Opinion: We need less car dependent communities, says Morristown man

To the Editor:

We know how much gas costs and we know how much we’d like it to cost, but I don’t often hear anyone asking, “How much should gas cost?” And by “should,” I don’t just mean economically, but socially and ethically.

Nobody likes paying $4 a gallon for gas. We’d all prefer paying $2 or less. But would that be a good thing? Do we want people driving more than they do and burning more fossil fuels? And cars don’t just pollute the air with carbon emissions. Even if we could all drive electric cars and even if the E car market wasn’t dominated by a megalomaniacal real life Bond villain who unfortunately came back to earth after visiting space, cars themselves would still have negative social, cultural, and ethical implications.

Thousands of Americans die in car accidents every year. To accommodate our overabundance of cars, our cities are less pedestrian friendly. Each freeway bisecting a community irreparably separates neighborhoods. Every time a giant parking lot is paved, that’s space not being used for a farmer’s market or a pedestrian street with cafes and pubs and shops. The ubiquity of cars is why century old picturesque ballparks like Fenway and Wrigley in walkable downtown neighborhoods have been replaced by sterile stadiums in suburbs surrounded by parking lots. The old downtown marketplace has moved aside for Dollar Generals and Walmarts with parking lots that make walking difficult even for those living nearby.

We need high density communities that are less car dependent. Places with affordable multi-family units where people live near their neighbors and can walk to the market. But sadly, wealthier suburban yahoos don’t want poorer people living near them. They are NIMBYists pushing single family zoning that spreads people out and keeps housing prices high. Heaven forbid their precious Connor and Maddie have to share schools with poor kids.

Our NIMBY (“not in my backyard”) overlords, with their tacky strip malls and soulless sidewalk free suburban single-family houses, want expensive homes and cheap gas. But what America really needs is the opposite. We should look to Europe and its excellent train systems and public transport and walkable cities. Quaint train stations and cobblestone streets and bicycle paths are much more environmentally friendly and better for actual sociocultural human connections than oversized highways with oversized pickup trucks.

Sean Pidgeon
Morristown