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.