Try to imagine Harvest Homecoming if 95% of visitors DIDN'T drive to it -- or, "Why Public Transportation Works Better Outside the U.S."

Here's something else I've been saying ever since I began visiting Europe regularly. As Jeff Gillenwater notes:

This. Until we have local leadership that recognizes and begins implementing transportation models found elsewhere, the U.S. will fall further and further behind financially, environmentally, and socially. There’s no viable, public serving reason not to do this. It’s a huge, every day social justice issue.

The problem with squeezing tens of thousands of humans into downtown New Albany for Harvest Homecoming is that virtually all of them come by car. Granted, car-pooling is more common during such a festival. But the temporary warehousing of cars is the challenge. Just imagine if there were alternatives.

Jeff mentioned local leadership.

I suppose that's a bigger problem.

Do we have any?

Why Public Transportation Works Better Outside the U.S., by Jonathan English (CityLab)

The widespread failure of American mass transit is usually blamed on cheap gas and suburban sprawl. But the full story of why other countries succeed is more complicated.

... How did transit become such an afterthought in Americans’ transportation habits? I addressed that question in detail in an earlier CityLab piece. But to briefly summarize: Transit everywhere suffered serious declines in the postwar years, the cost of cars dropped and new expressways linked cities and fast-growing suburbs. That article pointed to a key problem: The limited transit service available in most American cities means that demand will never materialize—not without some fundamental changes ...

Because it's relatively simple.

 ... The key to great transit service is not about getting 100 percent of people to ride transit for 100 percent of trips. It’s about giving people a viable choice of getting around without needing to drive.

Figuring out how to improve transit isn’t like curing cancer or inventing a quantum computer, either. There are good, viable models of transit systems that already exist in cities that look a lot like U.S ones. They are successful both at attracting riders and at being financially viable, from places that have more in common with American cities than one might expect.

In conclusion:

In some ways, the story of American transit is not so unique. Europeans and Canadians also like to drive. Their countries have also built big expressway networks. The difference is more basic, yet profound: When transit service isn’t good, few will choose to use it.

Fortunately, improving American transit doesn’t necessarily demand multi-decade, hundred-billion-dollar infrastructure projects: It can be done by better advantage of existing space and existing vehicles, and then deploying them in ways that encourage people to actually use them.

Gary Younge: "Black skin in a game where the odds are stacked against it."

I'm sad to see Gary Younge move back to the UK. For as long as I can recall reading The Guardian on line, his byline has been an indication of depth and quality.

Younge's farewell is not easy reading.

However, it is required reading.

Gary Younge: Farewell to America at The Guardian

... This is the summer I will leave America, after 12 years as a foreign correspondent, and return to London. My decision to come back to Britain was prompted by banal, personal factors that have nothing to do with current events; if my aim was to escape aggressive policing and racial disadvantage, I would not be heading to Hackney.

But while the events of the last few years did not prompt the decision to come back, they do make me relieved that the decision had already been made. It is why I have not once had second thoughts. If I had to pick a summer to leave, this would be the one. Another season of black parents grieving, police chiefs explaining and clueless anchors opining. Another season when America has to be reminded that black lives matter because black deaths at the hands of the state have been accepted as routine for so long. A summer ripe for rage.

Perhaps moving to Germany really WOULD be the best idea.

How would this read if reversed?

"Nine German habits I lost when I moved to America."

I've been to Europe often during the past three decades, and yet I'm keenly aware that culturally, I'm inexorably American, and probably always will be so.

It was explained to me many years ago that even as the world grows smaller, and all the people walking past on a European sidewalk tend to be dressed alike, as multinational fashion ordains, the Americans still stand out -- by the way we walk. It was offered as a back-handed compliment only.

And so, if we're complete strangers and you don't acknowledge me as we pass on the sidewalk, that's okay.

Nine American habits I lost when I moved to Germany, by Vanessa Van Doren (Matador Network)

6. Frenetic pace / work above all
Moving to Germany meant an inexorable slowing of the pace of my life. Particularly in Saxony, there are strict rules about when stores can remain open. Most businesses are closed in the evenings and all day on Sunday. Additionally, Germans benefit from frequent holidays and typically at least a month of paid vacation.

This gave me some anxiety at first, particularly when I forgot to leave work early enough to get groceries or didn’t have time to go to the bank. Over time, however, I learned to both plan my days and to enjoy the break from chores rather than obsessing over lost time. After a few months, I was occasionally leaving work at 3pm to go watch the football game with friends instead of trying to cram in a few more hours of work. I still got as much done as usual, but I felt much happier and less burned out.

"An Intervention from Your Continental BFF."

America, But Better: The Canada Party Manifesto, by Chris Cannon and Brian Calvert

@TheCanadaParty On Twitter

Thanks to RS for the lead.