With a peak oil conference in Sacramento this week and the 100th anniversary of the first mass-market automobile coming up, it's a perfect time to re-visit our relationship with that most ubiquitous icon of the American (and California) Dream: The Car.
Ford's 1908 Model T didn't just mark the start of widespread private automobile ownership. It heralded the complete restructuring of America around petroleum-powered cars and trucks. By mid-century we had discovered massive oil fields in Texas and the Middle East, and World War II had effectively modernized our industrial base. The stage was set for the true mass consumption of the car, a shift that would fundamentally change our economy, our landscape and even our culture.
These days it's pretty well accepted that we can't all drive everywhere. California was home to some of the earliest suburban sprawl, so its metropolitan areas experienced early on what happens when everyone tries to drive everywhere: unending congestion (despite more and bigger highways), more sprawl and overall greater dependence on oil.
For years we've tried to limit sprawl and promote transit, bicycling and walking – first in the name of conservation and quality of life, more recently to fight global warming. Today peak oil (the looming high point of global oil production) and the end of cheap oil make it more urgent than ever to reduce our dependence on cars.
There's a problem, though. We're stuck with the landscape we've built over the past 60 years, much of which is literally uninhabitable without a car. Trying to make our communities less car-dependent simply by adding more buses, streetcars and light rail is like trying to make a bowl of chicken soup vegan simply by picking the chicken out. It's just not that simple: like the chicken broth in my chicken soup, car dependence is an inherent property of nearly every city, town and suburb in this country and especially so in car-loving California.
That said, it's not impossible to quickly scale up transportation alternatives in our communities. High and medium-density urban areas can boost their transit and bicycle systems in just a few years with targeted funding and policy. Lower-density areas will have a harder time, but can still act quickly with targeted programs supporting modern car-sharing, hybrid "smart jitneys" and, where possible, mixed-use and higher density development.
Moving away from the car doesn't mean reducing our quality of life, either. Cities and suburbs throughout Western Europe have proven for decades that people will choose walking, bicycling and public transit over personal cars if the price is right and the trip is pleasant. For transit, that means headways well under 15 minutes, and a rider experience that is safe, reliable, fast and clean. For bicycling that means extensive networks of dedicated, wide, uninterrupted paths with minimal stops and secure, covered parking at destinations.
How might this look in the long run? Ernest Callenbach's 1975 novel "Ecotopia" is one of the earliest and best-known visions of a modern California no longer dependent on cars: People get around by bicycle and maglev train; cities are compact; and rural areas have reverted to villages and farmhouses; suburbs are nowhere to be found. Richard Register's nonfiction "Ecocity Berkeley" (1987) presented a more nuanced – though no less radical – vision for the future: The city is rebuilt as a beautiful, productive urban garden; the hinterland returns as a place for wildlife and agriculture instead of shopping malls.
Significantly, neither vision is excessively low-tech or high-tech. Both see ample use for existing technology, whether in constructing buildings, growing food or producing energy. Also significant is that both chart a role for personal vehicles – particularly electric vehicles (albeit not one in every garage).
This underlines an essential point for the real transportation future of California. The car will not disappear: It's simply too useful. But how we use cars, how we plan our economies and communities around cars, and even how we build cars, all have to change.
Daniel Lerch is the author of "Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty" and a program manager at the Post Carbon Institute. He lives in Portland, Ore. www.postcarboncities.net
