Lessons from my year without a car

A 22-minute ride to Iowa City seems like cheating. Here you are, scrolling through Facebook updates and sipping coffee. 'Jeesh,” you think, 'to drive today, what a nightmare.” Blink. You regain your focus from the momentary daydream. Instead, it is a lovely spring day, and to your right, through the passenger window, there's a new development of single-family homes. The dozens of houses sit amid a construction site prepping for hundreds more. You sigh because that used to be a pasture and cornfield, a verdant expanse that gave you pleasure as you sped by.

You have the time to dwell on the scene because you are stuck in traffic, again. The six lanes that were promised to make I-380 an easier commute have just made it a bigger parking lot. You spent $170 million in tax dollars for what?

Rumors of Internet-based work notwithstanding, to live and work in our modern world means commuting. It is necessary and unavoidable. To be sure, Iowa does not have the traffic problems of Chicago or Atlanta. But if your commute is aggravated by delays and frustration, then that's bad enough.

According to the D.O.T., $380 million was wasted last year in Corridor traffic delays.

Gazette reporting within the last year detailed the struggles of corridor travel and potential solutions - the practical and the dreams. One challenge has been to reconcile our love of individual travel by car with its high costs for ourselves and our society. Norwegians struggle with these issues too, but while their starting point was a little similar, their solutions have been quite different.

Like Iowa, Norway had no auto industry and produced no oil. Any money spent on cars was a real loss of money from the small nation. As a matter of self-defense, the government discouraged consumption through high taxes. In its place, Norway, like most European nations, developed meaningful and dignified public transportation systems for cities and towns alike.

Which brings us back to I-380 as the case study for our traffic woes. Dallas-Fort Worth is a single community, formerly separate cities, now cemented by an interstate highway. The communities grew up and grew together so that the highway is more like an alley. Marion and Cedar Rapids were once distinct towns with a meeting point at the hamlet of Kenwood. A similar convergence of Iowa City and Cedar Rapids is a reasonable prediction.

No, building more lanes and more exchanges will never solve the problem of traffic congestion. It didn't work in Los Angeles and they aren't even bothering to try in Norway. Many Iowans dream of high-speed commuter rail, yet many also think it's too expensive. The status quo is unacceptable and the future seems confusing, what to do? We could borrow from the Norwegians ways to address the immediate and long-term issues of our travel.

Expand the shoulder on I-380 to facilitate a bus-only lane as an immediate treatment. At a fraction of the cost of additional lanes, a bus lane would guarantee a travel time to intercity commuters. Economics loves predictability. A consistent arrival time would be the reward for selecting public transportation, as well as a rolling advertisement for mass transit as the bus cruises past cars caught in the stop-and-go. Additionally we ought to plan for the future for when personal car energy costs are too high.

Our need will soon match our desire for a commuter train. Therefore, reserving the route and sites for stations are the most responsible acts we can do so at least future generations will be able to fairly make that choice. A recent study estimated $250-500 million to make a commuter rail using the CRANDIC line. Remember, the previously mentioned costs totaled $550 million, a commuter rail sounds reasonable in that light.

The future of travel will be electric, especially mass-transit. Today, Norway is a nation blessed by oil wealth, but using cars still is expensive. They know the fossil-fuel days will end but their hydroelectric power will endure. Thinking past the time of cheap carbon, the Norwegians have invested heavily in the long-term infrastructure to guarantee a functional transportation system. Norwegian trains and city rail service is almost exclusively electric. Buses increasingly are hybrids or all electric. Development of residential and commercial areas have to reserve land for connections to the mass transit system.

Bicycle and pedestrian roads are common and increasing. If you think it's odd for such a northern land to spend and plan heartily for bicycle traffic, then remember the number one bicycle commuter city in America is Minneapolis. Did I mention the Norwegians have world-class health and longevity?

Iowa has no fossil fuels but we can make electricity. We are the seventh-windiest state and currently number two in wind-based electrical generation. Thirty percent of Iowa's electricity comes from wind. Along with untapped solar potential, we can harvest our own energy, like Norway, toward other forms of independence.

My year in Norway without a car has been an eye-opening and refreshing way to live. My life and work has depended on public transportation. To date I have ridden by city and regional transit over 4,200 kilometers on buses and 4,600 km by rail. I look forward to the freedom my car will give me back in Iowa, but I will miss the choice of letting someone else drive. Oslo is a vibrant 21st Century city, but you don't need a car to live an equally vibrant life.

' John Lawrence Hanson, Ed.D., is a teacher at Linn-Mar High School on a Fulbright Scholarship in Norway for the academic year. He blogs about his experience at johnlhanson.wordpress.com