehicle in the state--the running joke was that they pre-shipped to Colorado with an Obama sticker the year we turned "blue."

I seek out neighborhoods that are walkable and my driving has decreased 1000%. At home, I walk/bike nearly everywhere. But if I have to commute again long distances for work, I will have no way in the world to do so except to drive. NYC is so very different from most of the rest of the world. Be happy. Be glad. Be thankful. But know that your fortune is not something that has ever been an option for most of the rest of us. The rest of us are doing the best we can and we care just as much.