Car Scale Vs Human Scale Transportation

This is the kind of research I love to see higher education producing. Bryan Pijanowski of Purdue University lead a study that used aerial photographs to confirm yet another reason why planning cities around cars is pure lunacy... Looking at one county in Indiana, the study found that there were 3 times as many parking spaces as there were drivers. The total pavement for parking measured 1,000 football fields. But, that's a major underestimate because the study did not include parking on private property, such as driveways, and in multilevel parking decks. So what's wrong with parking lots? For one, parking lots collect rain water (that normally would soak into the ground), mix it with oil and other contaminants dropped by cars and dump it in furious torrents into our rivers and streams (contaminating and scouring habitat). Second, they are a major contributor to the heat island effect. A paved piece of land absorbs energy from the sun and radiates it back as thermal energy (high heat). This is distinctly different than land covered in shade from vegetation. Vegetation absorbs the energy of the sun and transforms a large portion of it into chemical energy through photosynthesis and transpiration (low to no heat). Those are the two problems commonly cited with parking lots. There are more, however, such as the energy consumed and damage caused by asphalt production, the loss of topsoil and farm land and the effects on rainfall. But there is another, less talked about problem that I was first introduced to in a talk by Spenser Havlick, Professor of Environmental Design, College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado at Boulder. We are paving the planet to serve a small portion of the population. And in the process, we are reducing the quality of life for the rest of the population. This is an environmental justice issue. I think the recent study reveals the truth of which Professor Havlick spoke.  If you look at the study's numbers, less than 43% of the residents of the county are drivers. Many in the professional classes often assume that "everyone drives." The reality is quite the opposite: fewer people are independently mobile through driving than are not. This is true in almost every city and county in the United States because driving privileges depend on one being an adult over 16 with financial resources AND good health AND in good standing with the state. That leaves out a lot of people:

• Children and teenagers
• Senior citizens
• People who cannot afford a car and insurance
• People who cannot drive for health reasons
• People who's licenses have been suspended or revoked
• People who choose not to drive

The unfortunate reality is that as our cities continue to sprawl under the assumption that "everyone drives" the independent mobility of all of these groups actually declines. Communities in which senior citizens can walk to the grocery store and to visit their friends are harder and harder to find. Communities in which children and teenagers can safely walk or bike to school and friend's houses are increasingly bisected by four-lane thoroughfares. People without the means to drive find themselves increasingly trapped by an inability to access jobs, schools and other programs that cannot be reached (without great difficulty) by any other means than a car. There is a simple solution to this problem, and that is to design our communities on a human scale, rather than a car scale. That means arranging facilities to be accessible within a 5 minute walk rather than a five minute drive. Making travel corridors human-size rather than car-size (transport corridors for goods is another thing). Prioritize the design of public spaces that people will want to pass through and inhabit, rather than those that will accommodate their vehicles while they go somewhere else. (For more, check out the Smarth Growth Principles.) But how do we realign our planning process? Local governments can't change private property laws or stop developers from building parking lots. But they can stop subsidizing that kind of development with their transportation budget allocations. As I mentioned, a few years ago I heard a great presentation by Professor Havlick, co-author of Transportation & Sustainable Campus Communities. He explained that the City of Boulder, CO, realized that they were spending the lions share of their transportation dollars supporting automobile transportation, even though less than 50% of their population could drive. They decided to realign their transportation spending to more closely match the proportion of their population with driving privileges. (In other words, if only 40% of their city population could drive, they weren't going to continue to spend 91% of their annual transportation budget on projects that essentially supported automobile transit alone. ) This one change opened up a massive amount of capital for pedestrian, bicycle and mass transit infrastructure. It similarly reduced spending on road extensions and expansions to subdevelopments and shopping malls. As a result, Boulder is known around the country for its pedestrian, bicycle and transit friendliness. (I've biked it and can attest.) But even better than that, and perhaps less easy to measure, the quality of life for the 60% of the population that does not drive has improved due to increased independent mobility and less congestion and pollution. [My apologies to Professor Havlick if I completely botched the details of his story about Boulder. It was a few years ago that I heard him speak. I think I got the gist of it right anyway.]

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