Seeing the big picture, leading the way

By Tom Politeo

Los Angeles -- A sprawling city navigated by freeways

Every morning before sunrise, the world's largest migration begins. In the United States and Canada, some 100 million people set out to travel a billion miles to get to work and home again. To a lesser extent, this migration is repeated in industrialized nations around the world. Most of us live this life every day-and though we may grumble about long commutes and traffic snarl, we are acclimated to it. What other life would we live?
It is hard for us to see this in perspective, to visualize the vast amounts of personal time commuting takes, the large amount of fuel and resources expended, and the enormous expenses we accrue in monetary, health, and environmental losses.
The travel we do today, mostly in the form of commuting, burns an enormous amount of energy. Apparent low-cost commuting has enabled us to organize shopping, careers, businesses, and communities around large, centralized stores and offices with little regard to the true cost of commuting.
Likewise, the low cost of shipping goods has also enabled changes in where goods are manufactured and warehoused and how they are distributed and shipped.
All transit, whether by private vehicle or bus, enjoys substantial public subsidies. Fuel taxes and vehicle registration fees don't pick up the full tab. They don't pay fully for roadway acquisition, construction, maintenance, lighting, policing, cleaning, and storm water collecting. Nor do they pay for other costs, like pollution costs, costs to climate because of their contribution to global warming, or the cost of health bills of those made sick by air pollution.
Together, these costs are staggering. Transit-related pollution (for people and cargo), may cost Americans $100 billion a year. Lost time or productivity for people stuck in traffic jams adds billions more in losses. Our roadways have become conduits to collect trash and deliver it to the ocean. The amount of plastics delivered to the ocean this way is killing wildlife and may soon threaten the survival of numerous species. There is likely not a corner of the planet that isn't adversely affected by transportation-related problems.
Ironically, we have almost everything we need right at hand to substantially improve the situation. We could all take steps to reduce the amount of fuel we need and pollution we cause by driving more efficient cars, shopping closer to home, planning trips, carpooling, using public transit, and walking (including having our kids walk to school instead of getting rides).
Instead of consolidating offices, businesses could work to establish satellite offices to minimize commuting distances. We could make greater use of telecommuting, to minimize the need for transportation. Highly centralized warehousing facilities could be decentralized to minimize cargo transit distances. Goods and produce could be grown or manufactured closer to their point of use.
With a long-term view, we could work to organize our communities so good schools and jobs are close to home and so each community provides affordable housing. We could ensure major warehousing, cargo, and manufacturing facilities are all located in rail-friendly locations.
But none of these reforms is going to happen without a change in cultural attitudes and business practices. We need to focus on a bigger picture-so that we see that the cheaper loaf of bread or the operational savings will eventually contribute to increased costs and reduced efficiency.
It is hard for us to visualize that little decisions we make each day, such as driving a bit more to save on groceries, can pack such a big punch. However, the very cultural perspectives that guide our decision guide millions of others to make the same. Repeated over and over again, these decisions can lead to jammed streets, stressed nerves, and more pollution.
When asked why she uses public transit to get to her downtown job, Angeles Chapter member Joan Schipper says firmly, "Because it's the right thing to do." That is the essence of the cultural attitude change we must nurture.

[top of page]