Area needs far more mass transit

Phil Shisbey Albemarle County
Published: June 9, 2008

The May 24 “What’s Next” blurb on the front page of The Daily Progress spoke about how commuters are “getting creative to save a buck” and that, to deal with the high price of gasoline, “a small but growing number of area residents are changing their commuting habits.”

What I want to know is: When are Charlottesville-Al-bemarle planners and elected officials going to “get creative,” change their planning and building habits and give us alternative transportation? Why is the only way to get anywhere by car? Why, even in the face of record high gas prices, is no one questioning our continuing exclusive in-vestment in new and im-proved roads?

Rail systems exist that could go a long way in ad-dressing both our energy and environmental crises, while additional roads do nothing to solve and may in-deed perpetuate these issues.

Let’s follow the suit of most European nations, which are far ahead of us in providing energy efficient commuter rail transportation networks. Un-like here, over there owning a car isn’t a necessity, because Europeans design and pack their cities around rail systems.

Unfortunately, our spread-out and sprawling cities will make it much more difficult to implement these energy-efficient systems and provide adequate service to everyone; but we have no choice. Energy costs are forcing our hand in the direction of highly efficient mass transit.
The most efficient transit systems are the electric rail solutions: maglev, light rail, monorail. It’s time for city councils, boards of supervisors, planners and citizens to “get creative” and build these modern transit networks and then begin building our communities around them.