Why Multimodal Transport is So Vital to Community

American community has been negatively impacted due to our reliance on the vehicle. This is a pointed and loaded statement for many Americans, especially in our rural context, as the vehicle is such a point of identity for us and is deeply rooted in our culture. The rise of the vehicle in the twentieth century created a new community typology outside of urban areas with the suburb, and this has its own set of issues for the decline of the city and the problems that arise in suburbia. This, however, is not where I wish to focus this discussion. I want to talk about the way that the vehicle has had detriment to an unexpected area, the rural townships that are scattered in all of the forgotten connective tissue of the nation. 

Yes, the vehicle allows for those who live on farmland far away from the nearest neighbor to be able to drive into "town centers" (a term that is used loosely in many of these contexts), but what awaits them in these areas? Often they are met with a condition of many strips of poorly constructed development with too-large parking lots with no greening or attention to how to move the person from one area of town to the next. Rather, focus is put on how to efficiently move the person out of their car, into the store, and back into their car to drive to the next too-large parking lot, into the next store, and on and on and on and on. This kills the idealistic encounter with a friendly face or striking up of a conversation while walking to a similar destination. It does not allow for fresh air and slow experience of any beautified spaces, and it dissuades the development of our towns from bringing these sort of design moments into our communities in the first place. It is lot, after lot, after lot, after lot.

We are also a context that could use this sort of ideological shift leading to infrastructural shift for the health of our citizens. We, in the rural South, are stereotypically the most obese and physically disabled Populus in the country. Planning and cultural shifts to not rely strictly on the vehicle can begin to cause many of our people who would only drive where they need to go to begin to take active transportation for utilitarian purposes. Need to go get groceries? Grab a tote bag and walk to the store, or at the very least to the nearest hub for public transit. Need to go see a friend or colleague? Each walk to the nearest greened area and meet outside. These are somehow radical ideologies in the South. If we begin to take active transit seriously, we could begin to right the physical and mental wrong done to our community members done to us by the cultural ideology to drive everywhere and remain as sedentary as possible.

We need not even adopt tenets of New Urbanism or any pedestrian centric strategy in its entirety. Just providing accessible and semi-well maintained sidewalks, bike lanes, and park spaces within the rural community could be a massive first step in this positive change. Walkable cities are happier, healthier, and more connected. Wouldn't it be beautiful to implement some of that change in our (those of us from small rural towns) hometowns? 

Links to consider

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/2/17/walkable-check-urban-check-rural-also-check

https://www.walkscore.com/cities-and-neighborhoods/

https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/8a3404d7b7f84fa9ae9304f198dd3b01