[sustran] Pucher's review of The Auto and its Enemies

[Eric Bruun]

Here is the review that I mentioned before. If you pass it along, please cite that

it is forthcoming in Transportation Quarterly. Thanks, Eric Bruun

REVIEW OF “DRIVING FORCES” FOR TRANSPORTATION QUARTERLY
by John Pucher
(to appear in summer 1999 TQ)

James A. Dunn, Jr., Driving Forces:  The Automobile, its Enemies, and the Politics
of Mobility.  Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 1998, ISBN
0-8157-1964-7, 230 pp, $44.95.

Transportation Paradise:  Realm of the Nearly Perfect Automobile?
(by John Pucher)

According to James Dunn’s Driving Forces, Americans enjoy the best of all possible
worlds.  Our auto-dominated transportation system is convenient, comfortable,
fast, dependable, safe, and affordable, offering levels of mobility the rest of
the world can only dream of.  Portraying the United States as a veritable
transportation nirvana, Dunn briefly concedes a few “minor” problems but claims
that they can be solved by painless technological fixes.   In short, Dunn views
the auto-highway transport system as almost perfect and getting better all the
time.
 If only it were true!  One wonders whether Americans feel like they are in
paradise when stuck in traffic jams for hours.  Is road rage indicative of the
ecstasy that cars inspire?   Are the millions of traffic injuries and tens of
thousands of deaths each year only a “minor” problem?  Can we simply ignore the
noise, air, and water pollution caused by cars and highways?  Do the residents of
a smogged-in, gridlocked Los Angeles, Phoenix, or Denver really think that the car
is an almost perfect mode of transportation?
 There can be no doubt that the auto-highway transport system does indeed provide
enormous mobility benefits, but at what cost?   Consider just a few of the many
social and environmental impacts of the nearly perfect automobile:
? In the United States alone, there were 6,613,000 car accidents in 1995,
resulting in 3,386,000 injuries and 41,798 deaths.   In the 25 years between 1970
and 1995, 1.2 million Americans died in traffic accidents.  Motorists are not the
only victims: over a third of traffic fatalities in American cities are
pedestrians and cyclists killed by car and truck drivers.
? Most Americans get little or no exercise, partly because they use the car
instead of walking or cycling, even for short trips.  Our sedentary, car-based
lifestyle leads to one of the world’s highest proportions of obesity (one-fifth of
all adults) and serious health problems.   How much of the precious time saved by
driving instead of walking or cycling is eventually lost through premature death?
A 1992 study for the British Medical Association found that the time spent cycling
and walking is more than offset by the health benefits of such cardiovascular
exercise, which extends life expectancy by more than the extra time it takes to
walk or cycle.   The Surgeon General of the U.S. also recommends walking and
cycling as valuable forms of regular exercise to promote health.   By comparison,
visits to the gym or track (usually reached by car) are almost never frequent
enough to provide regular exercise throughout life.
? Total hours of congestion delay in U.S. metropolitan areas have roughly tripled
since 1980.   For many Americans, the daily commute to work has become a seemingly
endless nightmare.  Without question, the dramatic shift from transit, walking,
and carpooling to single-occupant auto use over the past few decades has
contributed to congestion in our cities.
? Air, water, and noise pollution remain serious problems of the auto-highway
transportation system.  Cars and trucks are a major source of noise and air
pollution in most cities, in spite of technological improvements over the past two
decades.   The huge increase in vehicle miles traveled has partly offset the
impressive reductions in carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds, and nitrogen
oxide pollution per vehicle mile traveled.
? The automobile is America’s primary source of carbon dioxide emissions, the main
greenhouse gas causing global warming.   None of the pollution control measures to
date have dealt with this problem.  It is not entirely clear what the timing and
long-term effects of greenhouse gases on global warming will be.  Nevertheless, in
1997 virtually all OECD countries (including the U.S.) formally committed
themselves in Kyoto, Japan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions over the coming two
decades.  Unless auto use can be curtailed, it is virtually inconceivable that the
U.S. will be able to fulfill its international commitment.
? Notwithstanding the mobility benefits the auto-highway system provides for the
affluent majority, it disadvantages anyone who cannot afford a car or who is
physically or mentally unable to drive a car.  Extensive roadways, parking
facilities, and homeowner subsidies have encouraged extremely low-density suburban
sprawl that puts most destinations out of reach for anyone without a car.  The
poor, the elderly, and the disabled are the main victims.  Their opportunities are
already restricted through financial and physical handicaps; substandard
accessibility further disadvantages them and segregates them from the rest of
society.   An auto-based society discriminates against the disadvantaged.
? Even affluent households are adversely affected by a transport system that
immobilizes anyone who cannot drive a car.  Suburban children are totally
dependent on their parents to get anywhere, since auto-oriented land-use patterns
are so spread out that trips to almost all desired destinations are either too
long or too dangerous to cover by foot or by bicycle.   Suburban sprawl sharply
limits the mobility and independence of children and requires their parents to
spend hundreds of hours a year chauffeuring them everywhere.  This forced mobility
dependence wastes the time and energy of everybody involved.   It also requires
most suburban families to own two or more cars, since almost no trips by anyone
are possible without a car.
? As suggested by critics of the auto, America suffers from a number of other,
perhaps more controversial and less quantifiable harmful impacts of auto
dominance:  the loss of a sense of community and social cohesion; suburban sprawl
and the ugliness of auto-based strip development along highways; the disruption of
neighborhoods both during and after roadway construction; depletion of natural
resources; loss of inner-city vitality; and the atomization and further
segregation of our society by income, race, and ethnicity .
? Finally, a growing number of scientists have attempted to measure the indirect
cost of autos for society, the so-called external cost not borne by auto users
directly.  The estimates range widely and are controversial, but they certainly
suggest a huge social and environmental cost of the auto-highway transport
system.  Generally, the figures range from about $500 billion per year to $1,500
billion per year for the United States.   Even taking the lower bound, that is an
immense cost, amounting to about $0.20 per vehicle mile traveled or $2,400 per car
per year.  That is the minimum estimate of costs and only includes the social and
environmental costs not directly borne by the driver of the car (such as noise and
pollution).
Given this long list of negative impacts, it is hard to believe that anyone could
seriously argue that the costs of the auto-highway system are not enormous.  Yet
that is the conclusion reached by Dunn in Driving Forces.   Evidently, we just
don’t realize how lucky we are to be living in the best of all possible worlds,
the auto-based transportation paradise.
 Most auto apologists in the U.S. are quite generous in wanting to spread the
American auto paradise to the rest of the world.  What’s good for us must be good
for other countries as well.  Even at their much lower levels of auto ownership
and use, however, developing countries are experiencing serious social and
environmental problems from rising motorization.  Congestion, pollution, noise,
injury and death caused by cars in the Third World often exceed levels in the
United States, since developing countries have fewer resources to deal with such
problems.   Many still use leaded gasoline.  Most cars and trucks are old and in
disrepair.  Driving habits are dangerous due to lack of driver training, lax
licensing of drivers, and non-enforcement of traffic laws.  Finally, their roadway
networks are scanty and usually in terrible shape.  Round-trip car commutes in the
largest cities regularly average three hours or more.   Pollution levels in Mexico
City, Manila, Shanghai, Teheran, Bangkok, and Cairo are so high that they can
precipitate immediate illness and even death for susceptible individuals, not just
long-term health risks.  Traffic deaths and injuries are skyrocketing.   Between
1968 and 1985, traffic fatalities rose 300% in Africa and almost 200% in Asia.
>From 1960 to 1995, traffic fatalities in Brazil rose from 5,000 to 32,532.  From
1966 to 1992 traffic fatalities in India rose from 8,700 to 59,400.  From 1972 to
1994, traffic fatalities in China rose from 10,000 to 66,362.   Moreover, in these
developing countries, 56%-74% of traffic fatalities are pedestrians and cyclists
killed by car and truck drivers.  According to the World Health Organization, road
traffic accidents will be the second leading cause of death in developing
countries by the year 2020.   Clearly, the increase in auto ownership and use in
developing countries is not bringing the transportation paradise envisioned by
Dunn.  On the contrary, rising motorization is worsening almost all their  already
severe social and environmental problems.
 By ignoring the serious transport problems in developing countries, as well as
those of disadvantaged groups in the U.S., Dunn’s analysis is far too narrow.
Unquestionably, it is the view through the windshield of a car, representing the
perspective of an auto driver in a multi-car household living in an affluent
American suburb.  Even for affluent Americans, however, Dunn exaggerates the
benefits of the automobile while vastly understating its costs.  Finally, the book
is shortsighted; it ignores many of long-term impacts of the auto such as global
warming, resource depletion, public health problems, and suburban sprawl.
Having listed here a number of criticisms of the auto, this reviewer will
inevitably be branded as one of those notorious “enemies of the auto” that belong
to the “anti-auto vanguard.”  According to Dunn and his fellow defenders of the
car, anyone who criticizes the auto-highway system has a visceral hatred for the
car and opposes it, not because of any real problems it causes, but out of
ideological opposition to the car-based American way of life.   This charge is
both unfair and absurd.  Does Dunn really believe that the danger, congestion,
noise, pollution, and inequity documented above are imaginary, and that there is
no legitimate basis for criticizing the car?  In fact, hundreds of millions of
people all around the world suffer every day from the very real problems of
excessive auto use.  One need not have an ideological axe to grind to find fault
with the auto-dominated system of transportation.   Who doesn’t know someone—a
relative, friend, or neighbor—who has been killed or seriously injured in a car
accident?  Who doesn’t get irritated by motor vehicle noise and air pollution?
Who doesn’t occasionally get stuck in a traffic jam?  How many pedestrians and
cyclists are harassed, intimidated, and endangered every day by inconsiderate
motorists who refuse to respect the legal rights of way of non-motorists?  How
many residential neighborhoods would be safer and more pleasant if there were less
and slower motor vehicle traffic?
The problems of the auto-based transport system are hardly imaginary, and those
who suffer from them certainly have a right to complain.  Millions of victims—not
the few academics Dunn denounces as the “anti-auto vanguard”—form the core of
opposition to the auto’s domination of our transportation system and our lives.
What IS imaginary is the mythical vision of an automobile paradise portrayed in
this book.

ENDNOTES:


  U.S. Department of Transportation, National Transportation Statistics, Bureau of
Transportation Statistics, Washington, D.C., 1997.

  The pedestrian/bicyclist share of traffic fatalities is higher in urban areas
and lower in rural areas.  In 1995, the U.S. had 6,415 pedestrian and cyclist
traffic fatalities.  A disproportionate share of motorist fatalities occurs in
non-urban areas, where travel speeds are much higher and the distance to the
nearest hospital is much farther.

  According to the National Institute of Health, more than one-half of Americans
between the ages of 20 and 74 are overweight, and one-fifth are severely
overweight and technically designated as obese.  For details see “Overweight Was
Bad Enough: The Fat Get Fatter,” New York Times, May 2, 1999; and
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.  Physical Activity and Health: A
Report of the Surgeon General.   Atlanta, GA: U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, Center for Disease Control and Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and
Health Promotion, 1996.

  British Medical Association, Cycling Towards Health and Safety, Oxford, England:
Oxford University Press, 1992.

  U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Physical Activity and Health: A
Report of the Surgeon General

  Texas Transportation Institute, Urban Roadway Congestion, College Station Texas:
University of Texas, 1996.

  Environmental Protection Agency, National Air Pollutant Emissions Trends,
1970-1995, Washington, D.C.: Environmental Protection Agency, 1997; Don Pickrell,
“Cars and Clean Air: A Reappraisal,” Transportation Research, Vol. 33, No. 7/8,
autumn 1999, forthcoming.

  World Bank, Sustainable Transport:  Priorities for Policy Reform.  Washington,
D.C.: The World Bank, 1996;  P. Newman and J. Kenworthy, Sustainability and
Cities.  Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1999; Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development, Urban Travel and Sustainable Development, Paris:
OECD, 1995.

  Aside from the problem of trip distance, the shameful neglect of pedestrian and
cyclist safety in the United States makes walking and cycling unsafe for
unaccompanied children.  Separate facilities for pedestrians and cyclists are
woefully lacking in the United States, in sharp contrast to Europe.  Moreover,
motorists rarely yield right of way to non-motorists, although the laws in
virtually all states require it.

  K. Schaeffer and E. Sclar, Access for All, New York: Columbia University Press,
1980; J. Jacobs, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, New York: Vintage
Books, 1961; J. Kay, Asphalt Nation, Berkeley: University of California Press,
1999; A. Downs, New Visions for Metropolitan America, Washington, D.C.: Brookings
Institution, 1994.

  M. Delucchi, The Annualized Costs of Motor Vehicle Use in the U.S.:  Summary of
Theory, Data, and Results, Davis, Cal: University of California, 1998; J.
MacKenzie, R. Dower, and D. Chen, The Going Rate: What it really Costs to Drive,
Washington, D.C.: The World Resources Institute, 1992; J. Holtzclaw, “America’s
Autos and Trucks on Welfare: A Summary of Subsidies,” Mobilizing the Region, No.
15, Feb. 3, 1995, p. 3; T. Litman, The Full Costs of Transportation, Victoria, BC:
Transportation Policy Institute, 1994.

  E. Vasconcellos, “Transport and Environment in Developing Countries:  Comparing
Air Pollution and Traffic Accidents as Policy Priorities,” Habitat International,
Vol. 21, No. 1, 1997, pp. 79-89.

  R. Gakenheimer, “Urban Mobility in the Developing World,” Transportation
Research, Vol. 33, Nos. 7/8, autumn 1999, forthcoming.

  E. Vasconcellos, “Reassessing Traffic Accidents in Developing Countries,”
Transport Policy, Vol. 2, No. 4, 1996.

  The older figures on traffic fatalities in this section come from the two
Vasconcellos articles cited above.  The latest figures (for 1992 and 1994) were
provided directly by Dr. Paul Guitink of the World Bank (Washington, D.C.) from
unpublished data the World Bank has collected.

  World Health Organization, Investing in Health Research and Development, Geneva,
Switzerland: World Health Organization, 1996, Table S.1, pg. xxiv.






AUTHOR BIO FOR JOHN PUCHER


John Pucher is professor in the Department of Urban Planning at Rutgers University
(New Brunswick, New Jersey).  Since receiving his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology in 1978, he has conducted research on a wide range of
topics in transport economics and finance.  He has directed numerous research
projects for the U.S. Department of Transportation, the Canadian Government, and
various European ministries of transport.  In recent years, his research has
focussed on comparative analysis of transport policies in Europe, Canada, and the
United States.  His most recent book, The Urban Transport Crisis in Europe and
North America, was published by Macmillan Press (London, UK) in 1996.