Listen to this Podcast
More 60-Second Earth
-
The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
Read More »
The stink of exhaust, the mind-numbing tedium of traffic, parking lots blighting central city real estate. The urban sins of the automobile are numerous indeed.
As more people move to cities and gain the economic wherewithal to purchase an automobile, will we be increasingly dependent on cars for our transportation and status symbols?
A new thought experiment on display at the Center for Architecture in New York City offers an alternative vision for the cities of 2030. By that time, more than 60 percent of humanity—five billion people—may live in cities.
The architects recommend careful use of express bus rapid transit—the cheapest public transportation option—and increased capacity for bicyclists and pedestrians. That may help alleviate problems like highways blocking access to waterfront in cityscapes from Ahmedabad to Rio de Janeiro.
For example, in China simply expanding the city of Guangzhou's bus rapid transit system, which already carries 800,000 passengers a day, could help re-create what used to be a vibrant shopping district before an elevated highway shrouded it in gloom.
Some form of the automobile will likely be around in 2030, but that doesn't mean we have to build our cities for its comfort instead of ours.
—David Biello
See what we're tweeting about
26 Comments
Add CommentUgh! Could the green mafia please find a less smarmy way of writing? "Sins of the automobile" as if the automobile was a species from another planet! People buy cars to provide value to their lives. They are convenient and fast, if expensive and tough to store in some areas. It's all about making life easier. Stop with the propaganda language please.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisi agree with fine material. the article would have been just fine without bias. interrupting science with emotion just makes you sound preachy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn truth they arent very well designed at all for either cars or people. In the future cities should be designed with the foreknowledge that the landscape changes and sea levels change, rivers carve new beds and deposit sediment, hurricanes happen and tsunamis occur and all the other realities of geology that we've learned since the first cities were planned.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are urban planners who have realized this. R. Buckminster Fuller comes to mind. Consider how much money we waste just on snow plowing in a city like NYC, which would be eliminated if the city were capped with a geodsic dome, thereby reducing heating while capturing freshwater from precipitation. We know how to do this but most city planners are not visionaries and know little about the engineering of modern materials. We continue to pay the price and hold on to our archaic notions, as we squander the resources we do have, and continue to pretend that a slightly higher levee will protect New Orleans instead of moving the whole thing or re-engineering it to sit on a floating foundation. We pretend that we can control climate and save Bangladesh and the Maldives, as if they weren't actually built on the worst imaginable landscapes. One resource we're not short of is stupidity.
If cities were designed to eliminate or streamline intersections (and the vehicle/pedestrian/bicycle snarls they cause), I think a lot of problems would disappear for all kinds of traffic. Pedestrian skyways instead of crosswalks, and one-way streets for cars in busy areas. Bicycles are an in-between factor, considered vehicular traffic here in California, but are probably best paired with pedestrians when planning.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWe are a species which has not evolved mentally, psychologically, socially or physically beyond hunting and gathering. Consequently, we do not understand and cannot control our numbers or our tools.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf growing cities were designed at all, desirable objectives might be achievable. Instead, traffic management demands building an elevated highway, obscuring a shopping district, for example.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf cities were to migrate away from the demands of automobiles, for example, wouldn't if make the most sense to focus on cities that currently have high use of bicycles and a rapidly growing demand for personal automobiles, for example? Anyone who can receive a good income generally likes to spend it as they please. Good luck with your designs...
Cities create their own cultures. If cities were designed with different goals in mind (accommodating the lives of pedestrian traffic rather than vehicular traffic), I imagine the culture of the city would differ from the culture you find in cities nowadays.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYeah, whatever. But judging from the way we currently refuse to confront the serious problems facing us, I suspect that by 2030 those problems will have become an existential threat, and we won't have time for relatively minor activities like urban design.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisTo quote that famous American, Alfred E. Neumann, "What? Me worry?"
The design principle used for urban planning seems to be "Keeping all the cars happy".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://books.google.com/books?id=Zl_cWsKjmjoC&lpg=PA118&dq=%22Keeping%20all%20the%20cars%20happy%22&pg=PP1#v=onepage&q&f=false
One easy solution: wall off the city, make people park outside and take public transport into the city.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCities will instantly become the best places in the world to live, even better than the country.
I'd suggest that quality of life outweighs making life easier.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA pollution and noise-free city would make life better for everyone. It's simply a change of culture, not fitting lives around automobiles. It that's "green mafia", count me in.
@finematerial: Try living without a car in an area without substantial mass transit, such as most of Hillsborough County, including most of Tampa, and then tell me that cities are not designed for cars instead of people. Also, since you seem to be biased very, very far in the direction of cars, perhaps that bias is clouding your judgment of this article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy is there still NO city in the world where people come first ? I and many others would love to live in such a place but it seems architects and planners are happy to give our open spaces to the car, and damn those pesky humans.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMcMalkemus hit the nail on the head.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't let cars into city centres. Yes, it's green... but it also makes sense.
Finanncially, mass transit has always been a major money drain. Simply put, there are very few systems around the world that don't lose money.
Cars usually win because they go exactly where you want to go, when you want to go... and quite frankly, in suburbia or rural settings you CAN'T beat them.
When it comes to an urban centre though- if you remove the competition of the automobile mass transit makes way more sense.
Cars three advantages would be nullified. If Mass transit were the only way to get around downtown:
1) Scale of economy- since everyone would be forced to use mass transit- it would end up being cheaper for everyone involved. People would SAVE money- at the same time, the transit system wouldn't be the money-drain they are everywhere they have to compete with cars.
2) Convenience- with more people taking the mass-transit rides would be more frequent. In fact, you'll probably get where you want to go quicker because everything would be more orchestrated than tens of thousands of cars fighting the traffic system- selfishly trying to get ahead.
3) Location - chances are, with Mass transit as the defacto- form of moving downtown (other than pedestrians) more places to stop would be opened up- so you could probably get equally close to where you want to go as you could with a car.
(urban areas it can be a pain to find a parking spot).
Problem is; whilst cars and mass-transit are forced to coexist within an urban centre- mass-transit will never be profitable or fully usable.
Without cars it is a superior solution for just about everyone. However, bring cars into the equation and it makes it unable to fullfill it's potential.
The best system is that what Tesla used for his Pierce Arrow Car in 1931.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHe tapped energy out of the aether, like a Flying Saucer does.
That simple system, offered to Nasa with the new Propulsion System that would have a Shuttle in one hour at the ISS, was rejected: "Not interested, thank you for the copy of your Patent!"
A Russia/India tie up could be your future Space - as well as Land vehicle technology manufacturer.
In city's with "socially inclement weather" cars provide a status symbol and an opportunity to arrive airconditioned and dry at your destination.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf you walk or ride a bycicle in Houston you advertize your lower economic status by arriving at your destination drenched in sweat and stinking. Try going to a C-level executive business meeting, or being the lower level employee taking notes at one in that condition.
Mass transit sea change:
Must address scheduling issues (you get trapped downtown if you unexpectedly have to work late and miss the last bus - then can spend your entire day's wage using a cab or staying in a hotel)
AND
Must address the social issue of our high density society expecting us all to be unobtrusively bathed, coiffed and outfitted. Either make half-naked and odiferous social acceptable or provide high volume shower and changing facilities at entrances to the airconditioned business complex.
I too live in Hillsbough county Fla, 12 miles SE of Tampa. We get bus service every 2 hrs during the weekdays!! Now St Pete, Sarasota, Bradenton Counties have buss service every 20-30 minutes with low fares so it's viable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut I drive a personal transport module that legally uses the bike lanes, as a moped, I built that runs on electricity and at 30mph I can beat buses all the time, cars during rush hour and it costs me about $1/week for battery, electricity and everything else. so it costs far less than either mass transit, bus or even a bike as tires/tubes cost more than that in the miles I go.
With a charge while shopping, working I can get 80 miles/day. Though can easily design it for 100miles/charge, that's just not needed.
So there is a a big gap between a car and mass transit that can give independence and be cheaper at the same time. 4 of my units can park where 1 car does. One can even make a high speed, 30mph wheelchair that I can take on bus, train or even plane.
Great article
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSee Copenhagen
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@jerryd: If I could get an EV with air conditioning that could comfortably do 70 mph, I could use it to commute to work 16.9 miles each way (when it's sunny--what do you do when it rains?)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFunnily enough, I live almost exactly where you describe, in Seffner.
Do you all miss the point that this all boils down to assisting a major governing factor. Government needs control of its people. Said people are a resource. If they have an open form transportation it takes away control of the asset. So my view of the mass transit ideas is basically that we are being herded like cattle. In the future it will simply be people that are rich and the rest of us cattle in the cattle car providing services to them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDo cars wait for people to cross the road in Copenhagen ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAre the pavements of Copenhagen wider than the roads ?
Copenhagen restricts cars more than many places, but we can and must do better.
Boomshadow,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Nissan Leaf EV late this yr will sell for $25k after tax rebate and over 10 yrs will pay for itself in gasoline savings compared to a similar 5 passenger 30mpg ICE. And yes it and most EV's have A/C. Plus in Tampa, many other places are putting in fast charge outlets that gives a full charge in 1 hr. But with it's 100 mile range that will rarely be needed.
Most of our parking garages have outlets you can use too so you can go to St Pete, Sarasota, Orlando and after a concert, ect be ready to come back.
Right now when it rains I just love it but in winter I use rain gear like any MC. But working on a cabin for it and have a 2 seat sportwagon EV that has A/C with 100+ mile range and 80+ mph I'm doing too. It also will have a 5kw generator for unlimited range at about 100mpg though will rarely be needed.
I think car is necessary trasportation. It give us one is convenience but the other tedium traffic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI don't like cars or driving but I drive my car because walking or biking takes way too long. I don't take mass transit because many people are filthy on the bus/train and spill food or sneeze or cough all over. The real solution is telecommuting.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe ideas of pedestrians/bicycles fall apart when you consider the distances. No one is going to walk or bike to his office if it is 10 miles away -- no matter how ped friendly the design is. The cities of future will not only be more populous but will also be bigger in size.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBRT and MRT are too slow and inconvenient to use. They are at best an incremental solution rather than a transformational solution. High speed PRT are the only transformational transport solution I can see out there.