Corrupt Cars and Cycling Cities: How cars have destroyed us and how to take back our streets
We weren’t always a society dominated by the car. In fact, streets used to be made for people. Wide promenades, lined with shopfronts ranging from grocers to bakers to shoemakers, littered cities and towns. Mothers who lived in cities that lacked backyards and green spaces like parks would send their children to play in the streets and it was perfectly safe. Until that is, the Model-T came to town and the automobile became ubiquitous.
Child deaths skyrocketed in cities in the first few years of the automobile, mainly due to accidents where these new metal machines would hit and kill the children playing in the streets. Pedestrians did not know to look out for cars, because they were a new invention and it was not yet known the dangers they posed. People viewed the streets as public spaces, for everyone. Many people, especially in cities, were initially against cars because they feared they were a danger to society. Car companies, like Ford, did not appreciate the public’s concern, likely because it was bad for sales. So, Car companies started a propaganda campaign to shift the blame of the pedestrian deaths and traffic accidents to the pedestrian, average people and children playing in the streets, and away from the car. They coined the derogatory term “jaywalker” to say that the ‘oblivious’ pedestrians that were hit were at fault because they did not look both ways before crossing the street. Never mind the fact that streets at this time in history were populated by pedestrians and shops, cars were the newcomers and they were to blame. It was a successful propaganda campaign, however, and people bought into it.
Today, pedestrians are regulated to designated crosswalks and sidewalks. Jaywalking is a crime and crossing the street is dangerous business. One has to wonder about how it’s nearly impossible to walk anywhere in most of the towns and cities in the United States. Sidewalks, when they are present, are not often pleasant things to walk on. These concrete paths are typically riddled with cracks, weeds, dog poop, giant telephone poles, and the lovely smell of car exhaust from the hundreds of cars speeding by alongside them. That is not to say all sidewalks are horrible because the sidewalks in upper-class white neighborhoods are certainly nice, but the vast majority of them are poorly thought-out, falling apart, and lead to nowhere.
How did this happen? How did walking to the grocery store became a niche activity only done by the severely poor or ultra-frugal?
The short answer is that many states in America sold their souls to the automobile industry.
Currently, car dealerships take up massive lots alongside freeways and interstates. Stealing land from what could be affordable housing. The gleaming metal and new car smell assault your senses with a tantalizing perfume of freedom, environmental degradation, and an immense five-year financial obligation. A person is thought of as disadvantaged if they don’t have a vehicle. Our official government ID is a driver’s license. The only way to get around in a vast majority of American cities is by car. Job applications ask you to check off a box if you have reliable transportation; if a person doesn’t have a car and they check ‘yes’ because they take the bus, they better hope their bus comes on time every day and they don’t get called into work emergencies and they only ever have to work the day shift because night buses are few and far in between. They also best not check off the ‘no’ box, because that is a sure-fire way to not get the job. People have been forced to become severely dependent on cars.
Car dealerships have a monopoly over new car sales. It’s illegal to sell new cars if you aren’t a dealer, but a person can’t become a dealer in another’s territory (by the way, most viable spots are already occupied). These unfortunate facts of life resulted from franchise laws, which car dealership owners lobbied for in the 20th century. Uniquely, the American situation is worsened by the fact that most states get twenty percent of their sales tax revenue from car dealerships. In Texas, sales tax makes up more than 50% of the state’s revenue. So, politicians and other government officials will bend over backward to satisfy the demands of dealerships. Dealerships typically hold quite the monopoly in their territories. People have been forced to adopt cars as their main mode of transportation and forced to only buy new cars from established monopolies.
The car has also destroyed the public space of yesteryear, replaced public transport, and filled cities with pollution and traffic congestions. Streets are no longer wide promenades with shops and cafes. That only exists now in the downtown areas of cities and even then, most of the time the only way to get downtown is to drive. Corner groceries have been replaced with massive Walmart’s, also on large concrete lots, and most of the time a person’s café of choice is a Starbucks. There used to be public electric streetcars in cities that took people to and from work; a single streetcar could take many, many people to different places. Once the car took over and grew like an ugly mold over the country, streetcars were eventually decommissioned in most places. There are buses in many cities now, but public transportation is terrible in most places. Now, the exhaust of cars, trucks, and shoddy city buses fill the streets with their poisonous gas and loud engines. The squeak of breaks sounds a shrill alarm in a person’s ear, blazing a warning that something is not quite right in American cities.
There is a solution. People need to move away from cars.
Right now, cities are built for automobiles, not people. There is a vital need to shift the focus back to what really matters, people. Values in America should focus on families, health, and social interaction. There should be nothing that propagates the need for people to spend hours alone in a climate-controlled metal machine that spits out poisonous gas and kills the earth. There are absolutely no reasons cities should be built and maintained on a ‘’car first, people second,” mindset.
Creating cities for people is not difficult. There are three simple steps that only require motivation, innovation, and compassion. The money will come if a city possesses these three things.
First, get rid of the cars. To do that, one must get rid of the parking, make driving the difficult and last choice, ensure public transit is available and attractive, and make walking or biking easy and SAFE.
Second, attract the people. To achieve this plant trees, make all the building mixed-use developments, ensure there is affordable housing, design buildings and pathway for interest and attractiveness, i.e. avoid drab solid concrete walls and include lots of greenery.
Third, enjoy. Take a stroll down Main St. and enjoy the pleasant sounds of people chattering away at a café or wandering down the street window shopping with their children. The fact of the matter is that cities with walkable streets and public spaces are happier, healthier cities.
In Austin, Texas the city is making strides to connect the entire city via bike lanes and trails. The Shoal Creek Conservancy, People for Bike projects, and other local non-profits are working with the city to achieve this. The Mobility Bond of 2016 provided $20 million to fund bike lanes and other active transit options. Already, bike lanes are popping up all over the city. The city has a repaving policy where over a ten-year period, all the streets in the city will be repaved. Now, their new policy is to add a bike line and subtract parking spaces along every street; in ten years, the city will be much more connected. Downtown Austin is where most of the transformations have occurred, with the city moving towards more pedestrian friendly policies, but slowly the changes will radiate out into the rest of the city.
For example, the Shoal Creek Conservancy, a local non-profit that leverages public funds into the betterment of the community, has published a trail plan for Austin that follows an 11-mile corridor from north Austin to lady bird lake. The project will, “connect Trail users not only to daily destinations — but to one another, to nature and to their shared history and culture.” This will allow people to get downtown without the use of a car and promote community growth by building this 11-mile trail right next to shoal creek, which runs through the heart of Austin. The plan follows the rules perfectly, first, it gets rid of the cars and then it plans to attract people. The best part is that the projects are entirely funded by money from the people of Austin who voted to pay more taxes in order to fund the development of more bike lanes and trail in Austin. There is a huge desire in Austin, and the entire United States, to move away from cars. People want to walk around their cities and connect with their communities.
Cars have been imposed on the people of the United States for too long. People have come second, and cities have been irreverently carved into pieces to make room for six-lane streets and pollution. Cities must take back their streets and redesign them for the people. A city without cars is still a city, but a city without people is nothing but a ghost town.
Take back the streets.
References
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