I live in Peters Township which is a suburb outside of Pittsburgh, PA. I have lived there since 2000. Located in Washington county, PA, Peters Township is a suburb that has been steadily growing over the years. A 2014 estimate states that the population was about 22,800 people (http://www.peterstownship.com/index.asp?Type=B_BASIC&SEC=%7B3EB7A31A-2E2E-4679-BED2-6E67D01FDA90%7D). With access to many main roads that lead right to Pittsburgh, it is a great place for people who work in the city to live and have a family. Peters does not have a lot of sidewalks, so people rarely walk to stores, but their is a trail that people can walk on to get around town. Cars are the main type of transportation and buses are used to take kids to and from school. So Peters Township would be classified as an automobile suburb according to the module. Because of its distance from Pittsburgh, Peters doesn’t have any direct bus routes that lead there. Instead, we can go o neighboring counties where there is a trolley system called the T. The T starts in Pittsburgh and branches out to many suburbs all around the city, allowing people to ride into work instead of taking their cars downtown.
While reading through the module, the streetcar suburbs of Boston’s Jamaica Plain caught my eye. This is very similar to the counties/ other school districts around Peters Township that have stops for the trolley that go into town. This leads to the town being a commuter city and allowing citizens to have easy access to the city. One of the closest T stops near my house is located in Allegheny county and is about a 10 minute drive from my house. By the T stop there are dozens of stores and parking lots that allow people to walk and shop or go downtown. Allegheny county is just like Jamaica Plain because it allows people to shop while they go to work or as they come home at night. Peters Township could take notes from these towns and try to reach a deal with the Port Authority (Company that controls the T) and try to get a T station that is in Peters. This would make it easier for people to commute and allow less car travel. The township could also give residents incentives to ride the trolley to decrease pollution. The more people do it, the less traffic there would be around town.
The second topic that I could compare my town to is the neighborhood from Rochester, NY. Just like this neighborhood, Peters is mostly an automobile suburb. Most places in Peters require a car to get to and this can sometimes be a hassle. My dad likes to talk about how the main places in Peters are set up as little shopping islands, where there are many clusters of stores all over town. They are all separated from each other. Just like the Rochester neighborhood, Peters has barely any sidewalks, so it is rare to see people walking in order to shop. Peters must take notes on how surrounding townships are able to institute sidewalks. One of our rival school districts, Mt. Lebanon, has a great system of sidewalks. If you ever go there, they have everything in walking distance of peoples’ homes. They don’t even have buses for kids to go to school because their sidewalk system works so well. If Peters is able to redevelop and put in more sidewalks or regroup the layout of the stores, we could be a lot more efficient. Peters could always borrow tactics from Curitiba, Brazil’s bus system. This could allow people to ride the bus to the trolley stations to get downtown. That way they wouldn’t have to drive at all, but instead just walk to a close bus station.
J.R. Brown
Hi! Im Chris and here is the link to my blog
http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/17/urban-planning-unit-7/
It sounds like the two areas that we live in are very similar to each other. I live only 20 minutes from New York City, and most people use cars to get around in my area too. My town does not have that many sidewalks either, which is another reason why people do not walk to places that much. There is no trolley in my town like you have, but we do have a few bus stops that people take to be transported around and to go into the city. Great post!
Hi my name is Johnna. I live in Robinson which is relatively close to where your from. Your idea on implementing more T stops is a great idea. I only live 10 minutes from the city, so a T stop would be vary convenient to get in and out of the city easily. More stops like you said would make it much easier for people to commute and lessen pollution.
You can read my post at: https://wp.me/p3RCAy-ccu