[sustran] [World Streets] It’s all about choice

The Editor editor at worldstreets.org
Tue May 26 14:47:39 JST 2009


[http://www.pricetags.ca]
- Gordon Price, PriceTags, Vancouver, Canada

It has taken a century of building almost exclusively for the car to
get us to our current dilemma. It will take some considerable time to
achieve long-term solutions. Ultimately, they can only be found in the
way we build our cities. We will have to establish virtuous cycles to
offset the vicious ones, where success leads to more success.

There is no single solution. Top-down planning can never be
comprehensive enough or flexible enough. Give people enough
transportation options and they can by and large work out their own
solutions. That in turn is dependent on the design and integration of
land-use and transportation choices.

Ideally, people should have at least five choices - feet, bike,
transit, taxi/carsharing and personal vehicle - and the ability to mix
and match them appropriate to the kind of trip and the circumstances
faced. The combinations and the mix make it all work.

The trip is only a few blocks? Walking is best. It's raining? Grab a
taxi. The trip is around five kilometers? Cycling may be the faster
alternative. Going to a town centre in the suburbs? Try transit.

Heading out of town? Train, perhaps - or car. Yes, the car is perfectly
appropriate for many trips, but not all. Once the car is used less
frequently, needs may be met more affordability by a car sharing or the
occasional rental, with considerable savings.

Of course, the provision of alternatives assumes a city designed around
more than the car - and a citizenry comfortable with the choices. In
the end, the answers are found in the plans we have to implement.
Concentrate growth. Build complete communities. Provide transportation
choice.

But to do so, we will first have to be aware of the impediments to
success, rooted in the unrealistic beliefs and assumptions we have
associated with the success of the car.

Gordon Price, pricetags at shaw.ca
Director of the City Program, Simon Fraser University,
http://www.pricetags.ca/
Vancouver, Canada
Contribution to World Streets and the collaborative project “Messages
for America: Worldwide experience, ideas, counsel, proposals and good
wishes for transportation reform under the Obama administration”. See
www.messages.newmobility.org for latest version of this report of the
New Mobility Agenda.


--
Posted By The Editor to World Streets at 5/26/2009 07:33:00 AM
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