Living la Vida Local

Pursuing Euro Lifestyle in Suburbia Demands Diligence, Determination

OhioNews Bureau

COLUMBUS, OHIO: Waking up in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, where my wife and I live, and contemplating how to journey from the quiet, bucolic front porch of my detached condo to Downtown or any where else for that matter is a daunting puzzle, especially when compared to the abundance of transportation options we had as recently as two weeks ago when we visited Paris, France, where we could avail ourselves of a variety of transportation options that were both convenient and affordable.

In America the car has been transportation king for a half century or more, crowned so in large measure due to the build out in the 1950s of the national highway system and the love affair America and Detroit, the headquarter capital of car manufacturers, engaged in that lead to the demise of passenger railroads and attenuation of other forms of mass transportation like bus systems, as Madison Avenue inculcated the message that cars reflect your personality and as such, regardless of size or fuel inefficiency, should be loved dearly.

But with gasoline prices breaking through the $4-a-gallon price ceiling, Americans are angered by the toll these high prices are taking on their stagnating wages and befuddled about what to do to get from one place to another as those who moved away from urban centers for one reason or another now find themselves marooned in island communities with little options for other forms of transportation.

Living la vida local in Paris is part of daily living there and in other European cities where putting one pied in front of the other is what most people do. Here in suburbia in America, it takes effort and ingenuity – but it is possible for those of us who have made the commitment to live life without a car to carry us every where we want to go.

LIFE WITHOUT A SECOND CAR: NOT PLANNED BUT POSSIBLE

For the first time in our 25 year marriage, we are a one-car family. My wife drives our small, fuel efficient car to her job in Downtown Columbus, leaving me to rely on my own resources – legs and a bicycle – to do daily tasks like grocery shopping and errands like going to the bank. Working from home as I do these days, the shock of not having a second car has drifted away along with the not insignificant costs associated with insuring and maintaining it and feeding it with fuel.

A factor that played a minor role in our decision to buy our unit in 2000 but which is now paying dividends in many ways, is our close proximity – within easy walking distance – to life essentials like groceries and lifestyle luxuries like eateries and movie theaters.

COLUMBUS BUSES, LIGHT RAIL AT FOREFRONT OF ENERGY WARS

But this is not the case for many, as The New York Times reports in this article about people who moved to the outskirts of civilization to gain peace and quiet now reconsidering their isolationist move in light of the dent filling their gas tanks is having on their pocketbooks.

Even in Columbus, the state’s capital founded in 1812, where the bus system for decades has been a wounded warrior suffering from low ridership, it appears a resurgence of riders revolting to the gas price crisis is boosting the number who are leaving their cars in the garage to hike to the nearest bus stop, which for many of us amounts to a mystery hunt.

With the help of Google Maps, the search for a bus stop may not be the mystery it once was. It was reported Wednesday that the Central Ohio Transit Authority (COTA), following the lead of bus riders in Cleveland, will make finding bus routes easier by allowing riders to use their addresses to find where a particular bus starts and ends. COTA, which principally relies on revenue from taxpayers for operations, has been faced in recent years with reducing costs by either eliminating routes or personnel, mainly from the ranks of bus drivers.

While COTA says ridership is up 7 percent, the problem of only having 53 fixed bus routes -- not one of which serves the airport -- represents a real barrier to more of the city's 750,000 people riding it. Of course, for some of us who have watched the public's distaste for funding COTA or other transportation alternatives, the real challenge -- one that is necessary for the a region of 1.2 million residents -- to form a funding alliance with the eight counties that represent the Central Ohio region that could then engage in a master plan to connect cities and suburbs in a way not seen before but that could become a real boon the the area. There in lies the funding rub.

Decades late and millions of dollars short of investing in mass transportation systems that would give people who don’t’ own a car the opportunity to not be marooned in their house or apartment for lack of safe and reliable transportation, the City of Columbus, which has lurched over the years from one capital-investment intensive project to another only to find years that they didn't pan out as planned, is engaged in its latest metropolitan debate over a hundred million dollar plan to install street cars in Downtown.

Mayor Michael Coleman, who recently won a third term and who is co-chairman of the Obama campaign in Ohio, has been cheerleading a plan that would tear up a couple mile stretch of High Street, the city’s main north-south corridor, and install rails and a slow-moving modern street car system that would be funding in large part by business and property owners located within a short radius of the system, based on the premise that they would be beneficiaries of the spending that would come from riders of the system.

As recently as last Monday, City Council, seven members all of whom are Democrats, are starting to discuss street car standards versus light rail standards and “the best way to go about it,” as reported by the local NBC affiliate. In his report, Jason Mays said, “According to the experts - a light rail system would be effective for longer trips, for example from Polaris to Downtown. However, streetcars, which are cheaper, could not support a light rail system. But on the flip side, a light rail system could support street cars and provide room for expansion later.”

STRICKLAND TO ENGINEER REBIRTH OF RAIL RIDING

Riding the rails from one Ohio city to another may yet be another dream that could come true if a push from Gov. Ted Strickland to look investigate the cost and course of high-speed rail travel. In early March of 2007 Strickland asked Amtrak to “investigate the potential ridership and costs of starting up fast, convenient and modern passenger rail service in Ohio's busiest and most populous travel corridor,” according to All Aboard Ohio, a non-profit rail advocacy group.

Strickland, a Democrat in his first term as governor, an office Republicans have held since 1991, said the “ultimate goal of this effort is for Ohio to encourage and accommodate more economic growth in an energy efficient, environmentally friendly manner” and that “Train stations will be located in walkable town centers and serve as magnets for private investment and local transportation.”

Ohio created a rail development authority in 1975 but when voters turned down a funding measure in 1980 that would have made the kind of capital investment in a rail system that would have been paid for by now it went into hibernation for decades. The Ohio Rail Development Commission (ORDC) was created as a stand-alone commission in the Ohio Department of Transportation in 1994 to “plan, promote and implement the improved movement of goods faster and safer on a rail transportation network connecting Ohio to the nation and the world.”

Fueled by grants and loans, ORDC has proposed a high-speed rail plan, dubbed the “Ohio HUB” plan that will cost over $3 billion and hopes to achieve impressive ridership numbers by 2025. But for those of who likely won’t be around in 2025 to ride the rails along the 3-C corridor that connects Cincinnati, Columbus and Cleveland, catching a train in Columbus has been a memory ever since the city’s spectacular Union Station, Grand Central-like in design, was torn down in the mid 1970s to make way for the convention center Downtown and state leaders said would bring in a bounty of revenue the city could then use to fund other projects. Decades later, not on is the train station gone but the gold mine of convention revenue has turned into a stream of Fool’s Gold that doesn’t measure up to the fantasy foisted on taxpayers who were asked to shoulder the funding for the dream of riches that never quite materialized.

The Ohio Public Interest Research Group (OPIRG) gave a booster shot today in the form of a report advocating more investment in mass transportation to the notion that America, having forsaked its rails for roads long ago, can create needed infrastructure and jobs that will reap benefits for people, businesses and the economy at large.

Unfortunate but not surprising for anyone who even half pays attention to the nightly news, the much vaunted stimulus money President Bush and Congressional leaders doled out to taxpayers in May has diverted from the local butcher, baker and candlestick maker to Saudi sheiks as motorists eye's glaze over as they watch the spinning wheels rack up higher prices for gas than ever before.  For us, we took our stimulus money and converted into a scouting trip to Paris, where we boosted the top line of numerous cafes and bistros.

LIVING LA VIDA LOCAL

In the meantime, while Columbus debates street cars and light rail systems and all the factors associated with them and hopping a high-speed train from Columbus to Cleveland is only possible by reading a consultants study on what might be, I’ve found that walking the Emerald Ribbon gets me where I need to go in lieu of driving there, as I might have done two years ago when our garage was home to a second car.

The Emerald Ribbon, my term for walking along the green buffer zones that separate big box stories like Home Depot and Meijer grocery stories from the road, allows me to pursue the Euro lifestyle available to me in Paris and other European cities, where the first and best mode of transportation is walking and where other forms – like bicycles, scooters, motorcycles, metros, buses and trains – abound.

Not only can I find my nearly ever need within a half-mile of our home but the venture gives me the daily exercise I need to avoid being a guest on the divine version of “Meet the Press” hosted by Tim Russert, who I captured in photographs in person when I reported on the presidential debate between Democratic hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in February at Cleveland State University.

So living la vida local is possible, although it takes a little work, not the kind that most Americans are necessarily predisposed to do given their reliance on and worship of the car.

If you have tips or leads for stories, contact me at ohionewsbureau@gmail.com. To read archived ONB stories, you'll find them here and here.