Cities are for People, Not Cars

 

A while back, this photo was making the rounds in my social media feed. The scene is the Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco, the left side showing the former decked highway and the right side showing its present-day layout. The comments this photo evoked were universally that auto-only infrastructure, once removed, is rarely missed, replaced as it is by things that are more accessible and pleasing to people outside of when they're in their cars.

And this is a central premise of what I think we need to reclaim in our cities today. I own a car, and drive it multiple times a week, so I don't find anything inherently wrong with car ownership or car infrastructure. (Although I think car use should be properly priced relative to what it imposes on society, but that's a post for another time.) But, the vast majority of my movement around my city does not require me solo driving. And that's how it should be:

* Auto infrastructure literally destroyed neighborhoods, usually low-income communities and communities of color who lacked the political power to fight against their houses being demolished and their one part of their neighborhood divided from another. Non-auto infrastructure can stitch neighborhoods together and create public space that is accessible to and enjoyable for all.

* A built form that prioritizes cars is necessarily one that requires lots of road width and parking space, which spreads uses out and makes it harder for everyone else to circulate. Elevating a non-auto-oriented built form creates the density needed to encourage intensity of exchange across diverse participants, which is a prerequisite for human enjoyment, cultural expression, and scientific innovation.

* If driving is the predominant form of travel, that does not scale, so adding population to a city (or increasing demand in a particular area for residential, employment, or leisure) bumps up against a diminishing return. Walking, biking, and transit are far more scalable for moving more people at the same time.

* Driving is bad for the environment. Walking and biking (including to and from your transit ride) are forms of active recreation that are good for our health.

* There are higher barriers to entry to driving than to walking, biking, and transit, the latter being free or cheap, and the former requiring access to a car, expenditures on insurance and maintenance, and gassing up your tank.

Cities are for people, who sometimes drive so you have to have some car infrastructure. But too often our cities, and key parts within our cities, seem to be made for cars, given the primacy they are given in terms of infrastructure investment and circulation. The cities that have decided they need to make a U-turn and tear out car infrastructure and invest in non-car infrastructure have found all kinds of benefits are unlocked when they do so. Let's hope we all go boldly in that direction.