- My city is Westfield, New Jersey. It is only thirty minutes outside New York City, and is an automobile suburb. The metropolitan area around my town consists of many of the suburbs of New York City, Jersey City, and Newark, which would be more than 10 million people. My town contributes close to 31,000 to that total. My town has a public high school, roads with sidewalks, and a train station to New York City. Overall, I believe I have really benefited from living close to various important cities, while having a small, town-like feel in my personal backyard. Westfield gave me a good public school setting, with small shops and restaurants, while having plenty ways to access larger cities. Many people in my town commute to nearby cities either by car or train, rarely ever by bus. My town does not have any open areas to grow crops, as most open spaces are built upon.
- Copenhagen offers many insights into how Westfield, NJ could be more sustainable. The transportation mode of using bikes is one of the largest ideas. In my town, many people commute to New York City by train, but end up driving to the train in cars. This creates a large amount of traffic, which wastes fuel as people sit still burning gasoline, as they drive to work and back. Instead, if there were more bicycles that rode to the train, air quality would improve as a result of less fossil fuels being burned by cars. It would also make the areas around schools less busy and dangerous for children. Students could also even start riding bikes to school, as almost half of high school juniors and seniors, 600 total, drive to school. 700 miles per gallon could be utilized if everyone cycled rather than driving. Once it begins, hopefully social norms will change and bikes will become part of daily, around town life.
- Curitiba in Brazil is another city that my town could learn from to become more sustainable. Besides the train station in my town, the rest of our public transportation is insignificant. The one bus line that I know of is very unreliable and there are always groups of people waiting for it to arrive, late as usual. Many of these people are trying to commute to New York City and for some reason do not take the train, possibly because of cost. If the bus system was redone, more people would ride the bus, instead of driving cars to the city. 330 miles per gallon per person is much more efficient than everyone driving their own cars. People would be saving money by riding the bus, and the air quality in my town would improve. Also, the bus company itself would be able to generate more revenue. While changing the social norm of riding the bus will be difficult, I think when people see the cheaper cost and ease they will change.
2 thoughts on “Module 7- How to Change Westfield”
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Hi Dhruv! I’m Eunice Lee majoring in Early Childhood Education. Your blog entry caught my attention because your city and my city holds similarities and significant differences. I think both of our cities are automobile suburbs but my city is also considered as pedestrian-oriented city. What is more, I thought it was interesting and enjoyed reading how you focused on transportation.I was also interest in transportation but I focused more on the urban agriculture because my city is well-developed for it. Seoul is located in South Korea and we have a very organized and clean environment in our public transportation. I think you should check it out!
Thank you for sharing and this is my blog entry : http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/17/module-7-urban-planning-7/
Hi Dhruv here is a link to my blog post https://wp.me/p3RCAy-c3i. I also live in a city suburb similar to yours. I discussed Copenhagen as well and I like how you talk about how the less cars there are will make the town less dangerous for children around the schools. I also like how you describe how a good bus system will be way better for the environment than everyone driving their own cars. A bus system like this could definitely work in my town as well.