There’s a good chance you’re sitting down to read this, comfortably seated at work or home. If it’s the beginning of your day and you haven’t left home yet, you may be wondering about traffic, or whether or not the bus or train will be on time, or when the city is going to finally fill that pothole in the middle of your street.
Let’s face it: getting from point A to point B isn’t always easy. Or fast. Or convenient. Or green. Think about how often we gripe about getting to where we need to go, whether it’s commuting to work, running to the grocery store, or driving to your kid’s T-ball game. Transportation can be a real bitch.
GOOD HQ is in Los Angeles, which recently reclaimed the honor of being named the worst city for traffic in the U.S. You can imagine the conversations by our water cooler. We started to talk about transportation in our city and then other places—and then other countries. We’ve decided to put our attention to the issue of Transportation for the month of May.
Back to bitching about traffic for a minute. Here at GOOD HQ, many of us drive to work and some of us face daunting commutes. Some carpool. Some commute by bike, others by bus, and we have at least one walker. Traffic is just one of the transportation gripes we hear. Others: No sidewalks. Potholes. Texting and driving. Overcrowded subways and buses. Unreliable train schedules. Too few bike lanes. Drivers who run red lights and stop signs. Cabs and pedestrians who stop in bike lanes. The pointlessness of street cleaning. Road rage. Out-of-control horn-honking. Roads closed for repair during rush hour or the weekend.
So we started to talk about emerging solutions to our transportation woes. We face different challenges in different parts of the country—and the world—but we can all agree that something needs to be done. We asked our community members on Twitter what one improvement would make transportation easier for them and heard a range of responses. From @marci_gibbel: wider bike lanes. From @wllmwllm: good and clean pedestrian walks. From @mcucci: a jetpack.
While we’re not sure the jetpack is a viable option—at least in the foreseeable future—we do know amazing people, businesses, and organizations are working to transform the transportation landscape.
On GOOD.is in May, we will bring you inspiring stories about those road warriors making transportation easier, safer, cheaper, and sometimes more fun. Our goal is to shine a light on their innovative efforts to inspire action in others. We are also going to offer daily and weekly challenges: take public transportation more, bike and walk more, get a reusable travel mug (enough with trashing those paper cups!), stop texting and driving. To cap off the month, we’ll empower you to take action with our Fix Your Street Challenge. Join the conversation at our Transportation hub page—we want to hear from you.
Transportation options are largely dependent on where we live—and so are the challenges. Our goal is to inspire action in solving them and to make our experiences on the road better. Come back daily to find out about what’s being done, what you can do, and join the conversation by sharing your own posts (tag them “Transportation”).
Illustration by Kate Slovin
Join us for our Fix Your Street Challenge on the last Saturday of May. Click here to say you’ll Do It and be sure to share stories of transportation innovation all month.
Join us for our Fix Your Street Challenge on the last Saturday of May. Click here to say you’ll Do It and be sure to share stories of transportation innovation all month.
