If you live in a city like New York, then chances are you don’t really have any major issues with getting around. After all, you’ve got the metro system right at your fingertips. It seems like most of the train stations are either within walking distance or are a short taxi cab ride away. If you work in the city, you can even bring your bike on the train and then bike to wherever you need to go- not too shabby, is it? Even the buses and taxis all seem to be efficient because they are plentiful and everything is usually not too far away. But what about the rest of us who don’t necessarily have the luxury of living in a metropolis like that?

Do you live in a town or city where it seems like there just aren’t any options available? Take the city of Raleigh, NC for example. Raleigh is the capital of North Carolina and is also part of the infamous “research triangle” which includes the bordering towns of Chapel Hill and Durham. In the past few years, this area of North Carolina has seen a huge influx of transplants from New York as well as other areas in the Northeastern part of the United States and elsewhere. And while it’s been great, it has also caused some problems such as suburban sprawl and increased traffic on the roadways. When 5:30pm hits on a weekday, you can almost certainly plan on sitting in traffic caused by bottlenecking. And now, with the gas crisis, increasing numbers of drivers are becoming frustrated because it seems like they have no other choice except to keep driving to work and paying high prices at the pump.

You see, while Raleigh has a system of buses in place to help transport people around as well as trains, the city is so big that even if bus schedules were changed so that they were more frequent, many people still wouldn’t see it as a viable option due to the large area that the city covers. After all, it takes almost an hour to get from one side of Raleigh to the other! Taxis are out there but are still not a great option for the same reason; it’s simply not cost or time effective. As for the railway systems, there is no metro system to really speak of. While Raleigh has Amtrack, there are no railways that are conducive to the traveling worker. Because so many people work and live in Raleigh, Cary, Chapel Hill and Durham, there was talk a few years ago about constructing a monorail system. However, at the time, it didn’t seem cost-effective. Perhaps now that gas prices are skyrocketing, the city will reconsider this as a great option.

Do you live in a city or town where there are similar problems with transportation? How were they resolved? We’d love to hear your advice or stories; Perhaps if we all put our heads together, we can come up with something!

Tags: Auto Transportation, alternative transportation // 2 Comments »