Teach your children well...
… about modal travel. It's a simple concept but not always easy to engage. But here's something you can do with your family that will serve them and serve the planet.
Modal travel is simply a definition of how we get around. Each method of mobility is a defined mode. The trick to learn is to choose your mode based on need, for every trip, every day. And that’s the subtle but effective way to revolutionize the current system and help create a better world.
DEAR READERS: If you’re here for the food, wine, travel and comedy - do not be alarmed. It will be back. Meanwhile, manifest or something.
You can choose to be a multi-modal household. And towards the end of this piece I’ll tell you about a ‘hack’ that could make or break the prospect of being multi modal for entire communities.
I’ve been having some difficulty trying to think about the best way to approach this. The last thing I want to do is come on too preachy or hectoring. Nobody wants a lecture about how to live their life better. Especially if it means personal sacrifice and a change in routine. A diatribe will make you tune out fast. So that’s not this.
At the same time, I don’t want to devalue this concept. I don’t want to fail to underscore the big impact mass adoption could have on our environments where we live, work and play. So I do want to emphasize that anything is better than nothing and starting yesterday would have been great but starting tomorrow is good too.
Maybe you’ve been hearing news about the climate changes and other environmental degradations that are occurring. It can be a bit much. It’s easy to get buried in bad news and disassociate from the world around you, never mind actually taking an active role in solutions.
But what if I told you there was a way to make an incremental difference, a positive contribution, every day?
Presently, if you live in north America or other first world economies, your automatic mode choice is most likely the private automobile for almost every trip outside the home. Whether it’s to the closest grocery store, across town or to the far side of the country; you grab the car keys and go. It’s almost a reflex reaction to stimulus. A journey must occur, the car must be driven. And to be clear, I’m not saying you can’t use a car for your daily travel needs. In fact, due to the design of our built world, a lot of us have to.
At this point, the alarms begin to go off and people start to get defensive. There’s apprehension: looks like I’m going to be a target for some social engineering. I’m ‘doing it wrong’ and I’m going to be told how to do it right. Well, relax. You can continue doing whatever you’re doing. Ignorance is bliss, the unexamined life, blah, blah, blah.
The last thing I want to do is tell people they HAVE to do this or HAVE to do that. This entire exercise is about awareness, learning and choice. It’s all optional and it’s definitely baby steps all the way.
Truly, there will be changes. And there has to be a desire to make that change. You can quickly blow it all off by dismissing the concept as unworkable or inapplicable or even ineffective. And for some, that will be case.
But for others: how does this work?
The first step is awareness. How many trips a week does your household make? Of the different modes for travel available in your community, how many are used? How does the mode of travel influence the expected result of the trip? Ask yourself any questions that help you define your transportation choices. Why do we behave in the way we do. You’re an anthropologist and the subject is you.
The next step is learning. I mean, really, learn what you want. But learn what the real cost of each of your mode choices are. Here’s an interesting bit from the UK about travel choices. And also learn about the benefits from each mode. Some of the values we associate with different travel modes are tangible. Time has great value, so does energy. Some are little more loosely defined and some are benefits to the community at large rather than your household.
The modes most people choose from are:
Walking - by far the most beneficial for the individual and the community. It’s kind of convoluted in the data used to make this determination, but a trip made by walking ends up having a net benefit to the community when factoring in accumulated health benefits, infrastructure wear and tear and a host of other variables. Of course, there are drawbacks and not everyone is capable of walking or is in situations where walking is a good idea.
I’m not here to insult anyone’s intelligence by trying to itemize every pro and con. Once you start your process of becoming multi modal, those disadvantages and advantages become glaringly obvious.
Biking - Almost as beneficial as walking, riding a bike to your destination gives you a greater range, a little more speed and a slightly different kind of health benefit. With or without electric assist, you can generally manage a bigger payload than walking and without as much effort.
Mass Transit - it’s a bus, a tram, subway or Monorail (Simpson’s gag)! Heavy on initial investment but, depending on your community, this may be the best way to get a lot of people going the same direction to where they want to be.
Car share - I can’t begin to describe all the different ways that a passenger car can be used that IS NOT a private vehicle owned and operated by one household. Car-share, co-ops, rentals, taxis, pools and a bunch of other configurations are great when you need a car to do the job or make the trip but don’t necessarily need to have one camped out on your street 24/7/365.
Personal Private Vehicle- We’re all familiar. We all know the advantages and some of us know the disadvantages. It is the first choice and also one of the most expensive options. Difficult to beat the convenience when you live 10 km up a country road and the weather is inclement. Tons of benefits, some astounding drawbacks.
And of course there’s more once we add in alternative transportation choices like mobility scooters, skateboards, scooters and the list goes on. Even helicopters if you’re pad-adjacent and well-heeled.
The Hack -
But the thing that really pulls it all together and what I alluded to in paragraph two, is the concept of regarding transportation not as a responsibility of the individual but as a function of the community. If we all get our water from the collective tap (except you there, up that 10 km country driveway), why do all our transportation systems demand competition between different modes of travel to accomplish one task: getting around?
Progressive jurisdictions are increasingly offering its citizens one stop shopping for transportation. Public AND private mobility operations are combined in one, collective effort to move people with choices that exist locally.
The technology these days - I don’t want to say ‘No brainer’ - is easily adapted so that an individual can use a single account to access taxis, busses, bike-share, car-share and more.
A portion of the account would be automatic, giving a base credit that would allow the least economically-endowed residents a ‘trip value’ on whatever secure identity device that’s used. Anyone could add to their account, giving them greater access and more often.
This is what takes modal choice to the next level and makes a community much more attractive.
Currently, in most situations, we’re willing participants in a system designed to profit from what should be a basic human right: the right to move. Until we redefine transportation, we’re going to increasingly be subject to forces that don’t have our best interests in mind. Taking your household multi-modal for its transportation needs may be the first step to better mobility.