I wrote this essay in 2000 for assessment in the subject KGE 514/814 Environmental Planning as part of the Graduate Diploma of Environmental Studies at the University of Tasmania. I use the Harvard referencing system in the essay. A full list of references can be found at the end of the essay. If you wish to cite the any part of it please use the following citation details. David Reid |
About half the world’s population lives in cities (Girardet 1996). The ideal city is one that maximises access to opportunities and services for its citizens. Unfortunately modern cities have been designed for motorcars not people. As a result people’s access is limited rather than enhanced by living in these cities.
In this essay I wish to examine why the institutions responsible for planning our cities have taken this path of motorcar oriented development when it in fact reduces access and accessibility for most people living there. What is the role of environmental planning in improving access and sustainability in cities? I will limit my discussion to the examples of the rich, industrialised nations even though they account for a minority of the world’s people. Although the problems are not limited to these nations, the ideas that created these problems originated there and have subsequently been imposed on or adopted by the Majority World.
Ebenezer Howard (1850-1928) had a major impact on urban planning in the twentieth century. In 1898 he published a book entitled To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform. It was reissued in 1902 as Garden Cities of To-morrow. For this reason he is usually thought of as a planner when he was actually a social visionary (Hall 1996; p.87). His idea was that the Garden City would combine the advantages of urban and rural living. His idea consisted of small self-sufficient towns surrounded by green belts of agriculture. He hoped to stop the population growth in London and repopulate the countryside so that the city poor might live closer to nature (Jacobs 1961; p.27).
While Howard’s ideas never gained widespread literal acceptance, he had a major influence on the conceptions underlying planning in the US. Planners with no interest in the Garden City were still influenced intellectually by its underlying principles (Jacobs 1961; p.28). Sir Patrick Geddes (1854-1932) took the ideas of Howard as a starting point for an even bigger idea, regional planning (Jacobs 1961; p.29). Geddes—a Brit—met briefly with Lewis Mumford—an American—who acknowledged a great debt to him (Hall 1996; p.148). Mumford and his colleagues at the American Regional Planning Association saw regional planning as a way of decentralising great cities and spreading them out in to small cities and even towns (Jacobs 1961; p.30). These ideas came to be adopted across the US and incorporated in to plans for big cities hence laying the foundations for cities with low population densities where the car was the primary mode of transport (Jacobs 1961; p.31).
Le Corbusier, like Howard, saw congestion and crowding in the centre of cities as a problem. As a solution he envisaged the complete rebuilding of cities. His ideas were for an increase in population density, but everyone would be housed in skyscrapers so that there would be large amounts of open space. Everyone would own cars and drive into the city centre on great avenues. The problem of garaging all the cars and their noise and pollution was never considered (Hall 1996; pp.207-209). Le Corbusier’s vision was realised in the building of the Brazilian capital Brasilia. However it was ironic that in a city designed for cars few people actually owned them (Short 1989; p.34).
Engwicht (1992; pp.116-117) says that the problem with Howard’s Garden City scheme is that he perpetuated the problem he attempted to solve by adopting a mechanistic or reductionist solution. This left those that followed with the belief that the city’s problems could be solved by the authoritarian imposition of harmony and order. Town planning systems therefore view the city as a machine neglecting the fact that the city is an eco-system with its own life.
In 1900 there was one car for every 10 000 people in the United States. By 1980 there was one car for every two people (Short 1989; p.57). This has had a major effect on the nature of cities and city planning. While there are some benefits that result from the greater mobility allowed by car use there is also a great cost. Forman (2000) estimates that 20 percent of the land area of the United States is directly affected ecologically by car use. About 25 to 30 percent of the land area of modern cities is dedicated in someway to cars (e.g. roads, carparks, and service stations).
One of the results of greater car use is cities designed for cars not people (Short 1989; p.57). The transport planning agenda gives highest priority to cars, public transport is seen as second best while pedestrians and cyclists need to fight for a safe passage (Short 1989; p.57). There is also a huge allocation of financial resources to transport. Los Angeles spends 12 percent of its wealth on transport. European cities with extensive transit systems spend 8 percent. Bangkok, with a car dominated transport system spends 17 percent while Singapore which is transit oriented spends 7 percent (Newman 1999a).
Engwicht (1992; pp.43-44) views the city primarily as a place for exchange. He identifies two types of space in the city, exchange space and movement space. The creation of more movement space to accommodate vehicles results in a loss of exchange space. While some of this lost exchange place is replaced on the city fringe (which in turn results in the loss of valuable farmland or natural places) much of the exchange space is lost forever. He says this has two results, that the city and its people are poorer for the loss of exchange space and that people must travel further to access the remaining exchange opportunities.
Cities become trapped in a positive feedback cycle of traffic congestion leading to the building of new roads that in turn become congested and so on. For example, consider a creek running through an urban area. It has important natural values, is used as a recreational space by local residents and there is a cycle path along it providing access to the city centre. What happens when the creek is turned into a major road or freeway? The natural values of the creek are lost, making the urban environment worse. The local residents lose an important recreational space and cyclists no longer have a safe route to access the city. Not only has the quality of the urban environment deteriorated but people may now be forced in to their cars to access recreational opportunities or they must drive their cars into the city because it is no longer safe to get there by bicycle. The fact that more people are now forced into their cars ensures the process of road building continues.
Public transport is often proffered as a solution to providing access to those without a car. Public transport is also often criticised as few public transport systems actually make a profit and must therefore rely on some sort of subsidy. However the entire cost and benefits of the system need to be considered. There are many hidden costs associated with car use such as congestion, air pollution, accidents and the need for adequate parking (Short 1989; p.60). These costs are never properly accounted for. The greatest obstacle to the success of public transport is encouraging people to give up the convenience of their cars and use public transport instead. Public transport also suffers from the type of positive feedback described above. As more people shift from public transport to driving cars then services decrease and/or fares rise. This results in a further decline in patronage and so on.
Public transport can only ever be part of the solution to improving access in cities as it cannot provide door to door access like the car gives. However, encouraging public transport in conjunction with walking and cycling could overcome the problem of the lack of door to door access. This necessitates giving higher priority to all three modes of transport in planning schemes.
Short (1989; p.59) identifies three groups disadvantaged by not having a car. These are households without a car, certain members of car owning households and people unable to use a car because of age, and physical or mental disabilities. Engwicht (1992; p.100) describes a group called “access-to-exchange disadvantaged” (ATED). He says people who are ATED are often elderly, poor, disadvantaged, handicapped or children. They make up 40 to 60 percent of the population in Western cities. Yet decisions about transport tend to be made by men (I deliberately use the word men not people) who own cars and drive to work. Their perspective is already biased by the fact that their experience of transport in the city is from behind the wheel of their own car. How can they make informed decisions about the transport needs of people who don’t own or have access to cars?
Jacob’s 1961 treatise on cities and planning recognised the failure of our cities was not just a result of problems with planning for motorcars. She saw that planners simply lacked the vision to plan livable cities.
Of course planners, including the highwaymen with fabulous sums of money and enormous powers at their disposal, are at a loss to make automobiles and cities compatible with one another. They do not know what to do with automobiles in cities because they do not know how to plan for workable and vital cities anyhow—with or without automobiles (p. 17).
Although these words were written almost 40 years ago they still ring very true today. So if our planners have failed us in the past what hope is there for the future? Thankfully there is no shortage of alternative visions for sustainable cities. The next part of the essay shall be dedicated to exploring some of these ideas.
Stockholm demonstrates that planning doesn’t have to create car dominated cities. Its policy has been to develop around stations on the city’s rapid transit system. The centres are compact and of walking scale. Motorised and non-motorised transport is segregated. There is an assumption that people will use bus and rail not cars. Car use is a third of that in American cities and has declined in the past decade (Newman 1999b).
In the Netherlands the woonerven system has returned streets to their former role as social centres. Woonerven are residential streets that employ traffic calming measures such as humps, bottlenecks, and tree planting to slow down and discourage traffic. They aim to reduce traffic to walking pace and give pedestrians and residents control over the street space, increase social interaction and restore a sense of community (Girardet 1996; p.148 and Liebmann 1996).
Edinburgh provides another interesting case study. It hasn’t pursued road building to the same extent as other cities, mainly in an effort to protect its historic architecture. However, car ownership rose while bus use decreased in the 1980s. The number of people commuting from the suburbs has also been progressively rising. In 1996 the City of Edinburgh Council adopted a radical plan to reduce travel called MOVING FORWARD. It includes plans to reduce car use while increasing the use of public transport and cycling. Some of the plan’s specific initiatives include Greenways, bus lanes painted green. They help to reduce travel in two ways. They take road space from cars and they increase the efficiency and speed of buses. Initial results show that bus travel times have been cut and there has been an increase in passenger numbers. Other initiatives include closing the eastbound lane of Princes Street (Edinburgh’s premier shopping street) to cars but not buses and bicycles. Footpaths were also widened. To avoid just shifting cars to another street, the parallel street, George Street was closed to through traffic. The success of this plan is under debate. No real travel reduction seems to have taken place, traffic has just moved to other routes. The Car Club is another idea. It gives people access to hire cars at short notice as an alternative to car ownership. It is mainly targeted at car owners travelling less than 7,000 miles per year. Car owners who join car clubs reduce their miles travelled by about 50 percent, but the scheme also provides car access to people who don’t own cars reducing the amount of travel reduction. While Edinburgh’s MOVING FORWARD policy is laudable in its aims it has not been a total success because while there have been efforts to reduce travel in the inner city, developments outside the city centre which encourage traffic growth are still proceeding (Mittler 1999).
Marshall (1999) identifies this as a key problem in cities around the world. He says travel reduction policies have been applied well in inner city areas but poorly in suburbs. He suggests this problem is part of the wider conflict between sustainability and economic growth. There is a fundamental conflict between restraining mobility while maintaining economic growth and also accessibility.
Zoning schemes that separate land use create a need for more travel and reduce the area available for exchange (Engwicht 1992; p.131). Most jobs are in the commercial or industrial zones while most people live in the residential zones. This separation of land use may have been necessary when industry was noisy, dirty or smelly, but now when “modern industry can be less noisy than the average lawnmower” it is no longer necessary (Short 1989; pp.60-62). Although where there is mixed use, residents need to be protected from noxious uses (Crawford 2000). People living close to their work are no longer forced to commute and contribute to traffic congestion. Those who do not have access to cars can have access to more job opportunities near where they live. It could also reduce the need for child and aged care. Demand for childcare is increased by the separation of the home and the workplace. Demand for aged care is often due to lack of suitable housing. In particular planning schemes that do not allow for the construction of “granny flats” (Liebmann 1995).
Construction of large regional shopping centres also erodes accessibility in the city. These centres are often constructed along major roads and surrounded by huge car parks making them all but inaccessible to pedestrians (pers. obs.). Regional shopping centres reduce business opportunities for smaller local shops. They also generate less employment per dollar spent than small local stores. Local shopping centres ensure those without cars have access to goods and services, and they also reduce the need for travel (Engwicht 1992; pp.140-143).
To solve the problems of motorcars limiting access in cities a new approach to planning is required. Planners should avoid seeing the city as merely a place to live and realise that it is a home for millions of people. The city has many functions and these cannot all neatly be pigeonholed into simple zoning schemes. A large proportion of the world’s people live in cities, it is essential that they be enjoyable places to live.
I would like to propose several ideas that could easily be adopted in existing cities. I am looking at ideas that allow communities to reclaim the space that has been lost to them. I think that by reducing dependence on the motorcar for transport everybody’s quality of life can be enhanced, including those that presently drive motorcars. Some of the ideas are my own, others from the literature I have reviewed for this essay. I doubt any of them are original.
Sprawl has enormous costs that everyone ends up paying for. Its product, the suburbs, are often the parts of the city that are most dependent on the motorcar, hence those living there who do not have access to cars are the most disadvantaged. Urban sprawl should be limited by encouraging development in areas that are already developed. In suburbs already affected by sprawl there should be an encouragement of small local shopping centres, not the large regional ones that are favoured now. The aim should be to ensure everyone lives within walking distance of a shopping centre. Also future development should be focused around public transport infrastructure and car parking space and car access limited. Shopping streets could be closed to cars while still allowing buses and bicycles to enter.
Transport planning priorities need to be reassessed. The car should not be the primary focus of our transport system. It does not provide universal access and has many associated costs that have to be borne by the whole community. Pedestrians must be given first priority in all planning schemes. Everyone whether they own a car or not must be a pedestrian at some time every day. The marginalisation of pedestrians is the marginalisation of the entire community, a curious paradox. Next priority should be for bicycles. At present cycling is often seen by those in power as just a recreational activity, not a means by transport. As a form of transport bicycles are unmatched in their efficiency. In some European cities, such as Amsterdam, bikes play a major role in transport. One third of all journeys in the Netherlands are made by bicycle (Girardet 1996; p.146).
Next is public transport. In many cities it has been terribly neglected as the car has been allowed to take over. The managers of our public transport systems also lack vision and seem to be content with the status quo. There is no shortage of great ideas about improving public transport. One of the problems public transport faces is getting people to give up their cars and use it instead. Engwicht (1992; pp.144-146) suggests a need for habit breaking. This could include such things as Traffic Reduction Days, or Public Transport Days. Presently the tax system subsidises company cars, why not offer similar subsidies for public transport fares or cash incentives for people that walk or cycle to work.
Another problem is separation of land use by zoning schemes. There is no reason why many land uses need to be separated from each other. By mixing land uses together people can have ready access to their work place, shopping centres and social opportunities. All citizens can then have access to a range of services, jobs and opportunities, not just those with cars.
Finally, the role of the planner should be to plan for the inclusion of all the people living in the city, not just a few. Presently the city planned for the motorcar excludes many of its citizens. The old, young, poor and disabled have an equal right to be part of the life of the city. Planners must ensure that this right is respected.