“If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places.”
“If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places.”
this is such an easy concept… too bad we have people running things that don’t get it
Speaking of planning for cars and traffic, the City is having an open house for the Orange Prairie Road extension tonight from 6-8pm at Charter Oak School.
If you plan a city all slow and dapper, you get an economy that’s in the crapper. If you plan for bustling growth, you get an economy that even bloggers don’t loathe.
-me
“If you plan cities for cars and traffic, you get cars and traffic. If you plan for people and places, you get people and places.”
Why not do both?
“If you plan for bustling growth”…
… you get deficits and contractors pocketing millions.
Cars and traffic don’t pay taxes or patronize downtown businesses, although they do fill parking decks and parking meters.
“Why not do both?”
I would argue that that is not feasible. To make an area more pedestrian friendly, necessitates a reduction in the usage of vehicles.
Further… it is not in our local, state, or national interests at any policy level to encourage or sustain more automobile use. We need to start thinking in a post peak oil way. Plan now and maybe we can avoid some of the pain later.
The point of the quote is that cars and traffic degrade our quality of life. We create the built environment in which we live. By choosing to support our automobile habit, with roads, parking, etc., we destroy our green spaces, our pedestrian access, our health, and our livable space. We often do not consider our choices in such a way, because habit is a powerful blinder, and our choices diffuse and daily. Unfortunately, automobiles are not a habit we can sustain for much longer.
The automobile carries high costs – to the owner, who spends a great deal of money on an expensive asset that depreciates in value and requires constant maintenance, gas and insurance, even before considering the outrageous financing charges to which an unfortunate number of drivers voluntarily sacrifice their financial stability; to public health, in the harmful effects of pollution, traffic accidents, and increasingly obesity; to the environment, because of the huge input of resources required to create more and more automobiles to keep up with our insatiable demand for new cars, even when our old cars are entirely serviceable, and even when we cannot afford them, and because of the pollution caused by emissions, maintenance, production and use of gas and oil, and eventual disposal. All of this to enable a highly inefficient mode of transportation. Most of the resources spent go towards moving the massive weight of the car. By comparison, the driver, passengers, and cargo are negligible. And be honest, how often do we unthinkingly use a car or truck to transport just ourselves? And most often just ourselves a short distance? That’s like using a sledgehammer to tack up a note on a cork board. Automobiles also require massive duplication of infrastructure – miles of wide roads with all the appurtenant signs and lights, large parking spaces with more pavement for access to each space, close spaced streets and alleys in cities to allow access to buildings and houses, driveways and garages eating up space on each residential house’s lot. All of the resources consumed at each step of the automobile’s life are in finite supply, and I can imagine much better uses we or our children and descendants could make of them. The solution is fewer parking spaces, fewer roads, fewer cars, less planning for cars and traffic, and more planning for livable space that can actually be enjoyed by people. We could choose to have a much higher quality of life than we do. We simply, and tragically, choose every day not to.
Garth-
This little debate here, and even the quote itself, shows that there seem to be two paradigms in urban planning today: planning exclusively around pedestrians, and planning exclusively around cars. While there are obvious benefits to planning such that cars aren’t needed, let’s not demonize automobile transport either. American growth has been dictated by the automobile, and while we are making slow but steady progress to get people out of their cars and on their feet, I think it’s actually a negative to shun cars completely. Walking to work, bars, restaurants, and other entertainment venues is a great goal, but trying to walk a mile back from the supermarket with ten bags of groceries is asking a lot.
What civic planners, both the hired ones in City Hall and the citizen planners out there (that’s all of you), should strive for is development that gives residents the OPTION of whether to drive, bike or walk. This means making streets more pedestrian friendly, but not necessarily unfriendly to the automobile. After all, you wouldn’t want the fire department or paramedics to walk to your house if there was an emergency; likewise, as long as your home keeps producing trash, you’re going to want ways to get the garbage and recycling trucks to your house.
There are ways to balance this equation, but for the most part it involves increasing urban density. While this is what makes places and neighborhoods great, fact of the matter is, the market has dictated that what sells houses is the half-acre lots out near Dunlap, not the classic urban neighborhood style of development closer into Peoria’s core.
And don’t blame City Hall for that, either. If they had a backbone (hah) and enforced higher densities and discouraged growth on the fringe in the “Growth Cells”, the Washingtons, East Peorias and Dunlaps of the area would still welcome with open arms the sprawling subdivisions.
This touches on another topic that is often overlooked in this area: thinking of the area as a region. Instead of thinking as a “greater Peoria” we think of Peoria vs. Dunlap, west of the river vs. east of the river, etc. We have a metropolitan planning organization to theoretically centralize all the development in the Tri-County area, but they seem to take more of a hands-off approach with things, instead serving more of an advisory role to the individual communities. Hopefully that will change once their tri-county comprehensive plan comes out this fall, but I’m not holding my breath.
The best way to make a difference is to be the difference you want to make. Set a good example for your friends and neighbors; move to a liveable community; walk, bike, or take the bus to work; buy local, eat local, drink local, shop local. This recession and the housing bubble bursting may be the kick in the pants the market needed to rediscover living closer to the urban core, and the only way to get the market moving in that direction is to be part of that market.
Agreed, shunning cars entirely is not necessarily feasible or mandatory. I also agree that we should start small – I think we need smaller more rationally scaled projects in the Peoria area as a general matter. Adding pedestrian and bicycle access costs little money in most cases, and can save money by moving away from costly automobile infrastructure.
The problem is one of cultural priority, and not attributable to a single group or entity. Some of us do set an example, but the vast majority of the public does not notice. Our example is drowned out by the scream of the marketing machine fueled by all that American growth (I think every other ad I see is either for cars or car insurance), or simply fails to penetrate the apathy of long habit. The hope is that shifting our priority to planning first for people and places will provide the spaces the majority of the public needs to feel comfortable and encouraged to explore alternate modes of transportation. Few people will consider biking or walking somewhere if they have to compete with automobile traffic, but many would do so if they had a safe and pleasant route, and would likely stick with it once they experience the benefits. Keep the car for big shopping trips, or longer distances (though keep passenger rail, etc., in mind). But most trips are short and light duty, and do not require a car, if the infrastructure is in place to support the casual traveler. And because that’s the majority of our travel, and the easiest to address, allowing and encouraging those short easy trips by foot or bike can have a huge overall impact. But without infrastructure access, the example of the few hardcore will only impress those already doing it. Other communities have made great strides in these areas, slowly but surely; there is no reason we cannot.
Such efforts can work despite suburban sprawl, a separate though related issue, except for work commuting, since your are still hopefully eating, shopping, and educating close to residential neighborhoods. Also, there are plenty of half acre lots and well constructed houses within a 5 mile radius from downtown Peoria, yes, even in good neighborhoods. This is not a highly urbanized area like Chicago. As I said, our built environment is the product of our own daily choices, for good or ill.
Garth-
Don’t be ridiculous, no one is suggesting that cars will be gone entirely. They just will not be a priority. You don’t plan on providing enough roadway, parking spaces, and room for every possible car like today. Nor will it be that every person who could possibly own a car be able to realistically own one. If you got no place to park it, why would you buy it? If there is no place to park at the destinations you visit, why would you buy it? If traffic is too dense, why would you buy it?
On the flip side, public transit is a must.
This is basically how it operates in Europe. There are strong disincentives to driving and automobile ownership.
Going forward 10 or 20 years, even Europe is going to find itself needing to reduce automobile usage further. The difference from usage point A to usage point B is much smaller for them than it will be for us. This world cannot double or triple (dare we say higher?) the number of automobile users and expect our current method of urban planning and automobile culture to remain intact.
Western Europe uses half the amount of energy per capita than we do. Japan is somewhere around a third per capita. Our lifestyle, our culture, our cities are very energy inefficient. There is room today and now to change that without any reliance on some high tech solutions.
How much pain do we really want to endure?
“no one is suggesting that cars will be gone entirely”
They will be gone eventually… won’t they? How many horses and carriages are on the streets?
Why aren’t we planning for that time? We know we need to end this oil based transportation system we need to end this one man one car highway system. We need to end this reliance on the city and public to provide parking for our automobiles.
And even if we were suddenly able to invent or ‘discover’ Star Trek-type transporter technology…even on Earth in
the 23rd or 24th Century, the TV shows portrayed that they still had to use some kind of shuttle between buildings.
Actually, the bicycle remains the most efficient means of transportation we have yet invented, some 150 years later. No need to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, imagine sci fi solutions, or even dream about hydrogen or whatever your pet alternative fuel source is. We already have the tools to at least minimize the use of automobiles. Not every improvement or solution must be relegated to some distant technological future; we can live quite happily with what we have – we just need the vision to choose to.
Certainly autos would eventually become obsolete, but the point is to minimize their use starting immediately, by encouraging alternate means of transportation and discouraging the use of automobiles. This does not necessitate going cold turkey, but can be accomplished more gradually, by intelligent planning and infrastructure changes, by educating the public about the high personal and social costs of the automobile, and by showing the public the benefits of different lifestyle choices. Unfortunately it seems a more than uphill battle at times.
Garth-
Anyone that has had the “pleasure” of having had to live in either downtown Chicago or Manhattan knows that buying things like groceries is a pain in the a$$! No one buys more than about one or two days worth of food at a time because there is no way to get it home! The true, urban environment that so many people claim is so great, actually sucks, big time! Costs rise exponentially when everything you want to buy that you cannot carry yourself has to arrive by delivery truck (and union employees). I would much rather pay the cost of owning and maintaining a vehicle than going back to that sort of daily chaos again.
“the true, urban environment that so many people claim is so great, actually sucks”
Because everyone knows the sign of true happiness is a full refrigerator and two full freezers.
@ Dunlap observer: Nobody is talking about downtown Chicago or Manhattan. You can live in Peoria in a good neighborhood with plenty of land and a well built house, and be within 5 miles of everything, including work, shopping, education, etc. The point of this quote is that we need to add the planning to make those 5 miles more livable and less dependent on cars and less conducive to traffic. Individuals can choose to continue to bear the personal costs of car ownership, but we need to discourage car use as much as possible, because society as a whole cannot bear the global cost much longer. If they can make progress in Chicago, with all the daily chaos and space shortages you mention, we can certainly do it here, and much better. IMO, Peoria is, or can be, a much better place to live than Chicago, etc., which is why I chose to move here.
Garth-
@ Dunlap observer: There are options to deal with that as well. Car-sharing is catching on very quickly in urban areas (and even down in Champaign) as a feasible alternative to owning a car in a dense area: basically, you just rent it hourly whenever you need it. The company pays for gas and insurance. So if you don’t own a car but still want to stock up on groceries, you can do that without having to walk it all back or lug it onto a bus.
Plus car-sharing is a private enterprise, so it isn’t state-subsidized like public transportation.
dunlap observer. I did live in Chicago for several years. I owned a car, but rarely drove it. Most grocery stores in Chicago, at least the major supermarkets will deliver your groceries for a very small fee. I took the bus or the el almost everywhere I went. That is not possible to most Peorians.
“IMO, Peoria is, or can be, a much better place to live than Chicago, etc., which is why I chose to move here.”
Garth-
Yes, Peoria could be a number of things. The problem is, and has been for a number of years, that Peoria has an inept, narrow minded city government. They would rather spend millions of TIF and/or tax dollars on econo-bust projects like museums and hotels; rather than find ways to make Peoria [area] more appealing to potential long-term residents.
There is an interesting discussion of different modes of transportation at:
http://transportation.nationaljournal.com/2010/08/will-bicyclists-and-pedestrian.php