Living Car Free - LCF on NPR

This morning NPR sounded like a snippet from this forum. First they had the incoherent car-culture apologist declaring that an he needs an SUV because he has 5 kids and besides can't sell his second SUV for what he wants to sell it for so he needs two SUVs and he can't be expected to not drive his kids around in the SUV. Finding things for kids to do close to home is somehow wrong. Of course the announcer didn't point out his fallacies.

Then they told of a woman who had decided to not take a job 30 miles away and instead bikes to work. Not only that but I think I heard them broadcast that biking to work is fun or enjoyable for her- not a deprivation.

I think the announcer said something about upcoming programs talking about re-designing our cities to reduce fossil fuel usage? With mainstream mass media programming like this, in five or six years they might start talking about car free living and this little forum will become redundant.

...With mainstream mass media programming like this, in five or six years they might start talking about car free living and this little forum will become redundant.

Yeah, in the last year we've gone from extreme wacko fringe to merely avant-garde. All my other old interests have gone mainstream, too -- personal computing, GPS, free-as-in-speech software. Gonna have to find something new to stay ahead of the curve.

...
Then they told of a woman who had decided to not take a job 30 miles away and instead bikes to work. Not only that but I think I heard them broadcast that biking to work is fun or enjoyable for her- not a deprivation.
...
Yeah, I heard that, here's a link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91625741. The woman said "I love it!, I think it's wonderful. You know, I'm old...." with genuine enthusiasm. The announcer presented it as if it were a totally novel idea, but the cool part was he left it for the very end, so it would clearly resonate as the last word.

Yeah, I heard that, here's a link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91625741. The woman said "I love it!, I think it's wonderful. You know, I'm old...." with genuine enthusiasm. The announcer presented it as if it were a totally novel idea, but the cool part was he left it for the very end, so it would clearly resonate as the last word.

Great story! This theme seems to be the darling of the media at the current moment. That's why Big Oil is investing so much in advertising on TV.

I just wonder how long it will last... if gas should ever drop below $3.00, all this will be out the window. We'll all be back in the "wacko extremeist" section of the radio dial.

I just wonder how long it will last... if gas should ever drop below $3.00, all this will be out the window. We'll all be back in the "wacko extremeist" section of the radio dial.

Which is ironic considering that just 3 years ago $3.00 per gallon would have been practically a crime to most people. Come to think of it, my local paper interviewed a few random citizens at a gas station several months ago (when gas actually was $3/gal) and one of them claimed it was, "an injustice to the American people." :rolleyes:

Yeah, in the last year we've gone from extreme wacko fringe to merely avant-garde. All my other old interests have gone mainstream, too -- personal computing, GPS, free-as-in-speech software. Gonna have to find something new to stay ahead of the curve.

human-electric hybrid velomobiles with passenger-carrying capability?

human-electric hybrid velomobiles with passenger-carrying capability?
LyeInYourEye has dibs on that one! Maybe recycling abandoned swimming pools in the ghostburbs for aquaculture.

I just wonder how long it will last... if gas should ever drop below $3.00, all this will be out the window. We'll all be back in the "wacko extremeist" section of the radio dial.
Hmm, we may have a brief moment of joy as Thunder Horse and Khursaniyah ramp up, Khurais comes on line, Little Oil brings in new wells all over ANWR and the formerly forbidden U.S. offshore, and maybe even release some oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Then we break into a collective cold sweat when someone asks, "after that, what?"

Hmm, we may have a brief moment of joy as Thunder Horse and Khursaniyah ramp up, Khurais comes on line, Little Oil brings in new wells all over ANWR and the formerly forbidden U.S. offshore, and maybe even release some oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. Then we break into a collective cold sweat when someone asks, "after that, what?"

Maybe we'll be smart for a change and use the brief respite to work furiously, Manhattan-Project style, to develop non-fossil fuel energy sources and start work on a transportation system that doesn't require every single person with a job to own a car.

I won't complain about 'car free' becoming mainstream. Maybe then I won't have to ride along the curb and almost be knocked off by every other SUV that passes me.

With mainstream mass media programming like this, in five or six years they might start talking about car free living and this little forum will become redundant.

If only NPR was mainstream, then wouldn't life be a little nicer.

Yeah, I heard that, here's a link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91625741. The woman said "I love it!, I think it's wonderful. You know, I'm old...." with genuine enthusiasm. The announcer presented it as if it were a totally novel idea, but the cool part was he left it for the very end, so it would clearly resonate as the last word.

You know, I missed the complete irony of the car culture apologist saying that people with large families need an SUV, and one of the examples he used was taking his kids to see the Amish- who raise large families without SUVs. Another listener pointed that out this morning. Very similar to the nonsense we read on LCF from time to time.

Maybe recycling abandoned swimming pools in the ghostburbs for aquaculture.
This is completely doable. I knew a guy in the '70s who lived near the tracks. When a train derailed with a load of cement casket liners, his dad bought them and used them for a tropical fish farm. His pasture looked like a cemetery with water filled graves. The screened in pools in Florida have a natural defense against cormorants. Neighborhoods could form cooperatives for processing-smoking and drying- marketing and distribution. Of course, the dried fish would be distributed by bike or trike. The residue from the pools might make a good base for fertilizer.

I had to chime in here. I have noticed the disturbing mindset in the forum and it is the celebration of going backwards. I t seems that to protect the environment the thinking is give up cars and live in a tent. I love my 07 Tahoe and I drive in a conservative manner. I have 2 kids to cart around and today it will be over 105* so bike riding is out. I live in an area in the burbs far from where the jobs are as the neighborhoods are safer and the schools are way better, in a nut shell bicycle commuting would never work for me. I am fastened by the wanting to go backwards and eliminate all cars from planet earth. I am for a comfortable efficient car, don't miss understand me, but the anti car is just backwards thinking. I think yes we need to develop different energy sources as I am so agent making the terrorist more wealthy so they can kills us better. I hate the fact that we are getting ripped off at the pump,But when I see that crushed Honda on on the back of a flatbed truck roll by I feel better. The problem is that every thing we do is tied into oil, that is why I have to laugh at people on this forum that want gas over $10, yeah well everything will be insanely expensive, forgot that part huh?The bicycle inter tube could end up costing $90!
Hoping to price everyone out of their cars is ridiculous and backwards thinking.The car was invented to cover more ground faster as you could never cover the territory in the time I have to on a bike as I do in a vehicle.
I think we need to make the car more efficient so it dosen't cost a fortune to operate it. I just saying some of the view points here are pretty narrow minded, eliminate cars and that solves our problems.
I am just providing a different view and a more realistic view.

I had to chime in here. I have noticed the disturbing mindset in the forum and it is the celebration of going backwards. I t seems that to protect the environment the thinking is give up cars and live in a tent. I love my 07 Tahoe and I drive in a conservative manner. I have 2 kids to cart around and today it will be over 105* so bike riding is out. I live in an area in the burbs far from where the jobs are as the neighborhoods are safer and the schools are way better, in a nut shell bicycle commuting would never work for me. I am fastened by the wanting to go backwards and eliminate all cars from planet earth. I am for a comfortable efficient car, don't miss understand me, but the anti car is just backwards thinking. I think yes we need to develop different energy sources as I am so agent making the terrorist more wealthy so they can kills us better. I hate the fact that we are getting ripped off at the pump,But when I see that crushed Honda on on the back of a flatbed truck roll by I feel better. The problem is that every thing we do is tied into oil, that is why I have to laugh at people on this forum that want gas over $10, yeah well everything will be insanely expensive, forgot that part huh?The bicycle inter tube could end up costing $90!
Hoping to price everyone out of their cars is ridiculous and backwards thinking.The car was invented to cover more ground faster as you could never cover the territory in the time I have to on a bike as I do in a vehicle.
I think we need to make the car more efficient so it dosen't cost a fortune to operate it. I just saying some of the view points here are pretty narrow minded, eliminate cars and that solves our problems.
I am just providing a different view and a more realistic view.

I think the point of this forum and most who post and lurk here realize that for us (the whole world) to share that same lifestyle in which you describe, isn't possible. There isn't enough resources for that. We in the Western World, (U.S. myself) lead a life of extreme luxury. Even us low middle class folks have it pretty easy. That is at the expense of 3/4 of the world not having it easy. Now we realize that we are reaching limits to our resources, because other parts of the world are building up their economies so they can have it easy. I think that we can still have an advanced society, with indoor plumbing, transportation options, computers and gizmos, but we are going to have to conserve and that might mean giving up the suv or the mcmansion in order to create a lifestyle that is advanced, that everyone can take part in. Not just the privledged few who happened to be born into a society that learned to exploit certain resources first.

S

article in today's paper:


Thurston Regional Planning Council senior planner Pete Swensson said home-buying decisions can change when consumers are faced with higher fuel prices.

A likely result is that the county's urban housing market could strengthen while the rural housing market softens, Swensson said.

Home Hunters Realty of Olympia broker Helen Wilkins agrees. She said that if gasoline prices continue to rise, it could result in a huge influx of people wanting to live closer to town.

"It's all about the cost of getting to work," Wilkins said. "We used to measure everything in miles and time, but now it's five gallons to the office."

http://www.theolympian.com/672/story/482980.html

I have noticed the disturbing mindset in the forum and it is the celebration of going backwards.

I imagine many on this forum (including me) do not consider it backwards to go from using a 4500 pound vehicle that operates using non-renewable resources to using a 45 pound (tops) vehicle that uses human power. If you live far from a town, then obviously this wouldn't work for you. You either want to change or you don't, it's completely your decision (as it should be, I think). I used to have a job that forced me to drive 30 miles just to get to work. I finally found a job closer to home and now there's one less car using up gasoline. Not to mention I'm healthier and happier than I've been since I was a child. That was my decision, and in my mind it was anything but backward. Just because a car can cover ground more quickly than a bicycle doesn't make it better. Naturally a bicycle can't be used for everything by everyone, but it can certainly be used by many people for most things.

"There isn't enough resources for that." We just have to drill for it here in the U.S, but certain Liberal congressman will not allow it, and because everything revolves around oil(and that isn't going to change anytime soon) The no drilling in the U.S mentality is driving us into recession driving the price of everything up. So those who pray for high gas prices are idiots!

,But when I see that crushed Honda on on the back of a flatbed truck roll by I feel better.

That statement honestly makes me sick.

Your "safety" is at the expense of everyone else. The suburban arms race in which everyone just keeps getting larger and larger cars so that they will get less injured in a car accident is not a good thing. What if everyone had a large SUV, would you then go out ant find something bigger?

Look at it this way: Two Tahoes hitting head on does more damage then two civics, which does more damage then two smart cars, which does more damage then two bicycles. By driving a large SUV for safety reasons, as a whole, you are making the world less safe. The good news is that, should you hit a civic head on, your children will probably be safe, but the children in the back seat of the civic will probably not be. I guess your children are more important then the other peoples'.



I live in an area in the burbs far from where the jobs are as the neighborhoods are safer and the schools are way better

I would say perceived safety. One of the most dangerous things you can do is drive (but I guess you solved that one buy getting a nice big SUV). I live in an area that you can walk to everything. When I have children, it will be extremely rare that they even step foot in a car. On top of that, exurban areas are dangerous for kids for social reasons. They have to sit around all day waiting to get rides to the mall. They are pretty much helpless until the can drive. Imagine being 15 years old and being stranded, waiting for mom or dad to get home to drive you to your summer job, or to the mall. There is no social interaction since nobody walks anywhere.

In walkable areas, you can send your kid out at an early age to go get some milk while you cook dinner. The child can actually learn to function in society at an early age.



The car was invented to cover more ground faster as you could never cover the territory in the time I have to on a bike as I do in a vehicle.

Distance is a poor judgement. I'll bet you I can get to 50 bars, 50 restaurants, food markets, work, school ect... in less time on my bike then you can in your car. The areas that are built far away from everything are a result of cheap gas prices. You moved to an area where every part of the community was separated, surrounded with parking lots, and connected with long roads. The area was built so that a car is a pre-requisite to live (gotta keep those poor people away somehow).

"There isn't enough resources for that." We just have to drill for it here in the U.S, but certain Liberal congressman will not allow it, and because everything revolves around oil(and that isn't going to change anytime soon) The no drilling in the U.S mentality is driving us into recession driving the price of everything up. So those who pray for high gas prices are idiots!

I'm not an apologist for some of the dumbassitude that goes on here in LCF, but I think you're missing the point. There are not enough natural resources for everyone to live as extravagantly and as wastefully as an American, especially since it is based on what is essentially a finite resource. As other economies grow, for example China, and every one of those young, urban Chinese expects to have his or her own motor vehicle, this makes demand for oil rise, and there really aren't any huge new sources just waiting to be tapped, just several tiny ones in remote areas, meanwhile, demand just grows

It seems fairly obvious to many of us that for every G8 nation there are fifteen Third World nations, so many people think the rational thing to do in the future is not to continue this idea of reaping the benefits of power and ****ing over the little guy, but to live sustainably so that everyone else can as well. Not everyone can live like we do now worldwide, but I believe that it is possible that everyone can be safe from violence, have enough to eat, and have all the advantages of technology. That's the future a lot of us want, not more business as usual.

Liberal claptrap? Maybe, but a 40% reduction in a city's murder rate seems pretty concrete to me. I like things that create real results. :) As un-American as it may sound, we could learn a lot from 2 brothers from Bogota (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20070622.whappyurbanmain0623/BNStory/lifeMain/home).


Bogota's urban happiness movement
From living hell to living well: A radical campaign to return streets from cars to people in Colombia's largest city is now a model for the world
CHARLES MONTGOMERY
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
June 25, 2007 at 4:32 PM EDT

On a clear, cloudless afternoon, Enrique Peñalosa, former mayor of Bogota, leaves his office early in order to pick up his 10-year-old son from school. As usual, he wears his black leather shoes and pinstriped trousers. As usual, he is joined by his two pistol-packing bodyguards. And, as usual, he travels not in the armoured SUV typical of most public figures in Colombia, but on a knobby-tired mountain bike.

Mr. Peñalosa pedals through the streets of Santa Barbara in Bogota's well-to-do north side. He jumps curbs and potholes, riding one-handed, weaving across the pavement, barking into his cellphone with barely a thought for the city's notoriously aggressive drivers.

On most days, this would be a radical and perhaps suicidal act. But today is special.

Ever since citizens voted to make it an annual affair in 2000, private cars have been banned entirely from this city of nearly eight million every Feb. 1. On Dia Sin Carro, Car Free Day, the roar of traffic subsides and the toxic haze thins. Buses are jam-packed and taxis hard to come by, but hundreds of thousands of people have followed Mr. Peñalosa's example and hit the streets under their own steam.

“This is a learning experiment! We are realizing that we can live without cars!” Mr. Peñalosa bellows as he cruises across the southbound lanes of Avenida 19, pausing on the wide, park-like median. A flock of young women rolls up the median's bike path, shouting, “Mayor! Mayor!” though it has been six years since Mr. Peñalosa left office (consecutive terms are constitutionally banned in Bogota) and he has only just begun his campaign to regain the mayor's seat.

Car Free Day is just one of the ways that Mr. Peñalosa helped to transform a city once infamous for narco-terrorism, pollution and chaos into a globally lauded model of livability and urban renewal. His ideas are being adopted in cities across the developing world. They are also being championed by planners and politicians in North America, where Mr. Peñalosa has reinvigorated the debate about public space once championed by Jane Jacobs.

His policies may resemble environmentalism, but they are no such thing. Rather, they were driven by his conversion to hedonics, an economic philosophy whose proponents focus on fostering not economic growth but human happiness.

Proponents of hedonics, or happiness economics, have been gaining influence. London School of Economics professor Richard Layard, who wrote the seminal Happiness: Lessons from a New Science, was an adviser to Tony Blair's first Labour government. Prof. Layard asserts that, contrary to the guiding principle of a century of economists, income is a poor measure of happiness. Economic growth in England and the U.S. in the past half-century hasn't measurably increased life satisfaction.

So what makes societies happy? The past decade has seen an explosion in research aiming to answer that question, and there's good news for people in places like Bogota: Feelings of well-being are determined as much by status and social connectedness as by income. Richer people are happier than poor people, but societies with wider income gaps are less happy on the whole. People who interact more with friends, family and neighbours are happier than those who don't.

And what makes people most unhappy? Not work, but commuting to work.

These are the concepts that guided Mr. Peñalosa's car-bashing campaign.

“There are a few things we can agree on about happiness,” he says. “You need to fulfill your potential as a human being. You need to walk. You need to be with other people. Most of all, you need to not feel inferior. When you talk about these things, designing a city can be a very powerful means to generate happiness.”

In the mid-1990s, Bogota was, citizens recall, un enfierno – a living hell. There were 3,363 murders in 1995 and nearly 1,400 traffic deaths. The city suffered from the cumulative effects of decades of civil war, but also from explosive population growth and a dearth of planning. Wealthy residents fenced off their local public parks. Drivers appropriated sidewalk space to park cars. The air rivalled Mexico City's for pollution. Workers from the squalid shanties on the city's south end spent as much as four hours every day commuting to and from Bogota's wealthy north.

In 1997, a study by the Japanese International Co-operation Agency prescribed a vast network of elevated freeways to ease Bogota's congestion. Like cities across the Third World, Bogota was looking to North American suburbs as a development model, even though only 20 per cent of people owned cars.

The tide changed with Mr. Peñalosa's election in 1998.

“A city can be friendly to people or it can be friendly to cars, but it can't be both,” the new mayor announced. He shelved the highway plans and poured the billions saved into parks, schools, libraries, bike routes and the world's longest “pedestrian freeway.”

He increased gas taxes and prohibited car owners from driving during rush hour more than three times per week. He also handed over prime space on the city's main arteries to the Transmilenio, a bus rapid-transit system based on that of Curitiba, Brazil.

Bogotans almost impeached their new mayor. Business owners were outraged. Yet by the end of his three-year term, Mr. Peñalosa was immensely popular and his reforms were being lauded for making Bogota remarkably fairer, more tolerable and more efficient.

Moreover, by shifting the budget away from private cars, Mr. Peñalosa was able to boost school enrolment by 30 per cent, build 1,200 parks, revitalize the core of the city and provide running water to hundreds of thousands of poor.

The shift was all the more radical in that it was not motivated by the populist socialism that has swept much of Latin America. Mr. Peñalosa, the son of a Colombian politician and businessman, studied economics at North Carolina's Duke University. His first book shouted Capitalism: The Best Option. Yet even as he worked as a business management consultant, and later an economic adviser to the Colombian government, he began having doubts.

“I realized that we in the Third World are not going to catch up to the developed countries for two or three hundred years,” he recalls. “If we defined our success just in terms of income per capita, we would have to accept ourselves as second- or third-rate societies – as a bunch of losers – which is not exactly enticing for our young people. So we are forced to find another measure of success. I think the only real obvious measure of success is happiness.”

HAPPIER TOGETHER

Mr. Peñalosa offers an eager “ Como le va?” – how's it going – to a pair of dust-caked labourers cruising past on the bike path. He is clearly campaigning: Every commute is a chance to remind Bogotans that their bike routes were his idea, and their parks his doing. But he is also a preacher spreading the word.

“See those guys? Before, cyclists were seen as just a nuisance. They were the poorest of the poor,” he says. “Now, they have respect. So bikeways are important … they show that a citizen on a $30 bike is equally important to someone driving in a $30,000 car.”

This principle of equity led him to hand road space over to public transit and pedestrian areas – a way of making private space public again.

University of British Columbia professor emeritus John Helliwell, who studies economics and human well-being, sees added value in such measures. “When you get data on people's life satisfaction, and you try and explain the differences, the variables that jump right out at you relate to the trustworthiness of the environment that people are living in. How much can they trust strangers? How well can they trust people in the neighbourhood? How trustworthy are the police? The more positive answers people give on these questions, the happier they are,” Prof. Helliwell says.

“So what do you need to do to establish these higher levels of trust? It turns out that frequency of positive interaction is the key.”

Public spaces that bring people together in congenial activity produce happier citizens than those – like traffic jams – that spur animosity and aggression, Prof. Helliwell says.

By linking the economics of happiness to urban design, Mr. Peñalosa really does seem to have made Bogotans happier. [B]The murder rate fell by an astounding 40 per cent during his term and has continued to fall ever since. So have the number of traffic deaths. Traffic moves three times faster now during rush hour. And the changes seem to have transformed how people feel.

“The perception of the city has changed,” says Ricardo Montezuma, an urbanist at the National University of Colombia. “Twelve years ago, 80 per cent of us were completely pessimistic about our future. Now, it's the opposite. Most of us are optimistic,” he says, referring to Gallup polls.

“Why is this important? Because in a big way a city is really just the sum of what people think about it. The city is a subjective thing.”

Bogotans don't give Mr. Peñalosa all the credit. Every Sunday since the 1970s, Bogota has blocked off its major roads so that citizens can jog, walk or bike in safety. These ciclovia days transform the avenidas into vast, linear parks, where more than two million Bogotans come to play, picnic, do aerobics and eat sweet arepa bread from mobile vendors. A generation has grown up knowing streets can change.

But people have changed too. Mr. Peñalosa's unorthodox predecessor, Antanus Mockus, is credited with building a new culture of citizenship. The former philosophy professor hired mimes to make fun of bad drivers. He sent actors dressed as monks into the streets to encourage people to think about noise pollution. He gave out thousands of coloured cards – the kind referees use in soccer games – so people could express their disproval of others' driving.

Mr. Mockus convinced Bogotans it was their duty to take care of each other. Inspired by his anti-corruption campaign and message of citizenship, 63,000 families volunteered to pay 10 per cent more than their assessed property tax. By the end of his term, tax revenues had tripled.

He had prepared Bogotans for Mr. Peñalosa's infrastructure changes, which required people to make sacrifices for the general good.

The best place to see these ideas translated into urban design is Bogota's hardscrabble south side, where about 80,000 migrants – mostly refugees from Colombia's civil war – arrive seeking shelter every year. Few of the streets are paved here, but a pedestrian-only avenue intersects the red brick slums of Ciudad de Cali.

This is where 19-year-old Fabien Gonzales joins the commuting throng just after sunrise en route to his job as a cashier at the Home Center on Bogota's north end. Mr. Gonzales takes home about $238 a month and, like most of his neighbours, uses feet, bike and bus to get to work.

He cruises down one of Mr. Peñalosa's ciclorutas on a silver mountain bike, to the Portal de las Americas, a transportation hub linking bike paths and pedestrian roads with the Transmilenio rapid-bus network. The station is surrounded by broad plazas and lawns, where people linger over hot chocolate as the sun creeps up over the Andes.

He locks his bike and pushes onto a northbound express. “Before the Transmilenio,” he says, “I had to leave home two hours before starting work. Now, it takes me 45 minutes.”

The Transmilenio is a distillation of Mr. Peñalosa's philosophy on well-being. It also happens to turn everything most North Americans think about transit on its head. It functions much like an urban metro, combining stylish stations, fast boarding and express routes. It moves more people than many urban rail-transit systems for a small fraction of the construction cost.

“Many cities talk about building transit. We didn't want a transit project, but a mobility project. We wanted to move people,” says Angelica Castro Rodriguez, general manager of the public-private alliance that runs the service.

The Transmilenio also reduces Bogota's carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 250,000 tons a year. It's the first transport system to be accredited under Kyoto's Clean Development Plan.

But for Mr. Peñalosa, the key is that it seizes road space from other vehicles. “We are constructing democracy with our bus system. Remember, 80 per cent of Bogotans don't own cars. For them, every day is car-free day. This busway, unlike a subway, shows that public transport has priority over private interests.”

Every week, Bogota hosts delegations from cities around the world looking for solutions to their growing pains.

“Before Peñalosa, mayors were terrified to take on the issue of auto-dominated public space, for fear that motorists would rebel politically,” says Walter Hook of New York's Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP).

“But he not only challenged auto dependency, he succeeded politically. He's given other politicians the courage to follow. And other mayors have realized that they can't build their way out of congestion.”

The ITDP now funds Mr. Peñalosa's efforts to bring his post-car message around the world. Jakarta, Beijing and Mexico City have handed over road space to bus rapid-transit systems and more are being built in Delhi, Seoul and Johannesburg.

PEDESTRIAN BROADWAY?

Mr. Peñalosa's solutions may work in the developing world, but is North America ready for his happy revolution?

Consider the advice he gave to planners in Los Angeles last year: Let traffic and congestion become so unbearable that drivers voluntarily abandon their car habits. And when Manhattan held a conference in October asking for a prescription for the gridlocked streets of New York, Mr. Peñalosa cheerily suggested banning cars entirely from Broadway.

“He got a standing ovation,” observed an astounded Deputy Borough President Rose Pierre-Louis. New York is now considering charging drivers to enter Manhattan.

Mr. Peñalosa was also given a hero's welcome by hundreds of cheering urbanists, planners and politicians at last summer's World Urban Forum in Vancouver. Stuart Ramsey, a B.C. transportation engineer, suggested it was because the Colombian had gone ahead and done what they had all been talking about for years.

“Bogota has demonstrated that it is possible to make dramatic change to how we move around in our cities in a very short time frame,” Mr. Ramsey said afterward. “It's simply a matter of choosing to do so.

“We could improve our air quality and dramatically reduce our emissions any time we want. It's easy to do. All it would take is a can of paint and you'd have dedicated bus lanes. It doesn't require huge amounts of money. It simply requires a choice.”

The fact that the people who plan and build the world's urban areas should applaud an attack on private cars suggests that cities may be on the verge of a massive change. Yet Mr. Peñalosa points out that North American cities may face a much bigger challenge than poor cities like Bogota. For one thing, we have already spent billions wrapping ourselves in freeways.

“Transportation is a problem that gets worse the richer societies become,” he says. “The 20th century was a disaster for cities. And the most dynamic economies produced the worst cities of all. I'm talking about the U.S. of course – Atlanta, Phoenix, Miami, cities totally dominated by private cars.”

In Canada, commuters are discovering that the highways that brought us suburbia are no longer getting us to work so quickly. From 1992 to 2005, the average commute time in Canadian cities rose to 63 minutes from 54.

This is bad news for happiness. Recent studies on life satisfaction show that commuting makes people more unhappy than anything else in life. (It is, apparently, the opposite of sex.) Commuting also happens to rob us of time for family and friends.

In a 2004 study of German commuters, psychologists found that the longer people spent getting to work, the lower their general life satisfaction tended to be. The malaise brought on by commuting was not being balanced by work satisfaction or higher income.

If commuting makes us so unhappy, why do North Americans keep buying houses in distant suburbs? Harvard University psychologist Daniel Gilbert suggests that it is because humans are just not very good at predicting what will make us happy.

“When we make predictions about happiness, we typically fail to consider adaptation – the process by which the brain gets used to things,” explains Prof. Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness. “It is much easier to adapt to things that stay constant than to things that change.

“So we adapt quickly to the joy of a larger house in the suburbs because the house is exactly the same size every time we come in the front door. But we find it difficult to adapt to commuting by car because every day is a slightly new form of misery, with different people honking at us, different intersections jammed with accidents, different problems with weather, and so on.”

So the misery of the long commute will almost always trump the happiness of that spacious den, Prof. Gilbert says.

The only major Canadian city where commute times didn't shoot up in the past decade was freeway-free Vancouver, where the city stopped adding road capacity in 1997 and has been aggressively “traffic-calming” ever since.

Thanks to the city's decision to develop dense new neighbourhoods near the downtown core, almost two-thirds of journeys made around downtown are done on foot, by bike or on transit. Aside from cutting carbon emissions, this kind of commuting also boosts feelings of connectedness and public trust, according to UBC's Prof. Helliwell.

In terms of happiness, then, Canada's big-city mayors are on track when they press the federal government for a national transit strategy. But Bogota suggests the secret may lie not in the megaprojects favoured by ribbon-cutting politicians, but in cheaper options that move more people.

The Toronto Transit Commission wasn't crazy about Prime Minister Stephen Harper's announcement of an 8.7-kilometre extension of the Spadina subway line, for example, because the same $2-billion could have bought 47 km of light-rail line instead.

Still, Bogotans are not necessarily better than Canadians at predicting what will make them happy. In 1996, when traffic congestion was considered the city's biggest problem, they voted against auto restrictions. It took courage – and, some say, arrogance – for Mr. Peñalosa to ignore the polls.

By 2001, the measures and the mayor were wildly popular. Citizens voted to ban cars entirely during rush hour by 2015. And if, as polls suggest, they re-elect Mr. Peñalosa this October, the war on cars will escalate.

“We're lucky in the developing world,” Mr. Peñalosa says as we roll up to his son's school. “We haven't had the money to build all those freeways. We are growing quickly, but we still have a chance to build our cities properly, to avoid the mistakes made in North America.”

Children pour out of the school's iron gates, Mr. Peñalosa's own son, Martin, among them. The boy carries a helmet and wheels a miniature version of his father's bike. The two wobble their way along Avenida 19's cicloruta, veering into the grass on either side of the path.

The median feels like a park, filled with children, suited businessmen, fast-food cashiers, the wealthy and the poor, strolling or rolling home together. On the whole, they do seem quite happy.

The scene reflects the city, a place that is more than the sum of its concrete, more than a set of efficiencies to maximize and so much more than a machine for creating wealth. It is, Mr. Peñalosa says, a means to a way of life.

I imagine many on this forum (including me) do not consider it backwards to go from using a 4500 pound vehicle that operates using non-renewable resources to using a 45 pound (tops) vehicle that uses human power.

+1

And I consider it moving forward to live in a city with greenspaces, not endless freeways and parking lots. And I consider it a step forward to live in a city with clean air, less noise, etc. By greatly reducing the use of motor vehicles and energy, we will increase the quality of life, not decease it.

Any objective view at modern North American cities reveals a downward spiral - more and more space, money, and other resources going to moving people around greater distances. Think about what else we could be doing with those resources!

We have a choice - we can (a) drastically reduce consumption per capita, (b) drastically reduce the population to maintain current per capita resource use, or (c) join the dinosaurs in extinction. Free ride is over - pick option (a) or (b) now so that it can be done in a controlled way, or wait for (c) to happen.

Over-simplified? Sure, to some extent... but that is what will happen.

Thanks for the interesting Bogota article.

"Recent studies on life satisfaction show that commuting makes people more unhappy than anything else in life. (It is, apparently, the opposite of sex.) Commuting also happens to rob us of time for family and friends.

In a 2004 study of German commuters, psychologists found that the longer people spent getting to work, the lower their general life satisfaction tended to be. The malaise brought on by commuting was not being balanced by work satisfaction or higher income."

The stuff about predicting happiness seems to corroborate the experiences of people on this forum who say things like, "If I had known car-free would be like this I'd have done it long ago."

+1

And I consider it moving forward to live in a city with greenspaces, not endless freeways and parking lots. And I consider it a step forward to live in a city with clean air, less noise, etc. By greatly reducing the use of motor vehicles and energy, we will increase the quality of life, not decease it.

Any objective view at modern North American cities reveals a downward spiral - more and more space, money, and other resources going to moving people around greater distances. Think about what else we could be doing with those resources!

We have a choice - we can (a) drastically reduce consumption per capita, (b) drastically reduce the population to maintain current per capita resource use, or (c) join the dinosaurs in extinction. Free ride is over - pick option (a) or (b) now so that it can be done in a controlled way, or wait for (c) to happen.

Over-simplified? Sure, to some extent... but that is what will happen.

A mixture of a) and b) seems likely, both can be forced, c) is just the limiting value of a) and b). It was so nice biking home from work this afternoon, I'm sorry that it is the price of gas that makes people get out of their cars rather than the natural pleasures of car free living. When it is the price of gas that frees them they see freedom as some kind of sacrifice.

I live in an area in the burbs far from where the jobs are as the neighborhoods are safer...
Every study shows that your chances of dying from a car wreck, either yours or someone else hitting you (or your children) is much, much, much higher in the suburbs than in downtown - and the danger of being a victim of violent crime in the most crime-ridden part of the city is an inconsequential blip in comparison.

A mixture of a) and b) seems likely, both can be forced, c) is just the limiting value of a) and b).

I think a mixture of a and b is ideal, but I fear we will sit on selfish asses until c happens.

I think most of the people here worry too much about greening up the world rather than enjoying the one life you have to live in it. Don't get me wrong, I hope there is a solution to the non-renewable resource issue, pollution, damage to the ozone, and what not, for our future generation's sake. Sure I do what I can, but not to the point where I'm giving up my vehicles or spending all day ranting about forests and jungles getting demolished, where to get more fuel resource, etc. I'm going to enjoy my time here with my family in whatever way I can.

Or, as Schumacher, or possibly John Seymour, put it:

When you are standing at the edge of a precipice, the only reasonable thing to do is to go backwards.

I think most of the people here worry too much about greening up the world rather than enjoying the one life you have to live in it. Don't get me wrong, I hope there is a solution to the non-renewable resource issue, pollution, damage to the ozone, and what not, for our future generation's sake. Sure I do what I can, but not to the point where I'm giving up my vehicles or spending all day ranting about forests and jungles getting demolished, where to get more fuel resource, etc. I'm going to enjoy my time here with my family in whatever way I can.


So basically you're all talk.

Saving the environment for future generations (not to mention OTHER SPECIES) still takes a backseat to your lifestyle, even though you hope a solution is found.

So basically you're all talk.

Saving the environment for future generations (not to mention OTHER SPECIES) still takes a backseat to your lifestyle, even though you hope a solution is found.

I'm beginning to think this whole environment thing is a religion. There are those that don't believe in it at all, those who are steadfast believers, many people in between then there are those the agnostic folks.
And then I saw this old strip.
http://www.streetsblog.org/wp-content/uploads/cartoons/singer/globalwarminglifestyle_big.jpg
Reminds me of people becoming <insert religion here> on their deathbed to get into <???>. Unfortunately even if that did work in the case of getting into <???> I don't think it will for the environment.

Then again if the world is going to go through a huge change good/bad wouldn't you rather be there for it? I mean I'd like a few more years before the whole planet turns to some post apocolyptic nightmare but hey it might be fun. Otherwise it is just work/sleep/eat repeat

I'm beginning to think this whole environment thing is a religion. There are those that don't believe in it at all, those who are steadfast believers, many people in between then there are those the agnostic folks.

Reminds me of people becoming <insert religion here> on their deathbed to get into <???>. Unfortunately even if that did work in the case of getting into <???> I don't think it will for the environment.


No what you describe is people treating environmental issues as an extension of their "get something for nothing" religions. I can have fun now and convert when I'm older and still go to heaven. Not all religions operate this way do they? The cartoon seems to depict a person with this attitude. Our culture has this attitude, we'll not do anything and hope something will happen so we don't have to get out of the car.

I think most of the people here worry too much about greening up the world rather than enjoying the one life you have to live in it. Don't get me wrong, I hope there is a solution to the non-renewable resource issue, pollution, damage to the ozone, and what not, for our future generation's sake. Sure I do what I can, but not to the point where I'm giving up my vehicles or spending all day ranting about forests and jungles getting demolished, where to get more fuel resource, etc. I'm going to enjoy my time here with my family in whatever way I can.
You hope there's a solution for this mess, but there's no way you are going to be part of the solution if it causes you even the slightest pain. For my part, I don't see why we can't enjoy life without destroying it.

Yeah, I heard that, here's a link:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91625741. The woman said "I love it!, I think it's wonderful. You know, I'm old...." with genuine enthusiasm. The announcer presented it as if it were a totally novel idea, but the cool part was he left it for the very end, so it would clearly resonate as the last word.

Thanks for the link, rhm!

I think most of the people here worry too much about greening up the world rather than enjoying the one life you have to live in it. Don't get me wrong, I hope there is a solution to the non-renewable resource issue, pollution, damage to the ozone, and what not, for our future generation's sake. Sure I do what I can, but not to the point where I'm giving up my vehicles or spending all day ranting about forests and jungles getting demolished, where to get more fuel resource, etc. I'm going to enjoy my time here with my family in whatever way I can.
Take note of your own words and think about it carefully. "I'm going to enjoy my time here with my family..." Your time will end, but your family will have to deal with what's next. It's your kids' future you are talking about, not yours. "Enjoying the one life you have" If you have a family, you are responsible for more than one life.

Back to the topic at hand.. The most important long range change we need to be diligent about is redesigning our built environment. By legislating sprawl (it's *illegal* to have a corner store, it's *illegal* to work in the neighborhood, it's *required* that you own an automobile to survive.) we have trapped ourselves in an infrastructure that forces our hand. Revising planning, re-establishing mixed use communities and neighborhoods, getting reasonable and comfortable mass transit within reach.. These are the long term efforts that will make these changes possible. (and maybe not so long term if we encourage and support innovative design ideas).

It's more than just a big car vs. a small car vs. more drilling vs. finding more ways to use food to fuel our vehicles. It's about allowing communities to flourish as whole entities; healing the scars.

It's hard to hold a conversation with the person in the SUV next to you in the traffic jam...

"There isn't enough resources for that." We just have to drill for it here in the U.S, but certain Liberal congressman will not allow it, and because everything revolves around oil (and that isn't going to change anytime soon) The no drilling in the U.S mentality is driving us into recession driving the price of everything up. So those who pray for high gas prices are idiots!

The reserves at ANWR are less than a year's US consumption. The proven off-shore reserves are not too significant either (despite of what president Bush may say). Getting oil from these to the market takes many years; in the case of off-shore drilling, possibly a decade. Even if the development of these fields started right now, it would be many years before they had any effect on prices.

'No drilling' is the least of the causes of recession, or more accurately a major depression. The banking system has basically jumped off the cliff (but not hit the ground yet) and the dollar is imploding.