Beyond Convenience: The Heavy Toll of Drive-Thrus
On the opening day of a new In-N-Out in Meridian, Idaho, some customers waited 8 hours in the drive-thru to get their food. While I wasn't one of those people it got me thinking about the costs that drive-thrus has had and will have on its surrounding people and landscape. There is a heavy toll that comes with drive-thrus and we should seriously consider banning this infrastructure from our towns and cities. What is this toll and impact? The three main areas of concern are environmental impact, health concerns, and community and social dynamics.
Environmental Impact
A primary reason we should be reconsidering drive-thru use is the negative impact that they have on the environment. When a drive-thru is used the assumption is that we are going to be driving to get there. While a push for electric vehicles helps with emissions, there is and will be an abundance of internal combustion engine vehicles for many years.¹
Another issue is the poor land use. The drive-thru is a contributing factor to suburban sprawl pushing our buildings further and further away from each other
increasing our car dependency. While far from the only factor that perpetuates car dependency, banning new drive-thrus in our cities is a tool to limit our increasing dependence on vehicles and the suburban sprawl.
The asphalt from drive-thrus contributes to the urban heat island effect. The urban heat island effect is where local areas experience higher temperatures due to heat-absorbing surfaces like asphalt. Drive-thrus, with their expansive asphalt surfaces, can intensify this effect, leading to higher temperatures in the immediate vicinity. Leading to hotter conditions for people and surrounding wildlife.²
Impervious surfaces like asphalt also prevent water from being easily absorbed into the ground, leading to increased surface runoff. In drive-thru areas, this can result in significant amounts of water runoff, potentially causing erosion and carrying pollutants into nearby water bodies.
Health Concerns
Drive-thrus typically offer fast food and sugary beverages, contributing to many dietary health issues in America. Banning drive-thrus would help promote healthier eating habits by encouraging people to make more mindful food choices. Without the convenience of a drive-thru, individuals may be more inclined to prepare or choose healthier meals, leading to a positive impact on public health.
Additionally, the sedentary nature of drive-thru culture, where people remain seated in their cars for extended periods, contributes to a lack of physical activity. Encouraging people to park and walk into establishments would promote a more active lifestyle, addressing the growing concerns about sedentary behavior and its associated health risks.
Community and Social Dynamics
Drive-thrus contribute to the isolation of individuals within their vehicles, limiting social interactions and community engagement. Banning drive-thrus could encourage people to patronize local businesses and interact with their communities. By fostering a sense of community, we can strengthen social bonds and reduce the isolation that often accompanies the convenience of drive-thru services.
Furthermore, the increase in drive-thrus contributes to the homogenization of American cities with identical structures dotting the roadside. Banning drive-thrus could encourage diverse and unique architectural designs that contribute to the character of local neighborhoods, creating a more visually appealing and vibrant community.
Another issue that is synonymous with drive-thrus is the induced traffic due to backed-up cars in a drive-thru. At, incidentally, another In-N-Out where I live the drive-thru traffic would spill into the other businesses parking and out into the main road coming off of the freeway. In-N-Outs' solution was to expand their drive-thru runway which did free up the main road but still contributes to the other problems mentioned above. Other restaurants don't have the land space to be able to expand so the problem never goes away but will be exacerbated as more cars come to their restaurants. This is also only a band-aid fix to the problem. As the traffic increases again from inducing traffic (since people perceive that there is more space to wait) eventually this In-N-Out will be right back where it started.
What can I do?
This is the part where you can make a difference, there are cities all across the US that are beginning to ban the construction of new drive-thrus. Sugarhouse, Utah, is the closest, most recent place to me that has banned the construction of new drive-thrus.³ This is a fantastic win that shows it’s possible to happen in any municipality. In the city of Portland⁴, they have created an alternative to banning drive-thrus. They permit walk-ups and bike-ups to a drive-thru which is a measure that can help alleviate some car-centric mentalities. Regardless of what path you take talking to your city council members is a great starting point. Talking to neighbors and friends is also a great avenue to get more support. I want to have a city that I can be proud of and drive-thru culture isn’t a fit for anyone being proud of their city.
Footnotes:
- It’s no secret that internal combustion engine cars produce a crap ton of emissions. Assuming the figure's accuracy that the average car releases 4 lbs of emissions from an hour of idling, we can do the math that 4/60 (minutes) gives us about .066 lbs a minute. The average drive-thru time is about 3 minutes rounding up the lbs per minute that takes us to .2lbs per vehicle emitted at the drive-thru. If we take the lower estimate of 100 cars a day through a drive-thru 20 lbs a day per drive-thru. So 7,300 a year per drive-thru. Lastly, with ~200,000 drive-thrus in the U.S., that’s ~1.4 billion pounds in emissions from drive-thrus alone. https://ravalli.us/DocumentCenter/View/229/Vehicle-Idling
- https://www.epa.gov/heatislands
- https://www.ksl.com/article/50724133/salt-lake-city-bans-new-drive-thrus-in-busy-part-of-sugar-house
- https://www.portland.gov/sites/default/files/code/33.224-drive-through-facilities.pdf
