For me, this meant a drastic change in my daily life. In Lüneburg, I am used to take my bike or walk, but in the States, I spent more time in cars, already within the first three weeks, than I did during the last 3 years back home. So, I asked the Morgan family how often they use a bike, car, train, or plane to get to places.

In order to understand their answers better, I should explain what the infrastructure around their neighborhood looks like. The Morgans live in a rather rural area of Gibsonia, a very small community in Richland Township, Allegheny County, with a population of 2,733. They live in a new housing plan with lots and lots of villas. There are sidewalks within their plan and a path to get to Carla’s school but there are neither bike lanes nor sidewalks outside of this small area. If they want to go shopping they have to drive 20 minutes by car to get to Cranberry. Here, you have to drive from one parking lot to the other because there are no sidewalks and even within one plaza you can’t always walk from store to store, safely. The only real public transportation available is the school bus system. Apart from that, there is only one bus station for travelling to Pittsburgh.

This week, I've included audio snippets from some parts of the interview.

Lea: How often do you travel by bike?

Carla (14): Never. But as a family we’ll go on bike rides. But not as a transportation, though, more as a trip.

Julia (12): I don’t like bikes.

Sophie (41):  Never. It’s not conducive* where we live. You can’t get anywhere. We are too rural. We just couldn’t do it. We couldn’t get anywhere fast. 

Bane (42): When I was a resident* in Pittsburgh for dental school, we would bike every day. I lived near the University of Pittsburgh, and we’d bike two or three miles to school every day, eleven months out of the year. But where we live, it’s just not there.

Lea: … and by car?

Julia: Every time. 

Bane: 99+%.

Sophie: Nothing is more than 20 minutes, though. 

»Americans are so dependent upon cars, because they're so independent. You want to go exactly now, where you wanna go, when you wanna go.«

Bane: For me, my furthest drive is 53 miles (85 kilometers) from my house. I don’t have access to public transportation to do it. So, I have to drive to it. The only thing we use public transportation-wise is the school bus. The other options are just not available to us. And it’s something we would try to use, but the other part to it is: Americans are so dependent upon cars, because they’re so independent. You want to go exactly now, where you wanna go, when you wanna go. Public transportation just wouldn’t work as well. I don’t know that it’s right but… 

Lea: … and by train?

Julia: Never ever. 

Carla: We’ve been on a train in Europe. We’ve been on a train a couple times but just as a fun thing to do. Whenever we were in Europe, that was the only time we used it as transportation.

Sophie:  Never. When we were in college, I’d take the train to visit Bane, between Pittsburgh and Baltimore. But again, the train is definitely not convenient* or cost effective. 

Bane: Other places commute*, closer to major metropolitan areas and the Northeast Corridor and Northeast Direct. That is a really big train path that goes from DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York, Boston. In that area, it’s used a lot. 

Sophie: But, again, from where we are, it’s not useful for us.

Passenger trains in North America. (photo credit: Jkan997/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

Lea: … and by plane? 

Carla: When you are going somewhere far away. We probably use the plane two or three times a year. Maybe more. With a round trip*, that’d be six times. 

Sophie: Maybe six times a year. 

Bane: Because of the way the country is set up that isn’t direct. 

Sophie: No, I meant times we get on a plane to go somewhere. 

Bane: I know. We travel a lot; so, six round trips is probably true. But the crappy* thing about it is: you are using more fuel sustainability-wise because you’re not on a direct flight. You may fly from Pittsburgh to Charlotte and then continue to Denver. It’s not the best, but post-9-11* there isn’t an empty airplane, anymore. Pre-9-11 you’d get on airplanes, and sometimes there’d be 30 people on there. Now, every seat is full, because there are so many additional security costs, post-9-11.

Sophie: We never had all that security. 

Bane: I flew back from Paris, by myself, in 1996, after I spent an extra week with my German host brother and his family. When I flew back, they questioned me at machine guns at the Paris airport, because I was a single guy flying back by myself. That was the first time I had actually seen security at an airport. In Pittsburgh, you went through a metal detector and kept on walking. That was it.

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