My hometown is Blue Bell, PA which is located in southeast Pennsylvania, a little over 30 minutes outside of Philly. It is a small automobile suburb home to around only 6,000 people. It is rare to see people walking around and most people choose to drive. There is a bus system but it only goes through one part of town and I do not know anyone who uses it. It’s part of the Philly metropolitan area which has about 6,000,000 people. I have been connected to this town since I moved there when I was four years old. I think that it’s a great place to grow up and live in and it was even voted as of the best places to live in the United States by Money magazine.
The first city that I want to discuss is Copenhagen in Denmark. Copenhagen is nothing like my hometown of Blue Bell but I would like to see Blue Bell become more like Copenhagen in terms of transportation. Even though Blue Bell is not an urban town, I think that it could benefit from more public transportation. Sure, most people have vehicles but not everyone does. I like the idea of using bikes to get around instead of cars. Blue Bell doesn’t have any bike lanes on its roads and I have seen people resort to riding bikes on the road shoulders instead. If bike lanes were created on the main roads, I think it would help promote different modes of transportation. This different mode of transportation would help the town become more sustainable in the sense that it would help the environment.
The second city that I want to discuss is Curitiba in Brazil. Again, this city is nothing like my hometown but I think that my town could learn from it’s method of transportation. Blue Bell was designed with farmland in mind because it used to be mostly farmland. Everything is pretty spread out which is why people drive instead of walk. Because everything is spread out, I think Blue Bell could benefit from a more improved bus system. As far as I know, only one bus runs through town with a few stops in it. It definitely doesn’t cover the majority of neighborhoods which makes it useless for many people. I don’t think the roads should be redesigned with a new bus system in mind like Curitiba but I think that a better system could be effective. Like Copenhagen and cycling, this would help my town too in terms of the environment by cutting down on greenhouse gasses.
Hi Michael, my name is Devin, here is a link to my blog: http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/18/module-7-devin-walk/
My hometown also has a population of about 6000 people. I can say that adding transportation to your town will be very beneficial. It really helps to connect close towns and areas that have stores and such. The CATA buses don’t cover all the neighborhoods here, but then again most things are within a reasonable walking distance in Bellefonte. There are a fair number of cyclists that commute throughout Bellefonte too.
Hi Im Victoria! Our towns are very similar in the way that there isn’t that many people and a lot of people drive. You would think since everyone knows each other that they would at least be willing to reduce air pollution by car pooling with each other. However, in both are towns many people use cars. Copenhagen was also one city I thought about writing about because I really liked how they turned their city into one where they don’t need any cars.If we still wanted to use faster transportation even using buses like you mentioned would be a better idea.
Heres a link to my post http://geog030.dutton.psu.edu/2016/03/18/lets-turn-unsustainable-to-sustainable/