Decatur is too car-centric

 Today, Monday, February 2nd, I went to a city council meeting here in Decatur, where I live. I had prepared a two-and-a-half to three-minute speech where I would ask the city council to consider more infrastructure development, as they allow citizens to speak for about three minutes at a time at these meetings. Since moving to Decatur, I have been concerned that, unlike in Chicago, Decatur has no bike lanes and no easy way for pedestrians to get around, especially in certain areas that connect parts of the city to one another. In Chicago, there are so many ways to get around. I didn’t own a car until I was 40, when the pandemic hit. I left shortly thereafter. Decatur seems very car-oriented, and no one seems to question this state of affairs.

When I arrived at the city council meeting, there was a line of people ready to speak to the city council on a controversial project in the city, which I was unaware of until today. There were people standing in the meeting hall. I couldn’t get past because there was no room. The meeting was being broadcast on a live feed, and a lot of people who were outside, like me, had the live feed of the meeting on their phones. I listened to and watched it on my phone too. I heard person after person speak for or against this project. Some people were concerned about the possible negative effects that this newly proposed cogeneration plant at the ADM plant would have on the residents of this city, on the water supply (Lake Decatur), and on the environment. They were concerned that the positive economic impact wasn’t enough to offset the negative effects of the new facility. There were also business and economic interests there who spoke and propped up the economic benefits of the new proposed plant. They mentioned jobs and tax revenue.

I was there to speak about my concerns regarding how car-oriented this city is and how we need to consider people who are not able to own a vehicle and try to make the city more accessible in general. I felt a little like my topic wouldn’t be relevant.

A little while ago, my nephew, who lives with me and does not own a car or have a driver’s license, had a job at Kroger, which is walking distance from where we live in the South Shores neighborhood of Decatur. It was very convenient for him to work there. He told me about his experiences walking to and from work. On snowy days, because the city doesn’t clean up main sidewalks, he said he had to “play frogger,” walking on the roads and then jumping back on the snow-covered sidewalks to avoid getting hit by cars. He also told me that he had a colleague at Kroger who would regularly walk across a main bridge (on Business Route 51) where there is no pedestrian walkway and where it is very unsafe to cross, just to get to and from work. On nights when the weather was too bad, he would call off work just because it would be even more dangerous to cross that bridge on those days. My nephew told me this colleague had to brave walking across that bridge to get home at night because buses in the city only run until 8 p.m.

Recently, the city implemented a new rideshare program called Decatur Moves. It is a very affordable rideshare system that only costs $2 per ride. That has been a saving grace for a lot of people in the city. Decatur Moves functions all over Macon County and is wheelchair accessible. However, Decatur Moves is a service that stops at 8 p.m., leaving shift workers, like my nephew’s colleague, to fend for themselves.

A few years ago, when I did Uber and Lyft for supplemental income, I recall picking people up from work in the Mount Zion business area of Decatur. They lived in the more low-income center of the city, but they got off late at night from their jobs at the fast food restaurants in that area with no pedestrian access and had no other way to get home than to pay anywhere from $12–$18 (or more!) for a ride. A fast food employee doesn’t make more than about $15 an hour, if that, so for someone to devote an entire hour to an hour and a half of their six- to eight-hour shift to getting home is a huge expense.

All of these experiences, as well as my own personal preference for bike riding and walking (the way I used to do in Chicago), made me very eager to go speak to the city council about these concerns. I am someone with privilege. I have a job that allows me to own a car and get around relatively easily, even during weather that would make it difficult to get around on foot or by bike. If I had an emergency, I could get an Uber or a Lyft. I have also ridden the bus on a few occasions here in Decatur. However, because there were so many people at the city council meeting today who were upset about the new proposal that the city council was supposed to vote on, I decided not to speak.

As I walked out, I thought to myself, “Maybe you could have added a little bit more somewhere in your speech about how the city needs to put terms on these projects and demand investment in infrastructure for these proposals to even be considered.” But it was just an esprit de l’escalier, a little too late. The city council had already moved on to talk about their agenda items as I walked out of the building.

This experience sparked something in me, though. One of our assignments in this class is to write a policy brief, and I have already started working on mine. It will be about this issue of helping people move through the city of Decatur with dignity, regardless of their ability to own a car or pay for expensive rideshare services later in the evening and at night. I intend to email it directly to the city council members. I also intend to come back to the next city council meeting to speak. Next time, I will be more prepared.

Why Public Transportation Should Be Everywhere

 Public Transportation is something that not a lot of people think twice about. Many not use it, or do not need it. For some, it’s just so easily accessible that they do not have to worry about finding transportation. Public transportation can be anything from public buses, scooters, or a bike sharing system to a system like SMART, a senior service healthcare van transport. According to the APTA (American Public Transportation Associations) 34 million times each day someone boards public transportation, and my town makes 0 contribution to that. I personally am from a small town outside of Springfield, called Petersburg (population approximately 2,225). In this small town, we have a doctor’s office, a grocery store, a few restaurants, and a Dollar General. It doesn’t seem like much, but when you are elderly, and have a hard time getting around, you may have difficulties getting to these places to meet your daily needs. The issue with having these stores sporadically around the town is this: how do people get to them if they do not have a car? 

Well, you might say “they can walk!” What do we do for these elderly people who cannot walk miles, let alone with their hands full of sacks of heavy groceries? Some of them have no family, have no neighbor relationships, have no way at ALL of transporting themselves around the town. This is where the bare minimum of providing transportation comes into play. Just because we are a small and rural community does not mean that we do not deserve the equal right to public transportation that the larger neighboring cities do. As someone from a small town, I ask you this: do you know someone who benefits from public transportation? If so, how would their lives be affected if it was simply 1) taken away without warning 2) not available all together?  

In addition to some sort of public transit provision for elderly residents of Petersburg to get around town, we also ought to consider regional transport lines, so that people in towns like Petersburg and Salisbury could get into Springfield, or persons from Springfield could come out to Petersburg, and then get back home later in the day. Years ago, before cars dominated, there were small regional inter-urban commuter lines for trains to move people between outlying small towns and the larger regional cities. We lack a small bus service to get people around the small towns of Havana, Kilbourne, Petersburg, Athens, Pleasant Plains, Greenview, and Mason City. Yet, car ownership is expensive. Estimates of the cost of owning a car range from $800 a month to $1,000 a month, after you consider the cost of insurance, annual repairs and maintenance, gas, tires, and the cost of paying off a car loan or saving money to purchase a car in the future. For retired or frail elderly in rural areas, and for low-income families looking for work, but hoping to remain in their small rural towns, a regular and dependable system of public transit to get them to centers of employment or get them around the resources of their small town could be an important service. It would make rural small town life more livable. 

Student suggests regular bus service between Petersburg and Springfield

 Dear Mayor Rich Snyder, 

My name is [student name] and I am a junior at the University of Illinois Springfield studying social work. I am from Petersburg, and I am very passionate about making the town a better community for everyone. There is an issue of public transportation in Petersburg, which I believe could be solved, and that would make the community a better place.  

Petersburg is about 23 miles from the main shopping areas of Springfield. However, for persons in Petersburg to get to the main AMC movie theater, the large grocery stores, or the downtown of Springfield, they must drive cars. A round-trip is typical 50 to 56 miles, and for cars with 25-28 miles per gallon, that’s two gallons, or about $8 in fuel costs for every trip into Springfield.  Older Petersburg residents who don’t see well at night or feel uncomfortable driving, and young persons who do not yet drive or cannot yet afford a car are also facing a difficulty getting to Springfield and back.  

A few ways that the public transportation issue could be solved in Peterburg include gaining Uber access, bus access, and making the senior transport (S.M.A.R.T) more accessible. 

Gaining Uber access is something that could simply be done, by a submission for drivers to travel to the area, or outside of the Springfield area.  Allowing Uber access into the small community that we live in would be beneficial for anyone who does not have daily transportation to work, whether that was in Springfield, Petersburg itself, or one of the surrounding towns. Allowing individuals to get to work every day would allow for them to save more money and potentially being able to purchase a vehicle of their own. 

Gaining bus access for residents of Petersburg would be beneficial for when a group of people need to go to the same place. For example, many people daily in Petersburg need to go to the grocery store, the dollar store, the doctor’s office, etc. If we had a few busses that ran a few times a day to these places, a lot of stress of having to find a ride would be taken off the Petersburg residents. Finally, making the S.M.A.R.T van more accessible for the senior citizens. Although it is based in Menard County, for Menard County residents, I personally have experienced many issues with them. I work at the doctor’s office in town, and there have been numerous times the van has not been on time, or has even forgotten their passengers at the office. Personally, I find this unacceptable and there needs to be something done about it in order to ensure these senior citizens are respectfully treated during their rides, that they do indeed pay for. 

I imagine two mid-sized busses capable of picking up and transporting persons in wheelchairs. Each would make four 100 minute runs between Petersburg and Springfield, allowing the driver a 20 minute break between each run for an eight-hour shift.  The busses would be spaced an hour apart, so that the first bus would leave Petersburg at 8, 10, noon, and 2. The second bus would be the evening bus, departing at 11, 1, 3, and 5. The busses would stop  in Petersburg at Countryside Estates, Senior Services at Sheridan and 6th, and Jackson and 6th.  It would stop in Salisbury, and then in Springfield at Harvest Market at White Oaks Plaza, the AMC theaters off Wabash, the Walmart Supercenter/Aldi/Target off Veterans Parkway, the downtown transport center at 11th and Adams, St. John’s Hospital, and Memorial Hospital, and then return to Petersburg.  

The first bus of the day: 8:00am departure from Countryside Estates, 8:06 departure from Jacksonville and 6th in Petersburg, 8:19 stop at Salisbury, 8:38 at Memorial Hospital, 8:43 at St. John’s Hospital, 8:47 at SMTD Transfer Center, 9:02 at White Oaks Plaza, 9:08 at AMC Classic Springfield 12, and a stop at the parking lot for Walmart, Aldi, and Target from 9:14 to 9:16. The bus would be back at Petersburg at 9:52, and then start again from Countryside Estates at 10:00. The last bus of the day would depart Springfield from the Walmart / Aldi / Target parking lot at 6:16pm. The bus could be free, to encourage use and discourage people from driving. After initial costs of purchasing the busses ($120,000), the city budget would need $14,000 for bus maintenance, $240,000 per year for salaries and benefits for three bus drivers, $10,000 per year for purchases of new busses and insurance, and $116,000 for fuel.  The city of Springfield or the Sangamon County government might each pay a portion of the $380,000 annual cost of running the busses, leaving the average cost to residents of Petersburg at about $100 per year per household.

Finally, I thank you for reading this letter and taking my thoughts into consideration. As a member of the small community, we live in, I think it is important that we take everyone’s interests seriously and into consideration. 

I like your idea. Our nation is too dependent on cars, and this limits the freedom of younger and older citizens. Springfield and Petersburg pay a lot to maintain their streets for private vehicles, and taking some of that money out from subsidizing car companies and private use of vehicles to support public transport appeals to me. I think a free regular shuttle with eight departures per day to Petersburg might also bring more tourists out to that town.  Perhaps the schedule could give a midday break for the drivers, allowing later busses so that people could have a dinner in either Petersburg or Springfield before catching a bus from one town to the other.  Advocating for public transit is an important way to ameliorate carbon emissions and global warming.