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For at least a decade, I’ve dreamt of traveling the world just to ride and experience the public transportation everywhere.

I want to see and feel what works in places where large segments of the population use transit.

• What works well?

• What’s not quite working?

• How can we move towards more sustainable forms of mobility — as soon as possible?

Doesn’t that sound RIVETING!?!

I have been obsessed with public transportation - trains and buses and streetcars and light-rail and trams and ferries as long as I can remember.

Transportation is an essential — and resource intensive — part of every person’s life

Transportation is an essential — and resource intensive — part of every person’s life: both individual and shared resources.

• Transportation takes the valuable and nonrenewable resource of time.

• Transportation costs money — that takes the valuable and nonrenewable resource of time to earn — and often costs quite a lot — and that’s a whole other very long story.

• And transportation uses other resources that we as a planet share. In the United States alone, transportation is responsible for a — dare I say? — whopping 27% of greenhouse gas emissions.

As lamented in many woeful songs: we can’t go on like this.

We Need to Design, Build and Fund Transportation that Works for People — and With the Geography

When I moved to Pittsburgh in 2009 (for the first of three times!) and discovered they have something called an incline that goes up and down the side of a steep mountain, like a slow, scenic roller coaster, I added that to my list of loves too. Did you know these inclined railroads are also called “funiculars”?They have FUN in the name!

Now they only have two of them in Pittsburgh though they used to have 17!

What a catastrophe!

Reduced Independence by Designing Around Car Dependence

The steep hillsides are still there but now you have to either have your own car — or hope there’s a bus coming and the weather is okay to stand on the side of the road and wait.

Let’s talk about getting around with your own car. It’s often taken for granted in the United States but it’s often not possible for a whole lot of people like:

• the very young or

• very old or

• people with some types of disabilities or

• those who can’t afford a car & all the associated expenses or (like me — there’s so much else to spend money on, ie: restaurants and travel and fun, but also other people who have kids and other expenses)

• those who don’t want /like to drive (me)

Over 100 Million People Trapped by Design

And between all of those things — that adds up to a lot of people who can’t drive up a mountain/ any place on their own. Millions of people who can’t drive themselves.

In fact, well over 100 million people in the United States are not licensed drivers!

There are about 228 million licensed drivers (as of 2020) and the US population, as of this writing is 344,355,136 (according to the US Census Population clock).

That’s somewhere around 116,255,136 people who can’t make up their own decisions about how and where and when they need to go somewhere.

That’s a lot of reduced independence.

Limited Options for One Third of Americans

So if you fit into one of these groups and you need/want to get up the mountain or anywhere else in your life, you have limited options.

You need to wait for someone else to have time to drive you — and be comfortable asking for a ride.

Maybe that’s not as big a challenge for children — if their parents are going that way or are free — but imagine being a person who has lived decades of their life, used to going where they want when they want (or need) and suddenly no longer having that option because you can’t drive in a safe way.

AWFUL.

Or maybe there’s some sort of transit option available.

And maybe it will show up when you need it.

Maybe This Will Work? Maybe I Can Get There Somehow…

• Maybe there’s some other transit service you can take.

• Maybe a bus will head up that side of the mountain. It’s still not going to be as direct as an incline that just goes from the top to the bottom and back again in minutes, while being a gorgeous and scenic ride!

• Or maybe you can just walk. That doesn’t work for everyone and — largely due to street and vehicle design — pedestrian deaths have grown exponentially in the United States since 2019 — and they were pretty abysmally high then too. (PSA: Don’t text & drive, don’t creep through a crosswalk/ intersection when people are walking).

• Or maybe it’s safe enough for you to ride a bike and maybe you’re physically able to do so.

We need a variety of transportation options to create and maintain independence for everyone!

Decade-long (or more?) Dream/Goal

So my goal has been to explore public transportation in places around the world where it is widely used by many people and is designed to give people real options.

I especially want to see transit that is well-designed and created as something for everyone, not the way we do it in the States where it’s a second thought, underfunded and underwhelming, and only for “those people” who can’t afford a car.

Over than 100 million need us to start doing things differently.

A variety of transportation OPTIONS is what it’s all about.

Having choice at all stages of your life.

Some What-Ifs That Could Leave You Stranded

What if you have a car and it breaks down?

What if you have a car and someone hits and totals it and you still owe a huge amount of money on it? And they’re not insured or it’s a hit and run? This is not too uncommon, friends.

If there’s functional transit nearby, it can be/is a lifeline to everyone.

It may not be your first choice but it is essential to have as a back-up and a backbone to the way we make our transit.

Starting this Transit Exploration in Medellín, Colombia

After the IMN sustainability/ESG conference I attended in New York last week for ActiveScore, I headed south to experience the public transportation that has transformed the city of Medellín, Colombia — and the lives of millions of residents.

Some questions I packed for the trip:

• How often do their trains and buses and gondolas (“Metrocable”) arrive?

• If you miss your ride on the Metro, will another be coming soon enough not to throw off your life/plans?

• Will another bus be there shortly or do you need to wait 30, 60, 90 minutes or more, as if often the case in the States (making the system non-functional for riders to rely on).

Riding Above Traffic!

Gondolas/cable cars are becoming increasingly common in South America and are not just for recreation — they are an essential and efficient part of connecting extremely hilly neighborhoods to the rest of the city.

And I cannot WAIT to see them.

Why don’t we use these in our hilly cities?

It’s been discussed using gondolas in Pittsburgh, where they used to have inclines — but not usually too seriously and is often scoffed at as some ridiculous idea for tourists.

But gondolas WORK and they work well and I am going to see them and ride them and keep advocating for their expanded use.

Active Transportation in Colombia Too!

Fortunately, a colleague from Bogotá, from my days at Move PGH, connected me with some of the most brilliant people in Medellín working on active transportation — so I’ll be able to score an insider view of how the city is transforming for people getting around by bike.

Ciclovía in Bogotá

Hopefully I’ll also be able to make it to Bogotá to experience their Ciclovía — an event where they close 75 miles of city streets to cars and open them to people for walking, biking, dancing… whatever!

Did I mention they do this EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY?!?! They’ve been doing it this way since the ‘90s!

… In fact, I did mention it — in the last post for Sustainability Stories: Green Buildings by Day, Car-free Cities by Night, where I discussed the beginning of my own sustainability journey (eye roll) — in 2006 when I began working for the US Green Building Council and in 2007, when it expanded to sustainable mobility while planning the first Car-free Day in Washington, DC — wholly inspired by the Ciclovía in Bogotá.

They started it way back in the 1970s on a smaller scale — only 13 miles back then!! — but it really took hold in 1995 and has been happening every week for 27 years!!

Utterly magnificent!

As I’ve said, we need transportation options for every single person.

We must create sustainable mobility that saves people time, money, and preserves the planetary resources we all need.

And we must make our cities and towns safe and accessible and wonderful for people of all ages to choose active transportation as a critical component of sustainable mobility.

Let’s Work Together

If you’re working on making your town, your city, your business, or university more sustainable, you must tell that story. Let’s get your Sustainability Stories out there today.

• How do people visit your business?

• Your university?

• Your stadium?

• Your town?

• Your city?

Do you tell them how to park their individual cars or do you let them know they can get there by sustainable modes of transportation?

Do you encourage them to walk or bike or take transit?

It’s time to make sustainable mobility the option you emphasize

• To your clients

• To your students

• To your employees

• To your visitors

• To your residents

Amplify Your Sustainability Stories Now

**If you own a business and make a product or a service that doesn’t “compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs,” you need to make that clear and obvious.

You need to talk about it to your current and potential customers.

Sustainability Stories can help.

**If you run a city / city agency and are transforming the way people get around and make it easier for people to walk or bike and take transit, you need to sing that news: Let’s talk.

**If you develop housing or other real estate and are providing attractive amenities for those who want to reduce their emissions, we need to let EVERYBODY know.

Get in touch today and start transforming the world for the much better right now.