Car Culture Crowds County ; Pursuit of Rural Lifestyle Forces Many Families to Opt for Three or More Vehicles

By Niki Cervantes

Bill Ross, a Clarence father of three teenagers, has seen the future, and it looks like this: the possibility of adding another car to the four that already jockey for space in the garage, on the driveway and on the street.

“Lucky me,” Ross said, envisioning the day next summer when a car for his teenager daughter might be added to the Ross family fleet.

Not that he has much choice. Nothing is within walking distance of his home near Tonawanda Creek, and his two teens in high school wouldn’t get home until after 7 p.m. if they took a school bus after sports practice.

So the family adds more vehicles.

Such is life for an increasing number of households throughout Erie County that now have three, four, five and even more vehicles at home. From 2000 to 2005, households with three or more cars jumped 17 percent in Erie County, according to U.S. Census estimates.

Total households rose only 1 percent over the same percent, to 383,987.

The trend, mirrored nationwide, is most prominent in the region’s growing suburbs, such as Clarence. Affluent and purposely designed to mostly keep people and places distant from each other, Clarence has dealt with the subsequent need to drive everywhere by accumulating the county’s largest percentage of households — about one of every four — with three or more vehicles.

Orchard Park and Grand Island, similarly affluent and spread out, aren’t far behind.

Two-car households made up the biggest proportion in most communities, typically about a third.

The single-car household, a staple of American post-war family life, shrunk.

“Our dads had it made. Remember when Dad took the car to work and Mom stayed home?” asked Clarence Councilman Joseph Weiss, whose household has four cars for two drivers.

Clarence’s three-plus car trend is not news in the town’s building department, where for five years requests for garages with at least three, and usually more, stalls have been increasing, Planning Director James Callahan said.

“People do own more vehicles,” he said. “They may have more vehicles than drivers.”

>Some bad points

The trend, however, comes with several downsides, especially for those of limited income. Consider the cost of filling up the gas tank and soaring costs for car maintenance and insurance, to say nothing of such larger issues as pollution, reliance on foreign oil and global warming.

Cost alone is one big headache.

The oldest Ross son, now attending Erie Community College in Amherst, drives an old pickup truck and pays $2,000 annually for insurance — which does not include collision coverage. It would be $3,000 if he wasn’t still on his parents’ insurance.

Ross estimates that maintaining the family fleet costs at least $8,000 a year, and that doesn’t include the soon-to-be added car for the family’s youngest daughter. It also exceeds the cost of feeding the family.

“And this crew can eat,” he added.

In fact, vehicle-related spending is second only to the house mortgage as a big hit on the family wallet, Ross said.

Weiss’ bill is even bigger. He estimates annual car-related expenses of at least $23,000 — even more this year because of $14,000 in repairs on his two classic Jaguars.

Clarence, like other growing suburbs, relies on vehicles by design. Except in a handful of small historic enclaves, the town strictly separates residences from commercial and retail establishments, generally pushing nearly all business to the edge of town along Main Street and Transit Road.

George Grasser, head of the urban planning firm of Partners for a Liveable Western New York, notes this reflects the tastes of many new suburban residents, who don’t want to bump elbows with their neighbors or see a convenience food market on the corner instead of unfettered pastureland.

The town has made a few, albeit minor, changes. Councilman Scott Bylewsky cited attempts to create “more walkable areas” and noted that Waterford Village, a project under construction, eventually might include a retail section.

But Clarence officials are keenly aware of the desires of their residents.

“Rural charm is what people move here for,” he said.

Despite the rising costs associated with driving, increasing reliance on mass transit draws little interest, not just in Clarence but most other suburbs, even though experts point out savings not only in money but also in wear and tear on the environment.

>Costs of driving

Operating a vehicle costs an average of $150 to $170 a week, according to Douglas Hartmayer, a spokesman for the Niagara Frontier Transportation Authority.

But the NFTA’s most expensive all-zone mass transit pass costs only $66 a month, he noted.

At least some of the public, however, has been doing the math, because the number of Metro Bus riders has risen “nicely” in communities like Clarence and East Amherst, he said.

Riders on the express bus that runs along the Kensington Expressway from Main Street and Transit Road, on the Clarence- Amherst border, to downtown Buffalo is up 2.3 percent over the last three years, adding about 5,460 passengers annually. The number of riders on Route 48 buses, another Clarence-oriented run along Main Street to downtown, is up 3.2 percent over the same time period, with 28,340 additional riders a year.

Still, experts doubt that suburban residents will turn to mass transit anytime soon. Suburbanization helped create a financial and racial divide between those who do and don’t use mass transit, said Robert Adelman, a University at Buffalo sociologist.

As a result, increasing talk about vehicles and their impact on the environment has led to “very little behavioral change,” Adelman said.

Weiss and others say they think families more likely will take intermediate steps, such as switching to more fuel-efficient cars or combining trips to save on driving. But dropping the car for a bus?

No way, he says.

“This is America. You are what you drive,” he said.

Bill Ross, though, is open to the idea.

“Sure they’d take the bus,” Ross said of his teens, “if there was one.”

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Originally published by NEWS STAFF REPORTER.

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