People Without Cars

Photograph by Brandon T. Bisceglia.

During the first week of February, reporters from the Connecticut Post wrote about their adventures as they tried to get from assignment to assignment without their cars, placing them at the mercy of the area’s disjointed public transportation system.

I sent the following letter to the editor, which the newspaper published, in response to their stories:

Hats off to the Connecticut Post reporters who spent this week attempting to get around without a car while sharing their observations.

If they had done this project last year, they would have encountered a glaring display of the preference our society gives to automobiles.

Several days after one of the heavy snowstorms, I tried walking down the Boston Post Road in Fairfield to the public library. At every juncture where the sidewalk met a parking lot or road, I encountered colossal mountains of snow, sometimes higher than myself.

These piles were not the product of lax shoveling. The snow had been piled directly into the path of pedestrians to make space for other people to drive and park.

I’m young and healthy, and managed to scale the slippery peaks with some effort. Had I been older or disabled in some fashion, however, I cannot imagine having gotten very far.

This experience wasn’t a fluke. Many bus stops and pathways all over the area are rarely cleared, even when the snow is merely ankle-deep.

It’s hard to avoid the impression that these practices send a clear message: if you’re too poor to own a car, cannot drive for some reason, or choose not to, then you don’t matter as much as the people who have vehicles.

That’s the wrong message for an age in which we need to learn the value of alternative modes of transportation – even if, as I am, you’re among those privileged enough to own a car.