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Examining America’s Public Transportation By Mitchell Nazareth ’2 In America, public transportation is the backbone of the population, as it is responsible for transporting many people both inside and outside of major cities. Without public transportation, there is no basis or expectation for the movement of the American people throughout individual states, and the country as a whole. Although this is such an integral part of the American experience, public transportation has been disregarded as a result of rising car infrastructure, and an influx in suburban planning, wreaking havoc on the planning and execution of public transportation. Despite this disregard, public transportation has come back as a way to resolve many of the issues regarding transportation’s effectiveness, and emissions, as climate change becomes an increasingly important factor in deciding how people move around the globe. Because of this, it is important to be informed about why public transportation is so important, what caused it to fall out of the spotlight, and what changes can be made to better our environment, and citizens. Suburban planning and car infrastructure is the number one destroyer of public transportation in the United States of America. This is evident as it is found that over ninety-five percent of American households own a car, and over eighty percent use their car to commute to work, as reported in 2010 by the article “Does Everybody Own a Car?” by Robert Chase. This number can be quite staggering, as it is one of the highest in developed nations around the globe, especially when compared to nations with strong public transportation, like Japan, Germany, Korea, and Norway. Cars becoming so widely available in the United States may sound excellent for the American economy, as it means more people making large financial investments, but the reason for these investments may cause turbulence in that train of thought. Currently, more Americans are invested in cars than ever before, especially as advancements in electric cars are on the rise. However, this interest in cars dates back to the creation of the United States suburbs. Suburbs began after World War II, when Americans wanted to move out from urban inner city apartments into sprawling homes, with large and winding streets lined with single family homes, a backyard, and a family. The American dream was finally attainable for working class white families, who moved into the suburbs in flocks, only going back into the crowded city to work or buy necessities. Cars allowed people to live wherever they pleased, and as a result, roads were paved and homes were built with the expectation that everyone living inside them would have a car. However, this notion has become increasingly false. Cars have an undeniable effect on the planet and its temperature, as they directly spew carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing heat to be retained in the Earth's atmosphere. This change in temperature has been observed and marked by NASA, in their long running article “Global Temperature,” which gives accurate data regarding the recent heating of the Earth. This article shows a large increase in temperature readings since the 1880s, showing the result of industrial expansion, and includes an extreme spike from the late 1940s that was previously never apparent. This spike
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can be partly attributed to the expansion of car culture and increasing development of the United States,