[A comment on Streets Blog:]
I grew up in Baltimore and have lived in NYC for two years, and thus feel inclined to comment on my observations.
Baltimore ranks number 6 in the nation for car-free households, with 35.89% car-free. The public transportation in Baltimore is so bad that when I visit my friends or family for the weekend (all of whom live within the central urban core), I have to bring my bike down with me (and of course spend no less than three hours throughout the course of the weekend explaining to my parents why I am politely turning down their friendly offer to borrow an automobile – "So what if you’re drinking? You only need to drive a few miles!"). I’m sorry, did I say Public Transportation? I meant to say Poverty Transportation. Allow me to explain.
From the same country that brought you intensified class divisions based on access to health care and education comes a way to keep poor people poor through transportation! The bus system (and random rail lines that are rarely useful) is not meant to be a comfortable and convenient way to get around town. It is meant to serve as a bare minimum to allow those who cannot afford a car to get around town. After all, if only poor people are using the system, and poor people have little to no political clout, then where is the incentive to invest public money for improving the system? Obviously it’s more important for suburbanites to pay less taxes, therefore enabling them to purchase more flat-screen televisions. So in other words, in order to have comparable access to employment and education opportunities to the privileged class, one must purchase an automobile.
Yes, that’s right: People who can barely afford to feed and clothe their children are required to purchase a multi-thousand dollar product from a private vendor, and then spend hundreds of dollars per month insuring and maintaining said product. A family starts to get back on their feet financially? Oops! Timing belt broke! That will be $1000, please! In other words, the cycle of poverty continues. Economically disadvantaged individuals cannot participate in mainstream society by purchasing a $89 Metro Card as they can in more functional cities (further subsidized based on need) once a month, enabling them to use the rest of their income to feed and clothe their children, and pursue educational opportunities in order to climb out of poverty. In New York, automobile culture hurts our quality of life. In places like Baltimore, automobile culture flat-out ruins lives.
A less serious but equally interesting aspect of the differences between urban car culture in Baltimore and New York is that, while it’s great that young people are starting to move into urban neighborhoods in the city center, they bring their suburban values with them. When a young person moves to New York, the city beats them into shape: "Shut up. You live here now. Leave your car back in Ohio." In Baltimore, this is not the case. Wealthy young professionals move into the city and take their cars with them, and expect their car to be accommodated. This of course means that off-street parking is a necessity for new construction to be viable. If anyone follows transit news in Baltimore, you may be familiar with the Red Line debate. Baltimore (god bless them) has managed to plan and fund a new East-West rail line, which will run underground through the business district, and on the surface through other urban neighborhoods. Residents of Canton, a wealthy neighborhood on the East Side, are protesting (that’s right, New Yorkers… Protesting against new transit options!) the project, on the grounds that they don’t want it to run above ground in their neighborhood. Of course they know damn well that the funding does not exist to run the line underground the whole way, and that if it is not built as surface rail in certain neighborhoods, the project will die. So what are they really protesting against? They don’t want the poorer (and blacker, for that matter) residents of West Baltimore neighborhoods having access to their neighborhoods. Disgusting. Like I said before, dragging their suburban values onto the city.
While things are obviously getting better, it’s still a sad state of affairs in Urban America. We should feel blessed for the small amount of relatively functional cities that we still have (i.e. New York, Boston, etc.).
https://www.streetsblog.org/2010/01/20/how-can-we-foster-zero-car-households/oldId.2010012104585596