Car Scale Vs Human Scale Transportation
posted by Sam Hummel on September 25th, 2007 Go to comments
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This is the kind of research I love to see higher education producing. Bryan Pijanowski of Purdue University lead a study that used aerial photographs to confirm yet another reason why planning cities around cars is pure lunacy…
Looking at one county in Indiana, the study found that there were 3 times as many parking spaces as there were drivers. The total pavement for parking measured 1,000 football fields. But, that’s a major underestimate because the study did not include parking on private property, such as driveways, and in multilevel parking decks.
So what’s wrong with parking lots?
For one, parking lots collect rain water (that normally would soak into the ground), mix it with oil and other contaminants dropped by cars and dump it in furious torrents into our rivers and streams (contaminating and scouring habitat).
Second, they are a major contributor to the heat island effect. A paved piece of land absorbs energy from the sun and radiates it back as thermal energy (high heat). This is distinctly different than land covered in shade from vegetation. Vegetation absorbs the energy of the sun and transforms a large portion of it into chemical energy through photosynthesis and transpiration (low to no heat).
Those are the two problems commonly cited with parking lots. There are more, however, such as the energy consumed and damage caused by asphalt production, the loss of topsoil and farm land and the effects on rainfall.
But there is another, less talked about problem that I was first introduced to in a talk by Spenser Havlick, Professor of Environmental Design, College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
We are paving the planet to serve a small portion of the population. And in the process, we are reducing the quality of life for the rest of the population. This is an environmental justice issue.
I think the recent study reveals the truth of which Professor Havlick spoke. If you look at the study’s numbers, less than 43% of the residents of the county are drivers. Many in the professional classes often assume that “everyone drives.” The reality is quite the opposite: fewer people are independently mobile through driving than are not. This is true in almost every city and county in the United States because driving privileges depend on one being an adult over 16 with financial resources AND good health AND in good standing with the state. That leaves out a lot of people:
- Children and teenagers
- Senior citizens
- People who cannot afford a car and insurance
- People who cannot drive for health reasons
- People who’s licenses have been suspended or revoked
- People who choose not to drive
The unfortunate reality is that as our cities continue to sprawl under the assumption that “everyone drives” the independent mobility of all of these groups actually declines. Communities in which senior citizens can walk to the grocery store and to visit their friends are harder and harder to find. Communities in which children and teenagers can safely walk or bike to school and friend’s houses are increasingly bisected by four-lane thoroughfares. People without the means to drive find themselves increasingly trapped by an inability to access jobs, schools and other programs that cannot be reached (without great difficulty) by any other means than a car.
There is a simple solution to this problem, and that is to design our communities on a human scale, rather than a car scale. That means arranging facilities to be accessible within a 5 minute walk rather than a five minute drive. Making travel corridors human-size rather than car-size (transport corridors for goods is another thing). Prioritize the design of public spaces that people will want to pass through and inhabit, rather than those that will accommodate their vehicles while they go somewhere else. (For more, check out the Smarth Growth Principles.)
But how do we realign our planning process?
Local governments can’t change private property laws or stop developers from building parking lots. But they can stop subsidizing that kind of development with their transportation budget allocations.
As I mentioned, a few years ago I heard a great presentation by Professor Havlick, co-author of Transportation & Sustainable Campus Communities. He explained that the City of Boulder, CO, realized that they were spending the lions share of their transportation dollars supporting automobile transportation, even though less than 50% of their population could drive. They decided to realign their transportation spending to more closely match the proportion of their population with driving privileges. (In other words, if only 40% of their city population could drive, they weren’t going to continue to spend 91% of their annual transportation budget on projects that essentially supported automobile transit alone. ) This one change opened up a massive amount of capital for pedestrian, bicycle and mass transit infrastructure. It similarly reduced spending on road extensions and expansions to subdevelopments and shopping malls. As a result, Boulder is known around the country for its pedestrian, bicycle and transit friendliness. (I’ve biked it and can attest.) But even better than that, and perhaps less easy to measure, the quality of life for the 60% of the population that does not drive has improved due to increased independent mobility and less congestion and pollution.
[My apologies to Professor Havlick if I completely botched the details of his story about Boulder. It was a few years ago that I heard him speak. I think I got the gist of it right anyway.]
September 26th, 2007 at 11:47 am
One thing you missed is the fact that everyone benefits from cars, even if they don’t drive. If we didn’t have highways and raods, it would be far more expensive and difficult to deliver the goods and services that improve everyones quality of life. So, cars aren’t all bad.
September 26th, 2007 at 12:46 pm
Good thought, Steve. However, freight moving has little to do with parking spaces (for cars). It also has little do to with the overbuilding of thoroughfares, given that only a small percentage of traffic is dedicated to moving “stuff.” If you take a look at traffic photos, for example, there are only about three or four freight hauling vehicles in the picture. Most of the traffic is simply moving people (often 1 per car). That’s an incredibly inefficient way to move people (1 ton of steel to move ~150 lbs of person). I think the visual above makes this pretty clear.
Also, I should be clear that I never said we wouldn’t need roads. Roads are necessary for the transport of freight and the delivery of many services. However, we would need a lot less lanes and a lot less surface parking if our cities were planned in such a way that non-freight transportation could be accomplished by walking, biking or using mass transit. That takes land-use planning and government budgeting that doesn’t assume “everyone drives.”
It also involves cancelling our AAA memberships. AAA is one of the most avid lobbies for paving the planet.
September 28th, 2007 at 9:52 am
I would like to know of other communities where living without a car is workable? What does such a community look like? Are there city planners working to see that new developments have the basic needs of living within walking distance of the dwellings? I live in a small town (14,000) and don’t drive unless I go out of town. I walk or bicycle in town.
September 28th, 2007 at 11:04 am
Great questions, Dave. I don’t have all the answers (hopefully some of our readers can supply more info), but I have a few leads for you:
Check out Walk Score. It’s a very cool new website that allows users to punch in any address in the US and it will calculate the “walkability” of that location. It uses Google Maps data so it doesn’t capture everything, but it is a good start for people and businesses when they are thinking about relocating.
Several websites have lists of most walkable communities. PBS put out a list of America’s Most Walkable Communities. RunthePlanet has their own Most Walkable Cities list. All of them have their shortcomings (for example, Raleigh NC is a walkable city?!!), but they are a good starting place.
As for communities that are doing very intentional planning, check out the book by Spenser Havlick and Will Toor that I mentioned in the post, especially for examples of higher ed communities. Other than that, somebody else is going to have to help out on that one.
September 28th, 2007 at 11:11 am
Actually, big cities such as New York, are the places where people do much better without a car. In a big city, many people choose to walk, bike or use public transportation because parking is expensive and driving and parking is often a hassle.
I also wanted to comment on how relying less on cars, as a society, would help non-drivers such as senior citizens. Our population is aging rapidly. Thus, providing suitable transportation for senior citizens who can no longer drive is a significant problem which must be addressed. In fact, there is a growing organization called the Independent Transportation Network (ITN), http://www.itnamerica.org/ which addresses this problem, still focusing on the centrality of the automobile. In fact, ITN argues that because the automobile is so central to mobility in our society, we must ensure that senior citizens continue to have access to automobile transportation even if they will be doing so as a passenger. This organizations’ literature points out that senior citizens who cannot drive and either do not have public transportation options or do not use public transportation due to lack of mobility or inconvenience, become unnecessarily isolated and inactive. Thus, ITN implements a system in which senior citizens can schedule rides by making a reservation with their transportation service which uses a combination of paid and volunteer drivers.
Making a paradigm shift in which our society becomes less “car centric” would address environmental concerns as well as the needs of our growing senior citizen population and other segments of our population who either cannot or do not wish to drive.
September 30th, 2007 at 9:00 am
You should check out goloco.com. It matches up carpoolers and calculates total miles saved + comes as a facebook application. Might work for senior citizens too though they will need some computer knowledge.