Many cities close down some major streets on Sundays so that people can enjoy the space for cycling, skating, walking, and playing. Sometimes we close down streets for festivals to allow music, food stalls, and games to replace congestion and honking. But what if people in the streets were the norm and we had to have an annual day of clogging up our streets with cars in order to remind ourselves of how life used to be? Just one day a year the streets of our cities would be full of cars stuck in traffic, blaring their horns, spewing out exhaust, and frustrating both the car passengers and everyone else. Then we would return to our daily existence of walking, cycling, public transit, and friendly, convivial, lively streets. Just a fantasy for now…but it helps to envision how much better our cities could be as we work towards achieving a better reality today.

Glancing at the map of stations on a Metro in New York City, I was alarmed not to find the stop I needed. Then I realized that the listed stops did not match where the train was going. This was rather alarming. On the way back from meetings, I had to add more money to my metro card, but it took going to three entrances to find a machine that would accept cash. As we work to change our cities to make them more conducive to active transport and to reduce car use, it helps to make it easy as well as safe and convenient for people to move about actively and via public transit. My public transit woes are a useful reminder to learn from the mistakes as well as successes of others.