Dahon.Steve

Living in a city without cars
Forum challenged to think beyond automobile culture
By Ken McCall

Dayton Daily News

DAYTON | Imagine a day without cars.

People in Bogota, Colombia, don't have to imagine it. One day a year cars
are banned in the city of 7 million people.

Former Bogota Mayor Enrique Penalosa created the car-free day to make the
city more friendly to pedestrians. During his term from 1998 to 2001,
Penelosa also began construction of a massive bus-based mass transit system,
developed or rebuilt 1,200 parks and built hundreds of kilometers of
sidewalks, bicycle paths and pedestrian streets.

Penalosa, now an urban design consultant, was in Dayton on Thursday as part
of a Regional Issues Forum at Sinclair Community College.

People in stressed cities all over the world are beginning to rethink how
should cities should be designed, he said. And as cities in the Third World
become more prosperous - more Western - the problem they are confronting is
the domination of the automobile.

"All over the world, all of the sudden we realize that for the last 80 years
we were making cities more for the car's mobility than for children's
happiness," Penalosa said during an afternoon media reception at the offices
of the Miami Valley Regional Planning Commission. "We have to try to think
now about how to make cities a little bit more for people and a little bit
less for cars. So everyone is trying different schemes."

People need to remember, Penalosa said, that we've been living in cities for
5,000 years, but we've only been driving cars in significant numbers for
about 80 years.

"For 5,000 years, all the streets were pedestrian," he said. "Any child
could go around. We have come to think that it's totally normal that a child
should grow in terror of cars. And it's right that children should be afraid
of cars because there are 200,000 children killed by cars every year in the
world. So it's not an empty threat.

"People are always in fear of being run over by cars, even in the suburbs,
and we have come to think this is normal."

By embracing bicycle paths as transportation corridors, he said, cities give
everyone the right to mobility.

"If you have a right to mobility, the right to move from one place to
another without getting killed, it cannot be exclusive to those who own a
motor vehicle," he said.

A good city, Penalosa said, is a place where people can walk or ride
bicycles and feel safe doing it.

"When a shopping mall replaces public space as a meeting place for people,
it tends to be a symptom that the city's ill," he said. "There are a lot of
ill cities in the United States and all over the world."

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It's too bad folks we don't have more free thinking men like Penalosa. He's right that society was pedestrian friendly for thousands of years and the terror we have today is only a recent phenomena. Anyway. It's a good article.

Roody

Enrique Penalosa should be a top nominee for carfree citizen of the year, if we get our act together to award one this year. I hope Ricardo responds to this thread. If I'm not mistaken, he used to ride with Penalosa in Bogota???

I also found a good article about Penalosa that contains a biography with quotes and links. He is really a fascinating man and a carfree pioneer. I wish he would come north and run for mayor of my city!

Most of you have probably seen the carfree cities website, a very interesting site that discusses some of the planning challenges for getting cars out of the city.

nathank

thanks for posting. that is great!
it would really be something if the negatives of autocentric city design are somehow presented to the public in a positive way normal people can relate too!

Dahon.Steve

Keep this in mind. This is Columbia which is a dirt poor country with high crime and drug problems. If they can focus so much of their economy on building a car free society, just imagine what an industrial powerhouse like the US can do!

PurpleK

Several years ago when I attended a lecture on city planning, it was pointed out that we no longer planned cities for people, we plan them around cars. Since that time, I have found that statement to be true. Hotly contested zoning meetings typically revolve around traffic issues. Suburban neighborhoods are dominated by curving streets and cul-de-sacs to prevent thru traffic by motor vehicles, but that practice destroys connectivity and virtually eliminates walking or cycling as a transportation option. City parking codes often require a minimum number of parking spaces which results in a huge surplus of spaces. Streets are designed to move motor vehicles quickly, at the expense of the quality of life for the residents and others that need to use the street. Street signals often favor the motorist over the pedestrian. Valuable downtown properties are used for daily storage of automobiles instead of better economy generating uses (Looking out of my office window, the most dominant feature visible are surface parking lots and parking garages. Most of the top levels of the parking garages are empty parking spaces.) Fast food drive thru's often get priority over the walkup customer (that has happened to me numerous times.) Businesses provide free or subsidized parking for their employees in a $12,000 per space parking garage, but transit users must buy their own passes and parking for bicycle commuters is not even addressed. Shopping malls locate near freeways and major arterials far removed from reasonable access by pedestrians and difficult to negotiate by cyclists. The same is true of essential public services such as schools and hospitals.

ArizonaAdam

The problem is, people choose to drive, a choice they are given and make. As soon as 51% of commuters choose to cycle, the landscape will change. That said, the car-crazy culture does discourage cycling. In Vegas, it's hard to ride some places because bike racks are almost nonexistent. When I go grocery shopping, I have to lock my bike to a light pole in the parking lot.
Adam

BostonFixed

uh, evolve to be a more civilized country by building cars and car related infrastructure and the like?

matt_savvy

eating fast food? don't do that to yourself.

ArizonaAdam

Uh, what are you saying here? Is this a joke?

PurpleK

You're quite right. In the past couple of years, I've tremendously reduced my intake of fast food. But I still make that occasional visit when I'm faced with few other options, ie unexpectedly working late and nothing else is available.

PurpleK

That is true. But that is partly because we as a society have made driving an easy choice to make while at the same time creating barriers to walking and cycling. I believe many more would take alternative transportation for at least a portion of their trips if the infrastructure and urban design to support it were in place and if motoring had to pay more of its share instead of being heavily subsidized.

AlanK

Great article. The gist of this article isn't so much that cars should be eliminated entirely, but that they shouldn't be used for short trips, or as a daily means of transit. I'll look for the link to the article.

Autokat

Wouldn't it be nice to swap it to ....One day a year cars are allowed in the city...

genericbikedude

Not that I recommend eating fast food or anything, but why not ride your bike up to the drive thru window?

Roody

That's a worthy goal, even if it takes 100 years to get rid of the damn things.

BeTheChange

Civilized. I like your use of that word. Go onto a bike path and look at someone and I bet you they smile back at you. Or go anywhere where people walk for transportation. People have evolved to respond to a face (try walking through a dark woods and within 10 seconds you can make out a face looking at you from the brush). When we are in cars we don't see faces. We just see obstacles. So we don't see other human beings and don't treat each other as such. A car-free society would be much more civilized in my opinion for the reason we would see each other as people.

PurpleK

We're beginning to get off topic here, but it's simple. I like to take advantage of the comfort of indoor seating during a meal. Regardless of my long cycling experience, I haven't quite mastered the art of sitting in a bike saddle munching burgers, fries and a shake. It seems a little silly to sit on my bike behind someone's tailpipe waiting to order from a drive through window just to get my order then go inside and sit down to eat it.

Redrom

So go ahead and make the jump to completely car-free. Live in Arcosanti, Arizona, and walk everywhere in town. Cars still take you to and from the town, no mass transit there yet, but most residents of the town ride together for weekend shopping and special events. Only a couple mile bike ride to nearest town, Cordes Junction. I did it for two years, and highly recommend the experience to everyone.

https://www.arcosanti.org/expArcosanti/visit/main.html

BostonFixed

I have!

AlanK

There is abundant evidence to support this. When people enter an enclosed space like a car, they also tend to become emotional enclosed/isolated. Since they are emotionally detached from others, people in car are much likely to behave in a hostile manner.

Granted, sitting in front of a computer is also pretty isolating...

PurpleK

You da MAN!

BostonFixed

I will get pics as soon as I can bribe someone to take pics of me riding no handed with food in both hands.

randya

It's more than a choice, people are encouraged to drive, urban and suburban design and infrastructure reinforce this, the media reinforces it, advertising reinforces it, and you are considered odd if you don't drive.

nathank

i totally agree.

cycling helps in many ways:
1) it remains "about people" as opposed to being "driver against all obstacles slowing him down" (i.e. isolation)
2) cycling is physical activity which helps reduce stress and calm people down -- drivign a car and always "being slowed down" or lookin frantically for parking or getting abother ticket or the light turning red just as you approach the intersection -- all tend to INCREASE stress!
3) even if people become aggressive or inattentive or whatever, the consequences while biking are just not that high - falling asleep while driving or driving aggressively can easily have serious consequences...

for me one of the largest QUAILITY OF LIFE issues for me is to be in an environment where i can enjoy cycling and incorporate it into my daily activities - i.e. riding to work, to visit friends, shopping, etc.
most people don't understand this (at least in North America)

NOTE: Munich is pretty darn good for cycling/walking (the quality of life) as the city is compact and i can do virtually everything by bike (or waking or transit but biking is more enjoyable!) -- ALTHOUGH i do get annoyed at the high level of support for cars here, primarily b/c Munich is the headquarters of BMW and Audi is just to the north - and both are major employers and also have lots of political influence. FAR too many people drive in the city, but i mostly just laugh as i cruise by them as they're stuck in traffic or looking for parking!

Roody

Yes and no. People choose to drive, but it is not a free choice for 2 reasons. First, as randya implied, people are not making a free choice of they are not aware of the alternatives. Driving is such an entrenched part of our culture that most people cannot conceive that there is a viable alternative. Can we really say that they are "choosing' to drive?

Second, our infrastructure does make it more difficult to be carfree than it should be. The streets and highways are designed for cars, destinations are too far apart due to sprawl, public transit is crappy almost everywhere, etc, etc. These factor all make it difficult for people to be carfree, even when they would like to be.

As for biek racks--every time I go to a store that doesn't have a bike rack, I politely request one. I hope you do too. If we keep bugging them, perhaps they will listen.