What's Wrong with the Automobile Pt. 2

In my last post I discussed the problems related to automobiles and urban environments and maintained that it was a tension caused by space. City life requires densities and cars need immense amounts of space to move and function efficiently, effectively putting the two at odds with each other. This is the first problem of automobiles in urban places - cars require space to function. The second space issue that cars raise is probably more complex and also incredibly more difficult to solve. It is the physical space that the car itself takes up. Cities of course need densities to function well but, of course, everything takes up space. Your body, for example, requires space that could be put to use in other ways (think bedroom space and places to sit.) Now of course if we got rid of all of the people and the space their bodies require we wouldn't have a city anymore - this points out that the tension between space and density in city is not a matter of density good - space bad but in reality a proper balance between the two. Cars, it is my opinion distort this balance.

Of course all objects take up space, but since in good city design space is at a premium priority needs to be assigned to those objects or activities that make the best use of the space. This is primarily where cars fail. Your average commuter drives his car to work and then parks it and walks to the office and the car sits there and performs no useful function for the rest of the day until the worker uses it to get back home. This means that the thousands of cars being used everyday take up space and are providing no useful function in the space they are taking up. They are just sitting there. This is the huge problem every city has to provide for thousands of cars by using space that could be put to more useful functions like offices and homes as well as other functions.

Like the space required by roads to allow cars to efficiently function, this space required by cars increases the distances required to get to separate functions within a city hampering a primary benefit of living in a city. Mass transit in general doesn't have this problem (at least not to the same degree - nothing is used 100% of the time of course) because as soon as some people get done using it, it is available for others to use. This versatility makes mass transit a more efficient use of space.

Buses and trains however are not the only solution to the usage problem represented by cars. New York City, for instance makes extensive use of taxi's. This provides convenient personalized transit while at the same time allowing the taxi to be used by others once the original user no longer needs its services.

It should be noted though that this problem is not unique to cars but actually to all forms of private transportation. bikes, horses even Segways all will suffer the same space problems it is just a difference of degree (for example bikes are smaller then cars so the same affects that will appear with X number of cars might appear with 3X bikes.) In fact this is the main reason why mass transit should be preferred in dense city environments.

As a final note I would like to add again that cars are not total evil and they provide certain advantages that makes them a useful tool to have around and available. Private transportation is about the only feasible method to access rural and low density areas since public transportation requires significant densities to be useful. The ideas and thoughts presented in this argument are limited to certain specific instances and cannot necessarily be used in other situations (i.e. do not take this argument to far and draw conclusions that are not warranted by the points and truths elucidated here.)