[sustran] Re: Reducing number of cars on the road

[Car Busters]

Dear everyone,

The most obvious way to reduce the number of cars on the road seems to
have escaped mention in this discussion -- reducing the amount of road
space devoted to cars. And when you think about it, that's what most
of us are after anyway -- not keeping the same wide roads filled with
half-used car lanes, but re-allocating some of these lanes to other
uses (bicycles, trams, trees and plants, playgrounds, pedestrians,
etc.).

It may be obvious, but if you take a four-lane road, re-allocate two
of the lanes to trams and bicycle lanes, leaving two car lanes, you
thereby cut the maximum allowable car traffic by half, physically, and
quite cheaply, too. The amount of road space we give to cars will
ultimately set the maximum amount of traffic that the road system will
allow for (see studies on traffic generation and evaporation).

I used to live in a town, Arcata, California, that did this on two
streets. Now, instead of four car lanes there are only two, plus a
wide park-like center-divider with trees and grass, and a bike lane on
each side. It was not a popular idea when first proposed, but
afterward everyone sees that there are no negative side-effects, and
no more congestion than before. The cars also go slower than before.

However utopic this all may sound, places like Oxford, England, are
doing this, too. Instead of only talking of traffic calming, the city
council is seriously getting into closing roads to cars. But so often
people think of public transport as something to add on top of the
existing car infrastructure. Instead we need to replace car
infrastructure.

> if we continue to improve transportation infrastructure or systems
related to both
> automobile and public transport in parallel, then I think, there
will be no
> reduction of car use.

Totally in agreement. This is why, among other things, two things need
to happen (which are not normally politically popular) to turn things
around:

1) We must stop further expansion of automobile infrastructure (road
building, widening, parking lots...), or else the gains from our
efforts will be cancelled out by sprawl.
2) In most places a lot of public transport (and pedestrian and
cycling) infrastucture needs to be put in place, but not by doing it
"parallel" to car infrastructure. Rather, repeated from above, space
now devoted to the car needs to be reallocated to the alternatives, as
well as for transformation into public space that doesn't devote
itself exclusively to mobility.

Randy Ghent

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