Monday, June 7, 2010 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 15 Postcards from NJ BRUNO STORTINI E-MAIL BRUNOAT BRUNORS@UMICH.EDU. I'm beginning to feel home- sick already. Not homesick for Ann Arbor, where I spent the past year making some of the best friends I've ever made, but homesick for New Jersey, my home state and current place of residence. Even though sum- mer has only ANNA just begun, I'm PAONE already dread- ing going back to school in September. Sure, it'll be nice to see my friends again and be a pro-life scourge to the mass- es. But, for now, I'm really enjoy- ing blending into the crowd of my small suburb, spending lazy hours writing my novel and hanging out with my family, who are an excel- lent example of how people can love each other even when they have wildly divergent viewpoints. (Imagine living in "Family Ties.") My homesickness has con- tributed more than once to the thought of transferring. You can imagine the "Catholic indecision" that contributes to such impor- tant undertakings. First, you have to do the regular, secular thing: make your list of pros and cons, ponder it and talk to people. Then you have to do the Catholic thing: pray about it and bring it to Jesus. Then you think about it some more. The next day, you say, "Jesus, I really don't want to rush you, but realistically these schools have transfer deadlines." Finally, you pretend that you've already made your decision and see if that helps you envision what the right choice is. Then, if you make the wrong choice, you say, "God wanted me to make this mistake so I would have a life experience." I'm not even being that sar- castic. This is pretty much the thought process driving my recent decision to switch from a Biblical Studies concentration to a double major in English and Screen Arts and Cultures and stay at the Uni- versity, at least for now. The recent influx of New Jer- sey-themed television shows and seeing my Garden State friends have made me think about my home state in a new way. If you saw my last column, you know that I'm too busy obsessing over "24" to find time to watch "Jersey Shore" or any of its silly-looking relatives. But a gap-year trip to Belgium and my subsequent life in Ann Arbor have given me a new appreciation for my own inner -New Jerseyan. After all, stereo- typically speaking, the New York metropolitan area is the center of the world, especially in the eyes of its denizens. But at the same time, to those of us who grew up in this area, it can also justbe home, and the only rea- son it's more enjoyable than Ann Arbor or even Michigan in general is because our pizza is infinitely more delicious. I've learned not to fall into the same stereotyping that says the Midwest is one end- less prairie of uncultured towns - and, in a much more important way, I've learned so much about other ways of thinking and modes of life, Protestantism in particu- lar. Coming from a solidly secu- lar Catholic and Jewish area, it's both enlightening and necessary to meet people who worship in a similar vein but with a different doctrine than my recently Catho- lic self. I'm already dreading going back in the fall. For a long time, I was dogged by the specter of not having a cul- ture or background. Of course, my discovery of religion helped a lot with that, but going to school out-of-state has made me realize, as folk singer Dar Williams put it, "I finally think I come from someplace." As a not-very-Italian, Italian-American who never had a sense of her heritage, I'm finding myself by both living in a place much different from Jersey (to the tune of $40,000 a year) and learn- ing about people in a way that will come in handy when I write nov- els or make philosophical argu- ments. And when I come home to the Northeast and re-assimilate in all ways but my politics, I remem- ber my friends - Catholic, pro- life, and those who are neither - in Ann Arbor and I carry them like a talisman on my New "Yawk" heart. As for transferring, that's look- ing out of the question for next year. But we'll see where God wants me. For now, I think He likes Ann Arbor. - Anna Paone can be reached at apaone@umich.edu. i_ )m e L O- u s!1 G ) K_ Progress at last have a friend who lives on the Wayne State campus in midtown Detroit, and his 21st birthday party was last Friday. I really - wanted to go, but, lacking a car, I had to sit down andG consider my pub- lic transit options.4 This is what II came up with: I could take the CAROLYN Ann Arbor Tran- LUSCH sit Authority bus- to Ypsilanti, stand on the shoulder of I-94 for a couple hours and eventually hitchhike to Romulus. From there, I could hop on the SMART bus to Detroit, where I'd need to switch to the Detroit Depart- ment of Transportation system, which, if I time it right, should take me to midtown. There are places where it wouldn't be a problem to travel fifty miles across a metropolitan area without a personal vehicle, places where such a trip requires no more than a simple subway ride. There's something miss- ing in Metro Detroit, something that state and local officials overlooked during decades of highway construc- tion and maintenance. According to the American Public Transporta- tion Association, Detroit is the only large metro area in the U.S. without a regional transit network. Hopefully, that's about to change. In December 2009, two bills were introduced to the state legislature - House Bill No. 5731 and No. 5732 - which provide for the creation and funding of a regional transit author- ity. According to the Michigan leg- islature's summary of the bills, the transit authority would replace the existing SMART system that serves Detroit suburbs and the DDOT sys- tem that serves the city of Detroit (as well as the entity that oversees them, the Regional Transit Coordi- nating Council). This regional transit authority would have the power to take all steps necessary to implement and manage a regionaltransit system. The benefits of such a move are clear. A unified transit authority would be able to create a public trans- portation system that conveniently links the city and thesuburbs, instead of the current situation in which one system (SMART) serves the suburbs and another (DDOT) serves the city. For some people, it will make visits and outings more convenient. For others, it will make the difference between employment and unemploy- ment. With many businesses follow- ing the trend of urban sprawl to the suburbs, city residents who cannot afford a car or are unable to drive face a huge disadvantage in the job market. Currently, the bills only affect Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties. However, a provision in the bills allows for adjoining counties to become members of the transit authority, meaning that Washtenaw County could easily benefit from the regional system. Despite the advantages, both the Detroit government and Oakland County executive L. Brooks Pat- terson oppose the bills. Each party is nervous about having adequate representation on the author- ity's board, and the city of Detroit voiced concern that the creation off a regional transit authority would stall current plans for a light rail system on Woodward Avenue. Now, the fact that the city of Detroit and Oakland County agree on some- thing is surprising in itself. But they agree on closely guarding their own interests out of a fear that, if they compromise with other stakehold- ers, they will lose. This is why, a decade into the twenty-first cen- tury, Southeast Michigan still lacks decent public transit. For decades, every city, county, township, orga- nization and company has looked out for its own citizens, its own members and its own profit, all the while ignoring the greater good of the region. The nonprofit organization Trans- portation Riders United has been fighting against this fragmentation and supporting public transporta- tion in Metro Detroit since 2001. Last week, I spoke to the executive direc- tor, Megan Owens, and asked her whether the two stakeholders had valid concerns. She asserted that the RTA would not significantly alter the plan for light rail on Woodward, and she expressed support for the method of representation on the board of the RTA. Despite the difficulty of satis- fying every party's desires, Metro Detroit "can't let regional squabbles destroy progress yet again." Detroit needs a unified public transit authority. The bills have come up for a vote in the State House of Representa- tives, after which they will have to pass through the State Senate and be signed by the governor. Their pas- sage would be the first step toward catchingup with the restof the coun- try on convenient, equitable mass transit. There's certainly a lot more work to be done. Ms. Owens iden- tified a couple further steps in the near future, including establishing a dedicated public transit funding source, such as a percentage of fuel or motor vehicle-related sales taxes, rather than beiny .directly funded via the Compreh tsive Transporta- tion Fund. Still, these bills will mean that after decades of mistrust and selfishness, Southeast Michigan is finally making progress. - Carolyn Lusch can be reached at Icarolyn@umich.edu.