Did you know that personal cars are usually parked 95% of the time, taking up an enormous amount of space?
Maybe you did, and maybe you like many others think that rentable autonomous electric vehicles could be the answer. Having cars that we only have possession of when we need them that are always in motion, so they don't take a parking space, use clean energy and can pick you up and drop you off with the use of an app.
Seems like an ideal scenario, right? Definitely. No.
This is one of the tricks that has happened throughout decades: That is, we just need one extra bit of technology and that is going to help us then this is going to be perfect, right?
All these technological ideas that an autonomous car is going to fix our city sounds exactly what they were saying in the 50s, and neither flying cars nor nuclear-powered-infinite battery cellphones became a thing…
But what works then?
Sadly, the answer is more boring than you think: Metroes, busses, public transport, something that is shared; and walking, cycling, something that doesn't require any individual infrastructure, because that's the issue with cars in metropolitan areas. Cars will still take up a massive amount of space no matter who drives them. On top of that, if people start buying their own autonomous cars, which they inevitably will, they’ll likely order them to drive around the city aimlessley so they don’t have to worry about parking…. That creates even more traffic on the road!
Luckily for anyone reading this newsletter, there's been a noticeable push to rejuvenate mass transit systems. In the US, President Biden and the US Department of Transportation announced a $20 billion investment in public transit this year.
In US public transit’s prime era, there were around 17,000 miles (27,359 km) of streetcar lines in the US, but by the 1950s, loads of American streetcar networks were rapidly becoming obsolete in the face of a vehicular revolution. Cities like Los Angeles used to be largely dependent on their streetcar network (read more about it here), but now the City of Angels is notorious for getting you stuck in traffic with essentially no convenient public transportation options.
However, in 2017, Los Angeles started to show a shift in priorities and announced it would be spending $120 billion over 40 years on its transit system. Kansas City had one of the most substantial streetcar systems in North America that began operation in 1870 — initially being pulled by horses. But by 1957, the entire system was shut down, making way for cars which were becoming increasingly popular. However, starting in 2014, the city began reconstructing a modern streetcar route that's nearly identical to the last one that was in operation about 60 years prior.
Once there's an emphasis on the quality of the public realm, you're making life better for many, many people. So much of the the US and Europe looks like car infested hell-holes because people are used to it. But this is an easy fix: It's very easy to look around and see examples from Japan,Singapore and Western Europe and many places that are significantly more walkable. A lot of young people have seen that online and they've started asking themselves 'Hold on a minute, why don't we have that?'
I am interested in knowing which country is the most public transportation friendly in OECD countries (maybe narrow it down to major urban cities)? Cities that is succeeding in tackling those problems that you have been mentioning. Thank you.