Quick thoughts on cars

Imagine that tomorrow a clean and cheap automobile fuel is discovered. Any car can be inexpensively modified to burn this new fuel. It has no emissions save water vapor. Perhaps also a mild lavender scent. It is a dream fuel and it will probably never exist, but this is a hypothetical scenario so that's okay. Imagine how liberated a ecologically conscientous car user would feel as their anxiety over global warming and oil wars vanish. The locus of so much angst would return to its pre-Fall (circa Carter administration) state of blissful freedom. We could all finally drive as much as we damn well pleased and not have to give a damn (god damnit!).

I admit it sounds pretty nice. But even with a miracle fuel under the hood, it's still the case that the car must go. The personal automobile is about much more than emissions; it is not even primarily about emissions. It is primarily about space. Nothing can change the fact that the personal automobile is a terrible use of space, and space is the scarcest urban resource.

Problem the first: traffic. André Gorz writes that the automobile is essentially a luxury good, "like a villa by the sea, it is only desirable and useful insofar as the masses don't have one." This is abundantly clear to anyone who has experienced the agony of a daily commute through gridlock traffic. The inescapable fact is that, per passenger mile, cars take up vastly too much space for everyone to have one.

Problem the second: parking. Any place worth going to is going to attract lots of folks. If they all bring their cars, they have to park them somewhere. But building giant parking lots detracts from the pleasure of the place. So we kill it to make it "accessible."

Furthermore, the space taken up by cars (driving and parked) necessarily eats into the opportunities for pedestrians and bicycles. Traffic increases, streets are widened, soon neighborhood are traversed by freeway-sized thoroughfares that no one in their right mind would let a child cross on their way to school. Super-sized parking lots separate storefronts from the street, discouraging pedestrians from approaching on foot. Etc.

I think we want to believe the miracle fuel story because the (extremely real) threat of global warming has put attention on emissions. As it should. However, we can't lose sight of the fact that even the cleanest car is incompatible with a city friendly to pedestrians and cyclists. And the benefits to be reaped from encouraging walking and cycling are more* than just clean air.

* In fact, here's a study.