If you want to see how badly car dependent policies have failed our community, pitting neighbor versus neighbor in a zero-sum battle over scarce resources, look no further than the 1061 Pleasant Street apartment proposal.
Listen to homeowners talking about the proposed modestly-sized apartment building, with just under one parking spot per unit, and you’d think barbarians were at the gate, ready to plunder their parking. It’s an understandable fear — our governments have cut transit to the bone and designed streets to literally marginalize people walking and biking. If you need to get to work, school, or a doctor’s appointment, there’s often no safe way to get around but inside a car.
So we travel long distances alone in our cars, walled off from our neighbors inside boxes of steel and glass, and come home to sit and stare at our phones loaded with apps that profit off stoking fear, anger, hatred, prejudice, and division. Is it any wonder some people now see new housing and new neighbors as Others, coming to take?
It doesn’t have to be this way — in fact, it wasn’t this way just 100 years ago. Historic photos of Purchase and Union Streets show a time when New Bedford residents didn’t need to own, maintain, and manage storage of a multi-ton vehicle — they could just hop on an electric trolley that took them wherever they needed to go. In fact, transit historians tell us Americans of that era could travel all the way from Waterville, Maine, to Sheboygan, Wisconsin — a journey of 1,000 miles — exclusively by connecting from one electric trolley to another.
And, unlike today’s commuters, they didn’t ride alone. They traveled with their neighbors, coworkers, bosses, and elected officials, from home to work to beaches, theaters, and music halls, and home again.
We’ve traded space for people to live and work for places to store cars.
Go back even further, looking at maps from the 1800s, and you’ll see little cartoon people walking in the middle of Union Street, with horse-drawn carriages trotting down Water Street where JFK Highway now stands. It’s harrowing to realize how many blocks of prime downtown real estate — entire neighborhoods filled with homes and businesses — were razed for JFK Highway (Route 18) and the sprawling Route 6 interchange, which have cut off New Bedford’s invaluable waterfront from the rest of the city.
And that leads us to the most eye-opening difference between New Bedford then and now. Despite neighbors’ claims that we “physically can’t support” more apartments, New Bedford was actually home to far more people 100 years ago, with a population of 121,217 in 1920, compared to just over 100,000 now. Where did all those homes go?
We’ve traded space for people to live and work for places to store cars. Huge chunks of our neighborhoods are now covered by parking lots, and our streets are lined with taxpayer subsidized car storage. Mayor Jon Mitchell and his Office of Housing & Community Development have made strides in addressing our housing shortage, but we’ll never build enough homes if government restrictions mandate builders to set aside 320 square feet per parking spot, whether residents want it or not.
Now, let’s be clear about what we are and aren’t talking about here. No one is telling you that you have to give up your car. But what about a couple where one partner works from home that could get by with one car — should our Zoning Boards force them to pay for a second parking spot they don’t need?
No one wants to plow under JFK Highway. But what about making it a boulevard safe for people walking and biking, as MassDOT is discussing?
No one is talking about reverting to a car-free Union Street (though it’s wonderful to watch hundreds of people enjoy the closed-street Summer Sound Series concerts), but what about protected bike lanes so people could safely bike from Buttonwood Park to the waterfront in less than 10 minutes, or to the new commuter rail station in less than 15 minutes?
Opening more avenues to live with less car dependency would benefit not just our community but our budgets. Between payments, insurance, repairs, and gas, it now costs over $1,000 a month to own a vehicle on average, according to AAA. Our government policies should make it easier for people to rid themselves of that financial anchor, not handcuff them to it.
All this is to say nothing of the massive benefits to our health, climate, and wildlife of fewer car trips.
The return of rail to New Bedford marks a golden opportunity to right some of the wrongs of 70 years of development focused on cars, not people. I hope our leaders take full advantage of this once in a lifetime chance to solve our housing crisis and build the community we deserve.
Miles Grant lives in Fairhaven.