Opinions on going car-free in the U.S.
While it’s plenty viable in just about any other country, what’s the viability of communities going car-free in the U.S.? Some experts way in via the NY Times’ Car-Free in America? article, and here’s their bottom lines. In summary, transportation and planning experts agree going car-free in the suburbs isn’t really a viable option, but car-free districts, at least streets, in dense cities is.
- Witold Rybczynski, noted author and professor of urbanism at the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania - Only five cities have the density to make it possible: New York City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston and San Francisco.
- D.J. Waldie, author of Holy Land: A Suburban Memoir - D.J. can’t drive, but thrives in his suburban neighborhood because it was designed to be walkable.
- Dolores Hayden, author of Redesigning the American Dream and Building Suburbia: Green Fields and Urban Growth, 1820-2000 - Neighborhoods built before the 1930s, still lived in today (and among the most desirable), were designed to be car-free as an option.
- Christopher B. Leinberger, developer and author of The Option of Urbanism - Car-free is cost effective. Car dependent U.S. families spend 25% of their household income on cars, vs 9% on transportation for those who live in walkable neighborhoods.
- Alex Marshall, transportation columnist for Governing Magazine - Alex quotes a New York University ad showing a young woman saying, “I’ll never be bored, and I’ll never have to drive a car.”
- J.H. Crawford, author of Carfree Cities - Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin, Madrid, Lisbon or Siena are living examples of vibrant car-free cities. Boston’s Beacon Hill and Back Bay neighborhoods and Washington Mews in Manhattan could readily be made car free.
- Marc Schlossberg, associate director of the Oregon Transportation Research and Education Consortium - Parking should be reduced, starting with removing minimum parking requirements, though in the suburbs car-free is not realistic.
Photo of Washington Mews, Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City by wallyg.
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Note that the article is talking about car-free neighborhoods, not car-free individuals.
Density has to be the key; but less regulation makes it happen. Tokyo and Hong Kong are perfect examples of quasi car free cities with lots of cars. It’s just the options for getting from point A to B car free are much more attractive, but the car/cab/bus is available if you need it. Most important you get some place really interesting and useful with thousands of others via sub / tram / train or ferry. They have lots of food districts, street markets, specialty product districts. No wide open sparley poplulated same as everywhere else cookie cutter master plan.
The Skyscraper Museum in NY had an exhibition contrasting NY to HK and Tokyo; making the observation that as NY was built the creative minds of that era had their best can-you-top-that ideas then on paper put to into concrete a generation later in these two cities.
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