2/25/13 – Car-Free Cities

If we know that keeping our car on in our garage would kill us, why don’t we realize that the inversions in our city are just as toxic?

Learning about Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) in class today was a great addition to the reading about “Taming the Auto” from Green Urbanism. Bogota, Colombia and Curitiba, Brazil each have amazing BRT transit systems set up and watching the video about them was even more helpful than with my previous knowledge of those places. 

From the reading I’ve learned how effective car-sharing programs can be, especially with certain incentives. “Subscribers are issued a smart card, a magnetized card with their picture on it, which they use to access key lockers at pick-up points. This card access, in combination with onboard computers in each car, means that the user needs to do very little when picking up or returning a vehicle. Subscribers simply use the cars when they need them and receive a monthly bill for kilometers driven and time used” (pg. 154 in Green Urbanism). “Representatives at Greenwheels (a Dutch car-sharing company) feel that one of the most important lessons about successful car-sharing is that it must be made as easy and effortless as possible if it is to compete with private auto usage.” Making it easy and convenient is the best way to create effective car-sharing programs. I am confident that if Europeans can do it, so can we!

In one of my earlier posts I talked about the Bike vs. Car vs. Bus and attached an image comparing the two. Check out this awesome video we watched in class titled “Bike vs. Car vs. Transit”.

In the book they reference how, in 1998, “a national government consultation document (“Cutting Congestion—Improving the Environment”) was unveiled. The British proposal would give local authorities the right to impose road pricing under the condition that the resulting funds generated be invested in public transit improvements.” We need to do this in the U.S. since right now all we do with our gasoline tax is dedicate it to developing more roads and highways. It’s aggravating how car-oriented, dedicated and constrained we are, as a society and as a nation.

As negative as it may be from commuters’ and car advocates’ point of view, I think car driving taxes and tolls would help with transition strategies to influence more public transit infrastructure and less cars on the road. Also in the book they reference a system popular to commuters where the driving tolls or taxes are returned to the car owners in the form of lowered car taxes. Even though this idea is contrary to developing public transit infrastructure, I really think it could be effective and popular with people driving cars and commuting while at the same time reducing congestion.

Side note, here’s a funny video we watched in class. It ties into this whole discussion – how can we make things that are an integral part of our lives fun?