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.

The Pious Prius Effect

Every day that I ride my bike I get rudely tailed/cut off/nearly run over by at least one car. It's something a cyclist expects and artfully maneuvers around. It occurred to me one day, though, that a number of those incidents have involved the drivers of Priuses, which is funny since ownership of such a vehicle is supposed to indicate moral superiority and a respect for the creatures of the earth. Granted, my sample is not random, since I've spend much time in Ann Arbor, the Prius capitol of the Midwest. But it got me thinking, why does that happen?

Maybe that sense of self-righteousness that comes from sinking into the energy-efficient seats makes drivers think they've somehow magicked away all the negative consequences of driving. And while they may have decreased some of those, they're still driving a vehicle that can kill, operating within and contributing to a system that allows some people freedom of movement and denies it to others.

I actually did drive a Prius once, when I had to grab a last-minute Zipcar.

Adventures of a one-car cross-county household

Life gets a lot cheaper when you move in with somebody, and Alex and I recently took our Ann Arbor and Detroit habitations and merged them into one big beautiful Ypsilanti. Besides sharing rent, cooking, and bunnies, we decided to junk his clunker and rely solely on my decade-old Ford Focus, which has belonged to every member of my family and traversed the country twice.

Bunny numero uno

It's not like we have ten children, or any other small mammals in our care besides the furry type. But still, with our wildly regional schooling and employment patterns, there are days in which we have to be...creative.

The reordering rules of snow

Winner: best use of vegetables and protective headgear

I'm not very accustomed to driving in the snow, because all my winters for the past seven years I've spent in Ann Arbor, blissfully avoiding contact with the automobile type and shuffling frozenly from one point to the next. This year, though, I own a car, and over Christmas break I had the need to use it. The lack of traction unnerves me, the same pit of stomach slipperiness that comes with ice skating. I make a turn onto the main road, the monster I supposedly control does not respond to me, its back and then its front swerve into snowy ruts on the curb. I am a person who likes having control over things, and this gas-fueled beast knows it can now get the best of me.

Roadless in Plymouth

If you're wondering what I'm satirizing, check out the real story.

Michiganders woke up yesterday to find that one township has taken advantage of the bill recently passed in the state legislature, allowing any municipality in metro Detroit to opt out of the state road system.

Road removal has begun

America's Next Top Commuter?

View Larger Map
Due to the academic prowess of my homeskillet, who got accepted to med school at Wayne State, and my own choice to start a Master's program in Urban Planning at the University of Michigan in the fall,  I'm faced with choices that extend beyond the range of my heretofore uber-walkable, extremely local existence.

One might ask, Carolyn, how did you ever manage in the metro Motor City for six years without a car? Well, a few answers. My life for nearly four of those years revolved entirely around the city of Ann Arbor, where everything - school, work, friends - was in walking, biking, or bussing distance. The only thing that lured me away was my family back in Redford, and they kindly provided shuttle service whenever we wanted to see each other.