My Other Car is a Bright Green City
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 01.28.08
Today's cars are costly, dangerous and an ecological nightmare. What if the solution to the problems they create, though, has more to do with where we live than what we drive?
That is the question Alex Steffen asks at the start of a must-read essay about how much more important the design of our cities is than what is under the hood of our cars.
He nails it with his observation that "what we build dictates how we get around"
"Our efforts to build a one-planet prosperity may involve an astonishing variety of new approaches, but in the U.S., we most need to adopt one solution that leverages almost all the others: stop sprawl and build well-designed compact communities. That's because the land-use patterns in our communities dictate not only how much we drive, but how sustainable we're able to be on all sort of fronts."
Barcelona Images from ::The Star
And, he suggests it can happen more quickly that we think.
"Some people make the argument that the built environment is much harder to change than the design of cars -- after all, don't we buy a new car every few years and a new home at most a few times in our lives? But the reality is not so clear.
Generally, we think of cars as things which are quickly replaced in our society, and buildings as things which rarely change. But that will not be the case over the next few decades. Because of population growth, the on-going development churn in cities (buildings remodeled or replaced, etc.), infrastructure projects and changing tastes, we'll be rebuilding half our built environment between now and 2030. Done right, that new construction could enable a complete overhaul of the American city. " ::Worldchanging
Copenhagen
"Today's cars are costly, dangerous and an ecological nightmare."
Even the very first sentence contains three claims which are at the least tendencious, and for the most part outright falsehoods.
I'm not sure what Steffan defines as "costly", but I recently bought a nice new vehicle for 0% financing for 5 years, zero down, and a $2000 rebate in the bargain. I couldn't afford to buy a *used* vehicle for that price. Today's cars may have an initial purchase price which is higher, on average, but prorated over the life of the vehicle (they tend to last much longer), the cost of ownership is actually less than it ever was.
As for today's cars being "dangerous" -- eh?! Compared to what? The facts don't support that claim. Fatalities and injuries per vehicle mile are a fraction of what they were, from even 20 years ago. With all the technological advances, cars have never been safer.
And as far as today's cars being "an ecological nightmare", I have to call B.S. on that, too. Again, compared to what? Compared to 1970, modern cars are an order of magnitude cleaner. Does Steffan comprehend the much worse "ecological nightmare" of late 19th Century large cities with thousands of horses -- not to mention the sanitation nightmare.
The whole essay plays to an audience which already has a reflexive hatred for cars, and is in search of a rationalisation for that hatred, the facts be damned.
Every Automotive designer should get a look at this article This man has a point!. But it will require time and most of all taxes =T.
See also : http://www.carfree.com
I call BS on the BS. It should be sufficient just to say that first anonymous guy is comparing cars now to cars then; which is not the same as comparing them to high density mass transit in cities. But for them what want more:
Car ownership costs 50 cents a mile, EXCLUSIVE of loan payments:
http://www.aaapublicaffairs.com/Main/Default.asp?SectionID=&SubCategoryID=9&CategoryID=3&ContentID=23
"...dangerous..compared to what?" Maybe to high density mass transit, not cars from years gone by.
Ditto the ecological nightmare bit.
I suppose it's just a conservative (in a nonpolitical sense) mindset of referencing the past as opposed to looking to the future
DAG
"As for today's cars being "dangerous" -- eh?! Compared to what?"
Trains? The subway? Walking?
"The facts don't support that claim. Fatalities and injuries per vehicle mile are a fraction of what they were, from even 20 years ago. With all the technological advances, cars have never been safer."
Neither have trains, or the subway. Walking was obviously safer before motorised vehicles, but it's safer when cars travel slowly, and modern cars (not including SUVs, 4x4s etc) have a better design too.
"And as far as today's cars being "an ecological nightmare", I have to call B.S. on that, too. Again, compared to what?"
Public transport maybe?
To the first anonymous guy (though sadly he probably won't be reading this again), please read Alex Steffen's essay before you blindly defend your lover, the one that's been cheating on you. Or even better yet, read Ecocities by Richard Register.
Cars can cost around 7k A YEAR to own. This can include insurance, grooming, repair, parking, taxes, registration, fuel, tickets, and more.
Around 500,000 humans a year around the world, even more animals killed in accidents. That doesn't include air pollution deaths.
When you say cleaner all you think about is emissions, cars are responsible for oily dirty runoff, noise pollution, natural habitate loss, and they use up vast amount of land for their exclusive use.
Listen a little more and learn before you shoot someone down.
While the Anonymous poster is very clearly a troll (I've seen his other firebrand postings in the same vein) who is bitterly opposed to everything green, he at least brings up the same kind of things that Joe Sixpack needs to be convinced of.
1. Cars are cheap.
Then why did you have to borrow money to buy one?
Also, list your assets for a bank. Which are the top three?
2. Cars are safe.
While these days cars are safer than they used to be, that's not saying much. Cars used to be so astonishingly dangerous that no modern man would get behind the wheel of any car produced in the 1950's. The prospect of being thrown forward into a sheet of plate glass without even the benefit of a seatbelt sits right up there with skydiving without a parachute or throwing yourself on a live grenade.
Nevermind the fact that almost half of automobile fatalities involve pedestrians. It's kind of like saying a tank is safe. It's safe to be *in* maybe.
And to top it all off, the best way to die by accident involves a car. The next most likely way to die happens four times less often. They account for a full 40% of all accidental deaths. Fewer people die every year from both war and murder combined.
3. Cars are clean.
40% of the air pollution in your city came out of cars' tailpipes. Keep that in mind the next time there's an air quality warning on the news.
These aren't the rationalizations of our knee-jerk reactions. These reasons came first, then the reactions. Your entire post is in fact a knee-jerk reaction to the fact that you don't want to give up your car, and your real reasons for not wanting to give it up sound shallow when you say them out loud.