Cars Are Not The Problem, They Are The Symptom
This article is the first of two looking at the relationship between cars and urban planning. This article focuses on the impact of the urban landscape on car dependency, and the second article (to be posted next month) looks at how the rise of electric vehicles may slow down a transition to sustainable urban planning. You can stay updated with the latest articles by subscribing to receive news and updates at the bottom of the page.
Cars are terrible. They are loud, dangerous, expensive, take up far too much space, are socially inequitable, and damage our health and environment. Yes, even the electric ones. Not only are cars themselves a social ill, but so too is car-centric design. This is the standard design philosophy in much of the world in which cars are privileged at the expense of other forms of transportation.
This is shown in low-density cities with poor cycling and pedestrian infrastructure and single-use zoning. Cities like these suffer from urban sprawl, require long trips for basic goods and services and lack the density and infrastructure required to make cycling or walking safe and convenient. Additionally, these areas are not densely populated enough to be served by regular public transportation; thus, car ownership is not only a norm but a necessity.
A simple feedback loop showing that car-centric design leads to increased car usage and that increased car usage leads to increased car-centric infrastructure. The black arrow shows a stronger causal relationship than the grey arrow. This is a positive feedback loop which reinforces car dependency.
Car dependency is an urban planning choice. Where cities are built with greater density and mixed-use zoning, car ownership is no longer preferable to active mobility or public transportation. In these cities, private car ownership's social, financial and environmental burdens are removed, whilst the advantages of public transportation, active mobility, and shared spaces can be realised. This includes greater socioeconomic mobility, active lifestyles, safer streets, more parks and greater autonomy for those who cannot drive. Additionally, car centricity eliminates all reasonable possibilities for other modes of transportation, whilst transit-oriented cities allow cars to be used in the limited scenarios where this makes sense.
As car dependency is a necessary result of car-centric urbanism, it cannot be solved without changing how we design cities. Even if everyone collectively decided to stop using cars, the barriers to other forms of transportation would still exist. In practice, this would mean reducing car-based mobility without replacing it with better transit methods. Socially, this would be devastating as a lack of transportation is worse than bad transportation. Fortunately, the choice is not a binary between cars-dependency and transportation deserts. Instead, we can build better cities.
An example of a low-density suburb which is characteristic of car dependency.
Whilst car usage promotes further car-centric infrastructure, car-centric infrastructure is a much stronger driver of car dependency. Through this lens, car usage is best viewed as a consequence of car dependency rather than as a minor driver of poor infrastructure. It is also clear that car-centric infrastructure is the key lever which must be adjusted to enable transit-oriented cities. Infrastructure is more permanent than even relatively stubborn consumer demand for cars, but by creating better urban infrastructure, not only does it become possible to live car-free, but it becomes preferable to live car-free because of the massive benefits of doing so which become clear once the burdens of car dependency, which society has grown used to, are removed.
Thus a note for activists and policymakers is that whilst it makes sense to encourage consumers to change their transportation patterns, it makes more sense to encourage consumers to live in denser neighbourhoods and even more sense to encourage and allow urban planners to design, more compact, walkable cities where it is more viable to have regular, widespread public transportation. Ultimately, individuals will make environmentally harmful transportation choices so long as the infrastructure around them supports harmful transportation as the most convenient. By improving infrastructure, the psychological rules of the game remain the same, but the context changes. In this new context, better, car-free transportation is realised.