A friend recently commented on my proposal to limit transportation in the City of the Future project on a private mailing list. The dialogue has been on my mind, so I will share it:
[Friend] A utopia for knowledge workers without cars?!? Who wants to live without a car?! Isn’t a car the icon of personal freedom?! Suggest not pinning your vision on taking away one of the objects people desire most! What is wrong with cars anyway?!
[Response] Personal transportation is a bad ideal, like many short-sighted inventions of the 20th century – electric refrigeration, dish washers, etc. The 20th century was defined by small advances in medicine and hygiene that lead to a massive population explosion (1.1 billion to >6 billion). In this period of population explosion, many fundamental aspects of urban planning, urban design, and even architecture have not radically changed. You can take a 16th century farm house and convert it to a modern dwelling in a couple of months, and some things done in the 16th century may be conceptually better upon a careful cost/benefit analysis (like thatched roofing).
The system to eradicate cars is intelligent zoning that makes walking a pleasant and viable mode of transportation. I can walk everywhere I need in Palo Alto, as was the case in New York.
IMHO, cars will be remembered as one of the worst inventions in human history, tethered with disdain to the wasteful excesses of of the new millennium like the rack was associated with the Medieval times. Your Corvette will spend the next 200,000 years, 3,000 human generations, rotting in landfill to provide you with “a sense of personal freedom.â€Â
Recently moving from a major urban center, New York, to suburbia, Palo Alto, brings up questions of transportation. To start with, I moved my existing car across country to save from down-cycling a vehicle. Next, I am not going to purchase a second car for a family of three. Two cars just seems excessive.
I am open to more of a dialogue on this matter in the comments…
For an earnest, balanced discussion on the matter, I suggest quantifying the value of the car and the “personal freedoms” it offers. I’d be interested to see a list of bullet points (especially from skeptics of a car-free city), and then see the variety of ways that each “problem” could be addressed with urban planning. In order for this city to be a role model for a broader audience, I think these questions need to be addressed in a way that will satisfy the mainstream that this city isn’t merely an exercise in extreme minimalism for only the “hard core” environmentalists.
I think zoning for walking is a great place to start, but if a city is to reach a truly wide scale, people will inevitably want to visit friends, sites of interest, performances, etc in other regions outside of their own zone. I certainly believe there are better ways of doing so without a personal car (I belong to the local car cooperative because I do not, and have never, owned my own car), but this is one example of many that need to be addressed for those that do see cars as indispensable in their lives.
( PS – On the topic of car cooperative, does Palo Alto have one? If not, maybe its time to get one started. Here in Vancouver, I understand it began 1997 with a single vehicle, and since has grown to about 200 cars with 4000 members, which is a lot less cars on the street. If you ever want some more information on this, let me know.
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Well, I think that transportation is not so big problem. I don’t know how much is big imagined city, but there can be mentioned cooperative cars or even personal cars which are in harmony with protection of nature. “Nicola Tesla car” for example, there are other, cheaper also. It depends how much would be reach community, how much such cars they can buy.
In West Europe is common that mass of people use bicycle instead of car, so it is not so hard to stop to use car. If children grow up in community where mostly people use bicycle, they will accept it as normal thing and they will use the same. so combination of cooperative bicycles and electricity or solar cars would be great.
In Europe planning & economy of space allow for villages, towns and cities to be oriented to both pedestrian & automotive transportation. The key is to have shopping and housing co-located, with centralized mass transportation available between there and work locations. Taxi stands & Bus stations are built right next to airports, train & lightrail stations!
Parks, and community ‘yards’ are behind concentrated housing; both apartments & closely packed townhomes. The largest commutes can easily & economically be made by even the oldest residents, by foot or bicycle, then bus or train.
Oh, people still can have cars, if they can afford them; very nice automobiles in fact (visited your Mercedes, or BMW dealer lately?).
What Europe has though, are cities built around people, not cars.
If one wants to get from Palo Alto to San Francisco, he or she should take the BART. Too often we just jump in the SUV. With a lot better planning, all busses & bike paths would lead to BART stations. With better planning (based upon the European model above), more shopping would be concentrated withing walking distance of high-density housing, or shopping malls would be build surrounding BART & or metropolitan bus stations.
If all strip-mall shops were removed from american byways, and relocated near urban or other pedestrian & transportation hubs very few of us would have a reason to complain about the ‘massive need’ for petroleum-based fuels.
Doubling rail lines for cargo transportation would also eliminate %65 of diesel fuel consumption, currently wasted in poorly managed and completely un-designed conventional long-haul trucking.
Personal budgets will eventually force most of us to follow the European village model, so smart Enterpreneurs & corporations will begin moving brick & morter retail closer & closer to mass transit hubs. Hopefully not to late, either for the average consumer, nor their own bottom line profits.
Such changes will also take a new mind-set on the part of urban (& suburban) planners accross the nation.