Living in my area, homes are generally located in rural areas, but the nearest city is Erie, PA. Erie has a population of 100,000 people and many surrounding areas with different predominating methods of transportation. The city of Erie itself is almost exclusively traveled by cars. There are not many concentrated areas, necessitating some form of faster transportation. Very little infrastructure exists for biking or walking. Also, many neighborhoods are deemed dangerous, limiting people’s desire to travel in a more exposed form of transportation. Erie has many issues with storm water management and lack of greenspace. There is very little public transportation which also enforces the use of private vehicles instead of alternative methods of transportation. There are significant amounts of farmland around Erie so I do not believe that urban agriculture would be a good fit.
The first city that I saw in this lesson that could really lend some solutions for Erie was Copenhagen, Denmark. Once you get past the general problem of economic decay in Erie, much of the city could be much more easily navigated by bikes than by cars. Erie would need to implement bike paths similar to Copenhagen. The bike paths could replace space currently used by car traffic, but also there is surplus of roads, so bike lanes would not congest car traffic. Incentives like Copenhagen uses would be very beneficial. Many people in Erie are used to the ease of car travel, and the additional effort of bike travel would be an issue for some people. Erie is renowned for its miserable weather and snowfall; exceptional maintenance would be needed to keep bikes paths usable
The second city that has promising solutions for transportation in Erie is the Brazilian city of Curitiba. The implementation of an effective bus system in Erie seems much more doable than a similarly scaled train or subway system. The downtown area in Erie is small, so a bus system seems better suited to service both city and suburban districts. The current bus system is rarely used and very hard to catch most of the time. Also, a subway or train system would be hugely expensive to build. The current bus system would just have to be expanded instead. A lot of information would need to be collected in order to satisfy demand yet remain efficient.
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Your post stood out to me because you mention Erie being the nearest city. I attend Penn State Behrend so I have grown very familiar with the Erie area the past three years. I like the connection you made between Erie and Curitiba, Brazil. Erie has the bus system known as “The E” that runs almost every hour of the day. The bus system is convenient to students at Behrend who do not have a car so they can go into the city for a nice lunch or dinner, or even to the local mall. It certainly does not have as great of an impact on the community though as that of the bus system in Curitibia.
Hi Zachary. Your post caught my attention because I’ve been to Erie a few times and totally know what you mean about making it more pedestrian friendly. I also agree though that paths could be very difficult to maintain there as there is high annual snowfall and bad weather. I think if they focused on ways to make sure the paths were well maintained Erie would be a much more enjoyable city. Check out my post here: https://wp.me/p3RCAy-cqL