Poverty and public transportation

Poverty and public transportation: “If you miss your bus,” Ferrell repeated, “well, there’s an hour out of your day at best. But what if that makes you an hour late to work, or causes you to miss a doctor’s appointment or a meeting? What if it costs you the opportunity for a job? Or what if you just miss your bus and have to sit in the hot sun or the freezing cold or the pouring rain and wait an hour for the next one?

“If you’re a person of low income, or limited income, and you depend on the bus, that’s the world you live in. That’s the real world.”

A Typical Day Riding On a MATA Bus: OMG - is it far worse than a public transit system in a third-world country?

This following can be a typical day while riding on a MATA bus for many others and me. Yesterday, I was at the bus stop to catch the 4 bus at Lauderdale and Mississippi at 7:55 AM. The bus came late at 8:15, should have been there by 8:10. The bus was late to the terminal and I also missed the transfer over to the 53 Summer/ Binghamton bus for 8:27 and the next 53 usually comes late or not at all or I have to catch the 19 Valentine out to where I wanted to go and then walk several blocks to my destination. The good, timely trip is four hours long including wait time. However, on my way back to the starting point at 10:15 AM, the 53-summer bus passed right by me and several other riders so fast that we could not even tell who was driving the bus. We had to wait another hour for the next bus, which was also late. I arrived at the terminal at Noon and we asked the driver to stop the 4 bus and they ignored us. The 4 took off without us and the next one did not come until 12:37. The 5 U of M bus came so I got on it. It got me close enough to home to walk two long blocks home by 1:10 PM --- this was a 6 hour day with MATA to go do one simple thing --- return a package of socks to Ross - Oh and to go to the Kroger since I was out that way. It is just as hard for many people finding a job or keeping one while depending on MATA’s system. Perhaps, we need to scrap MATA and privatize our transit system here in Memphis, TN. Now before you begin to think of me as a common vagabond walking around with a backpack like on that show Kung Fu trying to resolve all our problems, I am not like that person. What I am is a Car-Free Citizen. I have been for several years by choice. And yes, I do know it all - simply because - I actually live the lifestyle that so many of you are only talking about in various community meetings and so far, many of you do not have one clue about how to be Car-Free in Memphis, Tennessee, especially with systems in place that do not work very well. That is why I started this blog carfreememphis.blogspot.com, to provide many of you with valid support that matters the most. It will save you from having to attend a lot of needless community meetings. I mean, why have ongoing community meetings about bike lanes, when the law already allows bike riders to ride down any street without these lanes at all. The lanes are already there, at least in our own minds because it is also pointed out this way in our Tennessee Drivers Manual. So painting bike lanes on the street should not take an act of congress or even asking a community's permission. The law is already on the side of painting those bike lanes. By the way - a group of baboons is called a congress. Yes, that is true, and even funny! But, how long are people going to keep laughing at Memphians for acting just like those baboons. It has been 20 years since we first had the funding of the DOT to do all of this and the powers-that-be here in Memphis refused to do hardly anything for us pedestrians. Now, they want us to have more meetings and do more community outreach, when it has already been done to death. Now they want us to redo these meetings with our unsuspecting young adults - how sad. You, younger folks may also have to wait another 20 to 40 years for your city to work well for you. And of course, it never will work at the rate it is going now. That is, unless you learn from my wisdom. If you do not learn anything, then you will grow older while wearing depends undergarments and as you soil yourselves at bus stops wishing you had listened to me. Meanwhile, other cities around the world will look futuristic and beyond your wildest dreams and also behind gated walls, while Memphis becomes a third-world stench. Now the third- world is not all that bad necessarily, I was having a long discussion, on that very same day, at the MATA terminal, with several older men from South Africa, a third world country, with first world aspirations. These guys insisted that over there, the public transit system is far superior to that of Memphis, despite the third world problems. I decided to find that out for myself and came across the following document: 26th Annual Southern African Transport Conference 2007: http://repository.up.ac.za/handle/2263/5868. There were other documents that I found, but this one seemed to be the most favorable, lacking having been there myself, and trusting these guys at their word, as they were complaining about MATA also, but still truly happy to be living in America. Once you begin reading up on such things, you will also begin to have a well researched opinion on local issues and develop a world view. 

Anyway - I love America! God bless America! God bless you!  

The Rise of Private 'Luxury' Mass Transit Buses - CityLab

This is a great idea. We should have a mass transit option for shopping with the ability to roll bikes and grocery carts and baby strollers under the bus. We should have Wi-Fi and restrooms and the ability to lay back and relax until we actually get to our final destination and all without having to look up from a good book to keep an eye out for our final stop or else we might pass it up. This type of system could have massive shelters and facilities along the major drop off points with plenty of space to spread out and wait for the return ride.



The Rise of Private 'Luxury' Mass Transit Buses - CityLab

Neyla Antonella Paracolli Walks A Car Free Street in Siegen, Germany

Over the past few days my friend,

 Neyla Paracolli, visited Siegen, Germany. 

I want to share one of her photo's that she sent me 

while walking down one of their Car-Free Friendly Streets. 

Neyla is also a singer-songwriter 

and here is some of her videos. 

Peace & Love 

  

Bogotá: Building A Sustainable City. Memphis Should Do the Same.

CARFREEMEMPHIS.COM? Develop Your Own Brand Name; Don't Steal It From Me!

Policy Analyst and Researcher and Blogger,
Car Free Memphis, since 2011

I was listening to an AM radio talk show host when the phrase “CAR FREE MEMPHIS.COM rolled from their lips.

And, there is to be a 30-day car-free challenge throughout the month of April.

I am happy about this event in the scheme of it all.

I thought they were talking about my own blog.

I even waited for my own name to be mentioned.

But, I was somewhat disillusioned that there was no such connection to my blog or me.

Perhaps they did this unconsciously and without the intent of causing any confusion between whom I am and whom they want to be like.

They obviously want to be like me, but they are not!

Perhaps, they are using the same words that I have used to make them look better, as it should be, because I have worked hard building up the brand name of Car Free Memphis.

I use this blog of mine to reach out to people and raise awareness from a real car-free citizen's point of view.

There are already thousands of car-free citizens in Memphis; it is just that the majority of them are now living in poverty and the powers-that-be does not truly care about them nearly as much as they say they do.

If the shoe fits, wear it!

The powers-that-be is more like poverty pimps, top-level professionals, always making promises they never intend to keep.

And, they prove that I am right consistently by cutting every budget possible, making peoples lives meaninglessly miserable.

The first thing they did was to cut jobs and sent those jobs overseas; then, they only offer our own citizens part time, low wage, temporary work with little or no health care coverage.

The powers-that-be has driven our citizens into deep poverty and onto the dole long-term and then they blame the victims!

Nonetheless, I still decided, after years of in-depth research and actually living car free, to start my own blog.

Here, I tell people snippets about my own story, but I also pick up on the insights of others based on their stories about being car-free citizens.

I go on and on about about this issue to everyone I meet, so much so, that other people told me to blog about it; then that’s what I decided to do.

I decided to call my own blog Car-Free Memphis and launched it in 2011.

Since then, Car-Free Memphis has provided the best information possible to its readers.

Therefore, I presume this makes me an expert.

In fact, I have been car-free for the past 13 years and I have earned a dual BA degree and an MPA despite all my ongoing struggles to do so.With that being said, let’s move forward with my ongoing complaints about how being CAR-FREE in Memphis, Tennessee, is HELL ON EARTH!

Now the powers-that-be prefers to be self–righteous and infiltrate every aspect of our lives; often saying that if we only love God more, then we will all be blessed with wealth beyond our wildest dreams, so long as we give every dime right back to the powers-that-be in one way or another – that is why church, the government, and corporations truly stick together folks - they all want a one-third cut of our pie and if there is one single micron of a crumb left over for us, we better not dare let them find out about it because they will find a way to get it even if it destroys us all.  

We should be questioning if we have a democracy anymore and if not, then perhaps an oligarchy.

Together, they share our wealth among themselves; they are the top 1%; the owners of production.

Talk about the franchising out the holy name of our GOD, not to save souls, but to make them richer.

Speaking of franchising, it seems like nearly every establishment one spends their money at these days goes right back into the hands of a few people who owns nearly 99.9% of every establishment.

These few business owners believe that their massive corporations are people and they can vote for every one of us; and in fact, we are their slaves these days.And how do they remind us of this fact and what is reminiscing of the slave trade? Slave Ships.

And what do many of the urban poor use as transportation these days? Public Transit.

The majority of my own blog readers ride a MATA bus for at least three and half hours both ways to get to a part-time, low wage job; and it is not just a simple short two-way trip up and down one street like Poplar Avenue with no transfers that takes a mere 30 to 60 minutes one way.

The stress of the long bus trips can break one’s spirit, just like slaves ships do.

Moreover, the majority of poor people, here, live in communities located in food deserts.

And going out to get groceries on a MATA bus can become a gruesome 7-hour round trip day.

So, the purpose of being car-free is not some nostalgic agenda whereby people have all decided to be car-free for the sake of recreation alone; it is a lifestyle that is actually forced on them with no adequate infrastructure whatsoever.

And, these car-free citizens have been doing it this way for decades.

Little or nothing is being done by the powers-that-be to make life any better.

For instance, every time car-free citizens step off of a curb here in Memphis to cross the street at a crosswalk, the walk signs, turn to don’t walk and citizens are nearly run over by impatient car drivers.

It forces people to jaywalk, and why not, if there is an equal or better chance of surviving if they do!

Have you ever tried to cross the street of Summer Avenue?

I have crossed that road and some people honk at me, curse me out, and have nearly run me over several times - that is just this week alone!

Read this article: The Invention of Jaywalking by Sarah Goodyear.

We need to rid ourselves of these jaywalking laws and/or put the burden of such laws onto motor vehicle drivers to watch out for car-free citizens at all times instead of limiting the movements of pedestrians to a slow crawl.

Until the lives of the most impoverished car-free citizens are better off, especially those who are disabled, it is not going to be any better for those people who are middle class or wealthy class whenever they want to become car-free.

To illustrate, try finding a restroom when your car-free in Memphis without soiling yourself first!

Imagine having the urge to go to the restroom while riding on a MATA bus; when it is bouncing up and down; when people are swaying back and forth onto you.

This only happens because many MATA buses are like raggedy old slave ships that can make most people seasick.

If one gets off the MATA bus just to use the restroom, the next bus may not be coming for another hour or more.

Hope to God you do not have friends and family members with you when this happens.

We are living in a city whereby the buses do not run every ten minutes like in other cities.

Here in Memphis, there is no real time GPS tracking system whereby the bus riders can know exactly where the bus is and when it is going to be at a preferred bus stop.

Instead, the bus riders have to wait out in the elements near the street where exhaust smoke is blown into their faces and road debris smothers them from head to toe for up to 20 minutes.

The powers-that-be will use the word GREEN to implicate a wholesome policy agenda and they are painting the whole town the color green it seems, but as for the saving our environment, there is nothing green about this situation at all because the fumes of Memphis spout up 7.8 metric tons of CO2 into the air every year.

So, if Memphis were actually living green, then people who come to visit us would be green with envy.

Our city is not on the green list folks, but it has made just about every shit list there is!

In fact, it has been deemed the asthma capital of the Mid-South; it is the bankruptcy capital; it’s the poverty capital; it is the crime capital; and I am talking about our people in leadership, not just the so called thugs on these streets; and moreover, it is the capital for poverty pimps.

The powers-that-be refuses neither to make adequate improvements, nor to completely replace whole systems with better ones, but they have continued to grow rich anyway, while the rest of us live pay check to pay check or on food stamps and welfare.Instead, they are paying the best writers to spin fairy tales about how green we are living. 

It is the biggest lie ever told, especially when the powers-that-be are cutting away at the very backbone of doing so, such as cutting public transit funding by at least four million dollars; and then, cutting back the services so much so that the whole system might as well be shut down at this point.

And why not shut it down if it is not going to work any better than it has for the past 30 years! 

At one point, the public transit system was boycotted because of who had the right to ride where on the bus based on racial issues; and now, the public transit system is boycotting all of its riders because they do not want to treat any of the bus riders with dignity regardless of their race.

Let’s just replace MATA and start over with brand new name and a brand new system based onhydrogen fuel cell technology, the bus drivers and passengers would be thrilled at how smoothly these buses ride.

Let’s have buses running east, west, north, and south on every major street 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, if it is necessary.

Let’s have bike lanes running the full length of all major streets, like the Union, Poplar, and Summer Avenues.

We can be a world-class city, but not without redesigning our entire city to be Car-Free friendly.

In a city like this, there would be adequate bus shelters, restrooms, bike shops and pit stops for resting weary bones whereby people are not treated like a vagabond.

There would be no vagabonds on our streets if the homeless were provided with homes, instead of treating them like common criminals or turning them into criminals.

Memphis is truly full of poverty pimps; and if these two words have the stinging power that I desire they will have; then please, please, please, feel free to steal them away from this blog – go post these words everywhere that you can.

In fact, use the words - poverty pimps - on every billboard across our city and tell them - clearly - to get the hell out of our city!

However, leave the words - CAR-FREE MEMPHIS - to me; it seems that I am the only policy expert that knows how to use them effectively; and, I am not about to apologize for it either.


PEACE & LOVE 

Passengers escape Madison Ave. trolley fire – Action News 5 – Memphis, Tennessee | Car Free Memphis

These old trolleys should have never come online. One can hardly board them if they are elderly and/or disabled, or if they have bags of groceries in their hands. These trolleys are extremely noisy, almost deafening. They hardly serve any practical purpose at all. Memphis nor the Downtown Area is hardly car-free friendly. There are far too many obstacles to dodge downtown, along with those trolley rails people have to cross over. A bike rider almost has to slow it down to the same speed of a walker these days, even get off the bike and push it due to all the bumps, one must endure. I remember when we all bicycled right down the center of Main Street; it was as smooth as silk without these trolley rails in the way. Today, only extreme caution allows one to cross over these rails or they will flip their bike over — I strongly suggest, then, that no one, and I mean no one, attempt to navigate any Memphis City street, main street or the Madison Trolley line with thin race bike tires. Only use a mountain bike with mountain bike tires and super heavy-duty rims. You may give up speed, but you will gain stability and can carry a lot of extra weight with much fatter or wider bike tires and the shocks will keep you from enduring every bump that you are bound to hit here in Memphis, Tennessee. Oh, and don’t put your new expensive bike on the front rack of a MATA bus; it will likely bounce off and get crushed by the bus. These buses, some of them, are as ragged as old slave ships; riding on one may make you seasick, especially if the air conditioning is not on and with windows bolted shut.







Passengers escape Madison Ave. trolley fire – Action News 5 – Memphis, Tennessee | Car Free Memphis

Unaffordable cities: this criminal lack of housing is a global scandal | Cities | theguardian.com

"More, young people tend to understand that new housing, well-built, can be a tremendous force for positive transformation. Built in sufficient amounts, new housing can check the rise in housing costs; but with good design, it can also help grow new people-centered streets, increase use of bikes and transit, and promote healthier and more active lives."

"Housing construction and more residents help the local economy and create far more jobs than subsidies for large corporations. More taxpayers help our cities balance their books though larger revenues and more efficient infrastructure. New housing is one of the few truly powerful tools citizens and local officials can actually make use of to improve our cities and the world."

"More housing can even help us meet the global climate crisis. We know that in compact and walkable communities, each person uses less energy (and thus emits less carbon dioxide) than a similar person in more spread-out areas. A planet of small ultra-rich cities and sprawling low-density slums will be a planet warming faster than a planet of dense, mixed-income, transit-friendly cities."

Click the following link to find out more:

Unaffordable cities: this criminal lack of housing is a global scandal | Cities | theguardian.com

Memphis Could Become A Car-Free Friendly City: An Analysis of Foote Homes Public Housing

Foot Homes public housing is touted as one of the poorest communities in the Mid-South region. 

The crime level has been tremendously high and the local public school system has given up their charter while some of the nearby schools have been shut down and/or they have been on the states failure list for several years. 

    

The residents are also going through a redesign planning process and this, too, has taken several years. 

And, the powers-that-be are still squabbling over whose plan for the Foote Homes is better; and regardless of who wins this battle, they are still waiting for the grant funding to help cover the cost of either improving or removing the community.  

And so far, the designs presented to the residents do not come close to rising above the high standards of a car-free friendly design.     

                  

And how sad this is for the Foote Homes residents, especially since few of them own a vehicle. 

Few of them have the financial means to acquire vehicles. 

Few of them maintains a vehicle long-term, even if they do get a job and a pay-as-you-go car, which usually gets towed away the second a weekly payment is missed.  

Perhaps all this is due to the ongoing plight of low wage temporary jobs that provide few benefits and/or lay the residents off every few days, weeks, or months and fires them on the spot because a public transit bus got them to work 20 minutes late. 

And then, these residents are right back on foods stamps and knowing that the man is not likely going to ever let them leave these housing projects. 

Housing projects are housing projects, even if they are designed to be nice and elegant.    

On the other hand, a car-free community design would provide The Foot Homes residents with a real means of meeting all of their essential needs within ten minutes of their home. 

More important, a car free community will allow for them to work from their homes or other nearby neighborhoods.   

A car-free community will remove this community from the grid because the community will be run off of solar and wind power. 

That means not dipping into the taxpayer’s pockets nearly as deep as they ever did before. 

The Vance Avenue Collaborative (VAC) organization is attempting to rescue the Foote Homes community through their Improve Do Not Remove agenda. 

Although it may be one of the superior design plans presented to the residents thus far, the VAC does not propose to resolve or reverse all of the major issues that car-free citizens suffer from the most, such as jaywalking.  

To illustrate, hardly anyone here in Memphis can cross our city streets safely at the corners because the cross-walk lights change over to don't walk as soon as pedestrians step off of the curbs; then some car drivers believe it is their right to nearly run pedestrians over if they do not get out of the way fast enough.  

In The Invention of Jaywalking written by Sarah Goodyear for the Commute section of The Atlantic Cities web site, Goodyear points out that jaywalking is a term well researched by one of her sources, Peter Norton, an assistant professor at the University of Virginia and the author of Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City:

• Our view of streets was systematically and deliberately shifted by the automobile  industry, as was the law itself.
• AAA and other auto clubs turned first to the younger generation, financing safety education programs in the public schools that were designed to teach children that streets are for cars, not for kids. They funded safety patrols that taught kids they had to stop for traffic, not the other way around.
• The [auto] industry lobbied to change the law, promoting the adoption of traffic statutes to supplant common law. The statutes were designed to restrict pedestrian use of the street and give primacy to cars. The idea of "jaywalking” – a concept that had not really existed prior to 1920 – was enshrined in law.

In light of Goodyear’s assessment, perhaps the VAC might reconsider adopting, marketing, and promoting a community plan that is also highly inclusive of a car-free agenda, such as using hand carts and utility bicycles to move some local freight around instead of massive trucks and selling some goods and services out on the open streets instead of in brick and mortar store fronts.   

At least the VAC plan does provide for a park like setting with greenway paths and some unique shopping strips for buying a loved one that special gift, but these pathways are more for recreation and tourism than for utilitarian purposes. 

Let's compare at least two car-free friendly models, so that you can fully understand what is meant by a car-free friendly design.     

For example, in one of my other blog post, Living Car Free In Memphis Tennessee, Vauban, Germany, serves as a perfectly good example of a community that is both utilitarian and recreational. 

Vauban started their walk-bike planning process during the early 1990s. 

Vauban's 5,000 residents have no driveways or car garages. All paths lead to essential shopping destinations and parks alike. Getting to all destinations is easy because the community is a highly condensed urban center. 

In Vauban, car-free citizens come from various economic backgrounds. It is a secure community economically, with mixed-use facilities and systems laid out for all citizens to enjoy.

More recently, Alex Davies presented his article, China Is Building A Huge Eco-City Where No One Will Need To Drive.  Davies states the following:

• Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture notes that "Chinese planning officials [are] beginning to see the effects of automobile-dependent design and are open to better alternatives to urban sprawl.
• Great City [will] provides residents with affordable housing, education, and medical care, all clustered in the city center to encourage a thriving civic life.

In truth, however, cars are going to be allowed, but are absolutely unnecessary according to the planners.

The city will house 80,000 people and should be completed within the next eight years.   

Our own city planners here in Memphis could learn much from the examples set here by Germany and China whose car-free cities will not likely have any jaywalking laws; and therefore, no jaywalking problems. 

In fact, Bobby Allyn’s article, Sprawling Memphis Aims to Be a Friendlier Place for Cyclists, helps to back up several points in the blog post, Living Car-Free in Memphis, Tennessee:

• Bike-friendly behavior has never come naturally to Memphis, which has long been among the country’s most perilous places for cyclists.
• Bicycling magazine named Memphis one of the worst cities in America for cyclists.
• Wanda Rushing, a professor at the University of Memphis and an expert on urban change in the South, said bike improvements were of a piece with a development model sweeping the region: bolstering transportation infrastructure and population density in the inner city. “Memphis is not alone in acknowledging that sprawl is not sustainable,” Dr. Rushing said. “Economic necessity is a pretty good melding substance.”

Despite some car-free friendly reservations concerning the VAC plan, at least the VAC is working with Memphis Area Transit Authority to improve the community. 

For instance, two MATA buses are being retrofitted to become mobile fresh fruit and vegetable vehicles that make pit stops in the food deserts of various poor communities. 

As if that is not enough, MATA is also implementing a Bus Rapid Transit GPS system on Poplar Avenue, which allows for their buses to signal the stoplights for priority green signals. 

This allows for MATA to shave 15 to 20 percent off of the time they are taking to pick up passengers in a timely fashion.

As extra funding comes online, MATA can expand this system. 

So why not add icing to this cake? 

For example, MATA should also provide their passengers with a real-time passenger information system, like Next Bus, so that the passengers can arrive at the bus stop within the same minute the bus does.  

In this way, prior to boarding the public bus, a passenger can choose to wait inside of their homes, or somewhere else that is nice and cozy with no pressures about hanging out in the open air at an unshielded bus stop for up to 20 minutes at a time. 

The icing is much cheaper than the cake!  

Of course, MATA will still need a few super sized bus shelters at major venues like the Wolf Chase Mall, The Bass Pro downtown and at every single grocery store along all main streets like Poplar Avenue and Union Avenue.    

Yes - Memphis could become a car-free friendly city. 

It is never too late for that!      

In closing, here is a video that provides shinning example of a car-free friendly city.  

Enjoy!

A hand delivered post card from the University of Catania, Sicily, Italy,
to my apartment by the beautiful Laura Saija,
and some of her students; and under her direction,
they have all come here to Memphis,Tennessee,
to work with the Vance Avenue Collaborative,
among other related things.     

The back side of post card by Laura Saija,
Friday, April 26, 2013.    

The beautiful Laura Saija, pictured to the right in the green jacket.

Not all of the students
are pictured here that came
 to my apratment with Laura,
but I did list a few of the student
names in the labels section.