Mindful Transportation

I've long been concerned about dangerous driving and traffic fatalities, but ever since having a child that issue has moved to the forefront of my mind - the speeding metal beasts are by far the greatest danger to my baby in his everyday life. As I've noted, Connecticut drivers shock my Midwestern soul with their incessant speeding, ubiquitous tailgating, and total disregard for red lights.

With few exceptions, nobody wants to hurt people with their driving. No one thinks, I might run over a small child going 50 on this road, but it's worth it to get to work on time. And all drivers, including myself, occasionally find themselves reacting to the road emotionally and making unwise decisions. An excellent description of this phenomenon comes from the essential Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream by New Urbanism leaders Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck:

The average American, when placed behind the wheel of a car, ceases to be a citizen and becomes instead a motorist. As a motorist, you cannot get to know your neighbor, because the prevailing relationship is competitive. You are competing for asphalt, and if you so much as hesitate or make a wrong move, your neighbor immediately punishes you, by honking the horn, taking your space, running into you, or committing some other antisocial act, the most egregious of which have been well documented....The social contract is voided.

Driving removes us from our normal human compassion, consideration, and prudence. It takes deliberate effort to reconnect the driver with the caring person.

This is what got me thinking about Mindful Transportation. The concept of cultivating mindfulness through daily activities is central to the writings of Zen Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, who recommends this verse as a reminder upon starting one's car:

 Before starting the car,
 I know where I am going.
 The car and I are one.
 If the car goes fast, I go fast.

What would it do to traffic fatalities if every person, before turning the key in the ignition, spoke those words? Or even sat in the driver's seat and meditated for two minutes? Whenever I'm on my bicycle and stopped at a red light, I use the opportunity to take a drink from my water bottle. What if drivers did the same thing, using red lights as hydration breaks and opportunities to connect with physical human needs.

Mindful Transportation isn't limited to car drivers, either. It starts with being mindful about what mode is being chosen, and balancing factors like time, distance, emissions, exercise, and all the rest.. Regardless of which mode is chosen, every traveler benefits from taking deep breaths and having awareness of the people and places they move around.

I still believe design and engineering solutions are most important for creating safer roads, but they take a lot of money, time, and political will to implement. In the meantime, anyone who is driving and wants to improve the world can just - breathe.

Holidays, Hot Chocolate, New Haven

I stood waiting for a hot chocolate at the corner downtown Starbucks, listening to the old-timey Christmas music and watching the clusters of pedestrians and bus riders meander by the recently-erected creche. Not seeing any nearby menorahs, I wondered how the city got around the whole church/state issue - but then remembered one of the weird East Coasty quirks about New Haven, that the central grassy square known as the Green is not owned by the city government but rather a group of mysterious life-appointees known as the Proprietors (how snooty!). I guess the Proprietors can toss around whatever religious imagery they feel like.

UPDATE: there is now a menorah on the opposite end of the Green! And a sparkly humanist obelisk.

It's not the most picturesque place to be for Christmastime. If I had marooned myself in New York instead, I might get in some idyllic busy-shopper-Rockefeller-magic-snowflake scenes while wandering about in the Atlantic seaboard half-light. While in Detroit, I benefited from the work of downtown boosters trying to portray a tinsel-covered world-class city (often effectively - Campus Martius skating on a December night is glittery and grand).

But I haven't figured out New Haven. Soon they'll light a giant conifer in the middle of the Green, but until then I've been walking to the bus stop after work along a dusky path, among dog walkers and panhandlers alike. Will Christmas magic find a homesick (and very pregnant) planner in a city that wobbles between charming and forlorn?

The Mitten at Large

I've always considered myself a consummate Michigander, but in the course of life events it happens that I'll be moving to New Haven, Connecticut in June. With that big shift taking place in June and some west coast wanderings taking up much of May, it seems my roots are being carefully extracted - with plenty of soil to keep them intact. Thus the title change - I'll be the Mitten at Large for the next five years, bringing Midwestern carrot topped urban oddity to the Atlantic seaboard.

But my heart is eternally rusty, and I'm sure in due time I'll find myself back in the mitten - again!

Til then I'll be bringing tales of my time in New Haven - a city that from my brief visit appears full of contradiction and collision of worlds. Aggressive drivers, rugged bluffs, pinkish soil, absurdly abundant pizza, hoity toity architecture, fast food Indian, public housing, rapidfire Spanish - it's all new and set against the perfect cherry blossoms of springtime starting up. So, here I go.