[sustran] Re: Are private cars the ideal transport?

[Paul Barter]

Sorry to come in late on this conversation. This relates quite closely to
some work I have been doing (on which I fruitfully sought Chris's feedback a
few months back).

I have written a blog post about it here (
http://reinventingtransport.blogspot.com/2008/09/should-we-can-we-make-our-cars.html)
which links to a longer paper and to a poster.

The basic idea is this:

The way cars are possessed has not had the close attention it deserves. The
primary way of gaining access to cars has been assumed to be via owning one.
Possession has thus been taken for granted, preventing us from seeing it as
possibly problematic.

However, the link between car use and car possession is eroding, in both
practice and in theory. High mobility had been widely assumed to require a
car but it has recently become possible to envisage excellent mobility
through an integrated package of services and modes, including convenient
access to cars, without needing to possess one. This reveals possession (and
its sharp contrast with being car-free) as a source of 'rigidities' that
inhibit active choice making in travel.

Chris Bradshaw's ideas on 'metered access to shared cars' (MASC) as well as
various New Mobility ideas obviously resonate.


Paul Barter
http://reinventingtransport.blogspot.com/


2008/9/8 Chris Bradshaw <c_bradshaw at rogers.com>

> > We would argue that since cars only transport roughly 10-20% of
> travelers,
> > they should only have access to 10-20% of road space, for moving and
> > parking—and should respect the rest of users, as well as the right to
> some
> > peace and quiet of all the people working and living next to roads.
>
> This is a good point: equity for all travellers.  It applies not just to
> space for travel and parking, but the various forms of pollution.  Under
> the
> right conditions, cars produce, per passenger, less pollution and noise
> than
> larger public-transit vehicles.
>
> The X-transit discussion here diverges over whether smaller vehicles should
> be visualized as large cars or small buses.  The latter tends to fail
> because the driver cost is spread over so few passengers, which government
> can justify only if it serves very small, needy populations, which in turn
> makes frequency so poor.  But if seen as the former, the service, mediated
> by cell-phone matching, means that every driver's empty seats are
> available,
> as long as his route coincides enough with the person needing a ride.  Such
> a scheme relieves the system of driver costs.  But cars are private, so no
> go.
>
> The car fails by being the second-best mode for most trips, rarely the
> best.
> This is because it is used from destination to destination, a tool of
> mobility _and_ access (only the short walk to its parking space is
> excepted).  It needs to be driven through walk-first environments because
> it
> is privately owned and its owner expects it to be ready-and-willing 'acap'
> (as close as possible).
>
> > A society in which people fail to respect the rights of others, and in
> > which the rich believe they should have special privileges on the roads
> as
> > well as in every other aspect of life, is a society destined to fall into
> > crime, selfishness, viciousness, and lack of the neighborly friendliness
> > that allows people to live comfortably together
>
> With cars being private, they too often are occupied by only the owner,
> leaving the other 4-6 seats empty (except when used for storage for
> personal
> 'effects').  The owner, rich or poor, sees this privacy as his right.  The
> car's footprint is 'amortized' only over one traveler.
>
> The relationship to these negative social trends is not just that of car
> causing them, but reflecting the breakdown. Private cars both cause the
> breakdown of share vehicle systems, and are the beneficiaries of that
> breakdown ("I have to have my own car.  Transit is too infrequent, and
> walking and cycling are too dangerous."
>
> We can never share the roads unless we find a way to share all the vehicles
> used on them.  This is more common in the so-called underdeveloped
> countries.  While they are trying to copy the developed countries' idea of
> 'success,' the reverse should be the situation.
>
> When people go into the public realm, it should be to mix with others.
> Being in a private car is not providing that contact, not producing the
> humility and tolerance societies need.  All governments, who are dependent
> on these attitudes, should have a bias in favour of sharing the corridors
> and the vehicles used on them.
>
> Supporting the private-car regime is a form of societal suicide.
>
> Chris Bradshaw, Ottawa
>
>