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After a year and a half of living in Joplin, I’ve gained weight.

I’m not entirely upset about it. For one, I’m no longer convinced that a specific number on the scale or clothing tag can be equated to good health or beauty. And if all my recent eating, drinking and merry-making with friends and loved ones is wrong, then I don’t want to be right. But as someone who prefers fresh fruit and vegetables over fast food and happily goes to the gym on a daily basis, I will admit that I’m perplexed.

As I search for reasons, I realize that I quite literally hold the answer in my hands. My car keys. After a 15-year hiatus, I’m driving again. And walking a whole lot less.

I’ve never enjoyed driving, but that’s not why I stopped. Rather, I moved to cities where walking, biking and taking public transportation were far more convenient. My daily 10,000 steps were easily achieved by going to work, running errands and carrying groceries back to my apartment.

Now that I’ve returned to Joplin, I, like so many of us, rely on my car for these tasks. Not out of laziness, but necessity. Over the past several decades, our city and many others have prioritized a lifestyle lived in the car. And downtown’s changing skyline has been a testament to that.

“Downtown Joplin was a destination once. We were served by three train stations, two streetcar lines on Main Street, and wide sidewalks often covered by awnings put up by businesses to encourage window shopping,” says Anthony Monteleone, former city councilperson and co-chair of the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce Trails & Connectivity Workgroup. “It didn’t get more walkable than Joplin! That’s all gone now. Inside of a few short decades, a generation of leaders decided downtown should be a place to get through quickly rather than be a destination.”

As I load up groceries in the trunk of my little Nissan instead of lugging them all the way home, I can see for a moment or two why folks once thought that a city designed for motor vehicles was a good thing.

But we know better now.

We know that convenience came with consequences and that our reliance on cars affects so much more than our waistlines. Rising gas prices, mounting carbon emissions, and the disproportionate challenges those without vehicles face in accessing basic amenities are just some of the reasons why car-less travel and accessible streets and sidewalks are more of a civic than personal issue.

I now have to set aside time in the day to walk or bike.

When I do set out, weaving my way through downtown, Murphysburg, and North Heights is for pleasure — a pleasure I can’t recommend enough.

But in scorching hot weather, I can choose a residential street lined with trees for shade. When I come across cracked, littered or discontinued sidewalks, I can hop over and walk in the street with relative ease.

While riding my bike, I can take my time and stay off of busy roads without bike lanes because I’m not headed to school, work or the doctor’s office. All of these adaptations are luxuries — ones that many others can’t enjoy. Others using a wheelchair or pushing a stroller. Others who, because of age, visual impairment, a disability, or limited financial resources, walk or bike out of necessity. Others who are my neighbors and yours.

Prioritizing diverse modes of transportation is as much about their health and the health of our community as it is my own.

Anthony concurs: “Providing options makes a city successful. One way we could make Joplin more successful is enabling people to enjoy downtown in a more car-free way. For some, that could be as simple as having grocery options so that they don’t have to drive to a supermarket. For our seniors who live near and around the downtown area, that’s investing in our public transit. We need more trolleys, routes and frequency of arrivals and departures.”

Some help is on the way. A downtown streetscaping project started in 2008 recently received an additional $3 million from the Federal Consolidated Appropriations Act for much-needed new sidewalks on Main from Eighth to 15th streets. (Additional funds from the city are needed for completion, however.)

Meanwhile, the Trails & Connectivity Workgroup is devoted to advocating and building awareness in the community at large about car-less travel.

For the rest of us, progress comes through one very simple form of action: getting our steps in downtown.

When we frequent downtown businesses, participate in Art Walks and Third Thursdays, and even choose to live, work, attend religious services or go to the gym downtown, we’re demonstrating that these blocks are made for people, not traffic.

“I believe downtown is becoming a destination once again,” Anthony concludes. “We’ve seen new buildings going in on old parking lots. Empty storefronts have filled in with restaurants, coffee shops, and retailers of all kinds. Parklets can soon start going up in front of some shops, giving us much needed outdoor seating. Our downtown is an ideal place to put into practice the best ideas towards making a neighborhood more vibrant and walkable, in part because that’s what it was designed for.”

It’s time to lace up your sneakers, Joplin. See you in the streets.

Kimberly Zerkel, a writer, recently returned to Joplin after a decade in Paris and a number of years living in San Francisco. Contact her at news@joplinglobe.com.

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