Beyond Rivalry

The science fiction and fantasy writer Orson Scott Card's essay Life Without Cars is excellent.

"We got our wish. We no longer live in cities. We don't live in towns. We don't live in the country, either. We don't live anywhere at all. Just island neighborhoods in splendid isolation, with roads so convoluted that half our driving is just to get out of the island and onto a road that goes somewhere.

 

"You want to take a walk? No sidewalks in most places, and nowhere to walk to. ...

 

"You're at WalMart. You want to go to Home Depot. You can see it from where you are, but please don't be stupid and try to walk there. Our streets hate pedestrians. You have to walk all the way out to the street -- or cut through prickly hedges or climb fences."

I remember about 20 years ago I tried to walk from a bus stop near White Flint Mall (in Bethesda, MD) to White Flint Mall proper. I could see the one from the other, just across a multi-lane street or two. Mistake. For some reason unfathomable to me even then, the roads, lights, traffic speed, etc., weren't designed for a pedestrian to cross to a shopping center from a bus stop -- though the bus might be seen as the access vehicle for many would-be shoppers. It took me 20 minutes, a few desperate dashes across speeding traffic, and walking in weeds up to my shins to reach the Mall. Then I had to figure out how to get into it, because it's mostly accessed through the parking garages. If you haven't done it before, I can tell you that walking around the exterior of a Mall on foot is a very, very slow process.

Now I live in a small town, where I can walk to the library, coffee shop, many churches, several banks, some doctors' offices, the post office (though that walk could be more pedestrian-friendly), drug store, small grocery store, etc.  I am grateful such a place still exists.

In the section of his essay headed There's Another Way, Card describes his ideal town attributes, some of which my town exhibits:

"Narrow streets with sidewalks on both sides. When people are parked at the curb, cars can't pass each other going both ways. So cars go very slowly and the drivers are constantly alert."  // Yes to the sidewalks and narrow streets, but unfortunately, cars often don't slow down even when passing parked cars. So far, though, I haven't witnessed an accident in town.

"Yards are small." // Yes, they are. I'd prefer them a little larger, and sunnier so I could grow more vegetables and herbs, but not at the cost of lovely shady trees.

"Children walk to school. Adults walk to stores that are only a few blocks away. Nobody lives more than three short blocks from a bus stop or other public transportation, and because so many people use public transit, the buses come frequently; you never wait more than fifteen minutes during the peak times." //  Alas, we fall far short. Children almost universally ride the bus to school, and the school bus stops every few yards it seems, so no one has to walk. Some adults do walk or bike to stores to do errands, but most still drive, even a few blocks. The bus stops wherever anyone flags it down, so that's handy, but it runs only once an hour and almost no one takes it. 

"People meet their neighbors because they're not all locked inside metal-and-plastic shacks moving down the street. You pass each other going to and from schools and stores and work." // Yes, this is mostly true here. I run into as many people on the sidewalks and in downtown shops as I do in the grocery store on the outskirts of town. The hybrid and idle-profuse version of this is that it's not uncommon to be walking down the street, heading to the bank or library, and to have a friend in a car slow down to talk for a moment. Not so good.

"The houses aren't all alike." // We have a mix of large and small single-family, duplexes, and apartments within less than a quarter mile of each other in many parts of town.

Card's section on Why We Need to Get Cars Under Control offers these reasons:

1. Stop Funding Our Enemies. Reduce "the vast pool of oil money from which the sponsors of terrorism can draw."

2. Get Back That Wasted Time.

3. Saving Lives. In 2005, 43,200 people died on American highways. If we were fighting a war in which 40,000 people died every year and it had gone on that way for the past twenty years, wouldn't you join the anti-war movement? ... People don't die randomly -- they die because of drunks, reckless teenagers, sleepy drivers, stressed-out drivers in a rage, and drivers so desperate not to be driving that they're trying to do something else at the same time.
If we drove half the number of hours, the quality of our driving would likely improve. If our kids could get somewhere without cars, we could save their lives by not letting them drive when they're still so immature they endanger themselves and everyone else.  If all drinkers walked to and from the bar, it would save 16,000 lives a year from alcohol-caused accidents.

4. A Tax on the Poor. "Because we design our cities so that you can't function without owning at least one car, the working poor have to spend a huge portion of their income on gasoline and car costs."

5. Oil Is Not Forever. "Anybody who thinks the 'free market' will always guarantee surpluses understands neither the market nor history. It is strict government oversight that has softened the economic booms and busts that used to devastate us; the free market is perfectly happy to collapse under stress and leave us eating acorns. The surest way to avoid economic ruin when the oil runs out is to need less of it."

6. Parking Lot Land. We can reclaim it!

7. Air Pollution. We'd all be healthier without cars pumping poisons into the air.

8. Exercise. If we actually used our legs to get from place to place, instead of cars, we'd get plenty of exercise without having to set aside special time to do it.

And then he addresses how to do it. (And see his follow-up article, Walking Neighborhoods, for more details.)

More on Card at his website.