The built environment of an automotive city, the Los Angeles Freeway Interchange
An automotive city or auto city is a city that facilitates and encourages the movement of people via private transportation, through 'physical planning', e.g., built environment innovations (street networks, parking spaces, automobile/pedestrian interface technologies and low density urbanised areas containing detached dwellings with driveways or garages) and 'soft programming' e.g., social policy surrounding city street usage (traffic safety/automobile campaigns, automobile laws and the social reconstruction of streets as reserved public spaces for the automobile).[1][2]
"The old common law that every person, whether on foot or driving, has equal rights in all parts of the roadway must give way before the requirements of modern transportation" – McClintock, a Consultant for Los Angeles Traffic Commission in 1924.[1] (Norton, 2008, p. 164)
Multiple competing views have attempted to explain the rapid dominance of automobile use over alternative modes of transportation in North America in the early 20th century. Two compelling arguments are:
That the automobile was selected by city dwellers, as the liberated and preferred mode of transportation.[1]
That the automobile was deliberately promoted, at the expense of mass transit systems, by the corporate or professional elites, guided by interests in the automotive industry (see General Motors streetcar conspiracy).[3]
While both arguments are nuanced, the basic principles behind each – advocacy of private transportation and advocacy of automobile production and consumption – informed the American automobile manufacturing boom of the early 1900s. By the late 1920s, the automobile industry was producing millions of cars each year, its surging growth due in part to the sociology of industrial phenomena related to Fordism.[1][4]
The creation of the automotive city may be due, in part, to an attack on old customs by the good roads movement, seeking to pave the way for the rapidly expanding automobile market—and to the triumph of individual liberties, associated with consumption and the free market, over restrictive governance of the built environment and its use.[5] By the 1930s, the interaction of automotive industry interests, a vocal, growing, minority of city motorists and favourable political sentiment, worked together to reconstruct the city street as a reserved space for the automobile, delegitimising previous users (such as pedestrians) and forging the foundations for the first automotive cities.[1]
This transformative process could not have succeeded, were it not for the development, and deployment, of a system of symbols, codes and laws which would become the language of traffic signs, and infrastructure design.[6]
Chang'an avenue in BeijingMiami traffic jam, I-95 North rush hour
By the end of the 20th century the automobile, and the land sequestered for its exclusive use (road infrastructure), had become synonymous with formulations of large North American and Australian cities. The label 'automotive city' has been used by academics such as Norton (2008) and Newman and Kenworthy (2000), to refer to the tendency of city design and configuration in many North American and Australian cities during the 20th century to privilege the private automobile above mass transit systems.[1][7] The creation of the 'automotive city' detailed by Norton in Fighting Traffic, primarily involved the reconfiguration of American city transport infrastructure and services, from the early 1920s to the 1960s, around the growth of modes of private transportation (the automobile).
In the early 1920s this reconfiguration of American city transport infrastructure around the automobile, at the instigation of traffic engineers, resulted in the rewriting of an old English common law (which had previously defined the street as a space where all users were equal) to define the street as a space which privileges cars, allocating them the right of way (except at intersections).[6]
This early and prolonged reconfiguration of the American, and Australian, city around private transportation served to dramatically alter the course of city development within these countries.[1] This is made most tangible through the generally accepted shape the man-made environment has taken in cities such as Melbourne (which never got rid of its tram system), Los Angeles and Detroit, which cater to the needs of automobile ownership (i.e. sidewalks, grid city layout linked with dormitory suburbs, highways and private transport corridors, and the securing of land for car spaces).[2][7][8]
Before usage of the automobile was ubiquitous in these regions, and its presence believed to be necessary to the efficient dispersion and mobility of human capital within a centralised, low density, metropolitan area, it was introduced to mixed traffic conditions, and was commonly viewed as a nuisance which endangered historically legitimate street uses.[6] In 1913, New York was experiencing frequent congestion, and by 1915, many individuals had reverted to using the subway.
Chicago's electric streetcar company indicated that it had slowed by 44% in the city's CBD between 1910 and 1920. In San Francisco in 1914, the number of automobiles surpassed the city's 10,000 horse-drawn vehicles. By 1910, Los Angeles had the highest per capita car registration in the world, Detroit and other Midwestern cities followed shortly thereafter. This time period for North America was marked by substantial growth in automobile ownership amongst the population, creating friction between private transportation interests and mass transit interests.[6]
The road lobby and securing the road infrastructure resource
The politics between different transportation stakeholders, who viewed roads as a securable resource and potential source of revenue, manifested in acrimonious conflict throughout the 1920s and 1930s.[7] One particularly controversial example of this conflict occurred between the road and rail lobbies in the 1930s, when a holding company, National City Lines, made up of interests from oil, tyre and car industries, bought the private electric streetcar systems in 45 U.S. cities, before closing them down. The reason attributed to this being clear, each subway car operating on the road was replacing 50 to 100 automobiles.[3]
They were viewed as obstacles to what was generally accepted, among stakeholders in the automobile, as the future of North American transportation.[3]
The purchase, and ultimate closure, of the electric street car systems by National City Lines, occurred approximately 10 years prior to the United States Congress proscription of diversification among rival industries, outlined in the Transportation Act of 1940.[5] The intent of this, in the words of the Interstate Commerce Commission, was, "to protect each mode of transportation from the suppression and strangulation, which might follow if control thereof were allowed to fall into the hands of a competing agency".[3] In 1949 a Grand Jury ultimately convicted National City Lines, and its constituents; General Motors, Standard Oil of California, Mack Trucks, Phillips Petroleum and the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company on criminal indictment of anti-trust conspiracy, this decision did not, however, result in the return of electric street car systems.
280 million passengers were provided with the option of either taking the bus, or participating in the automobile industry. Within a few decades, the golden age of the automotive industry was well and truly under way, with cities such as Los Angeles being almost completely dependent on the automobile.[3][8]
Substantial funds were required in order to develop and maintain infrastructure capable of sustaining the level of automobile dependence observed by the burgeoning automotive cities in North America. Advocacy for these funds was spearheaded in 1932, by General Motors' Alfred Sloan, who brought a number of automotive industry interest groups together under the banner of the ‘National Highway Users Conference’.[7] The combined lobbying power of this organisation resulted in the substantial U.S. Highway Trust fund of 1957, through which the U.S. government invested $1,845 million in highways between 1952 and 1970. Rail systems only received $232 million during the same period.[8]
The decisive early action of large automobile lobbies in the U.S., in securing road infrastructure funding for their product, helped shape, and protect, the growth of automotive cities in North America and Australia through the 1900s.[5] In many contemporaneous European and Asian countries the influence of automobile lobbies were tempered by equally large mass transit lobbies, and the dependence on the automobile, evident in the urban sprawl of detached dwellings with garages, and accompanying street systems, in North America and Australia, has not been as significant, possibly due in part to this reason[7]
Suburban exodus
From the late 1940s and into the early 1960s the dispersal of the metro population in, and urbanisation of, U.S. and Australian cities correlated with increasing levels of car ownership for the same period, feeding into the political expectation that the car would be the future of urban transportation.[9] The discourse surrounding city structure, which would remain dominant during this period, was succinctly expressed by Homer Hoyt in the 1943 Chicago Plan Commission article, 'American Cities in the Post-War Era'.[9] Hoyt held that the rise of the automobile would remove dependency on fixed rails for public transportation, and that old city design concepts, such as the high density ‘compact city', would be made obsolete due to the advent of the long-range bomber during World War II.[9]
In Hoyt's concept of the ideal post-war American city, low density urban garden homes in dormitory neighbourhoods on the urban fringe would be separated from industry and employment by a green belt, and arterial roads connecting these zones to greatly expanded car spaces at the base of principal office buildings and department stores would accommodate private modes of transportation, supporting independent mobility and accessibility in and around downtown areas.[9] Advocacy for this form of automobile dependent urbanisation, segregation of land uses, and low density expansion of the metropolitan area, was heavily informed by preeminent planned community systems such as Clarence Perry's 'Neighbourhood Unit', and Raymond Unwin's 'Garden Suburb'.[10][11]
These new planned suburbs, located at the periphery of the metropolitan area, were advertised as a means of escaping the congestion and pollution associated with inner-city living in the early to mid-20th century.[10] The development of replicable integral neighbourhoods, and processes of urban renewal (characterised by the development of street infrastructure) facilitated a suburban exodus from cities during this period, resulting in the dispersion of the western metropolis.[8][12] In a short space of time, a considerable burden was placed on the transit networks of many major North American cities, as processes of urbanisation created entire communities, isolated from what were popularly viewed as obsolete modes of mass transit, of automobile dependent commuters.
Twentieth century Western city planning has been characterised by academics such as Vanderbilt (2010) as an exercise in retrofitting the metropolis for the car.[13] While the benefits of private transportation and the mobility it affords citizens in a dispersed metro is widely acknowledged, logistically, it is exceedingly difficult, perhaps impossible, for planners to design a city which efficiently accommodates more than a fraction of its population in this manner.[13] Unfortunately, current research points toward a transportation system which has caused as many problems as it has solved.[7]
As early as 1925, the U.S. Secretary of Commerce, Herbert Hoover, had estimated that urban congestion costs were exceeding $2 billion a year.[6] In 2009, The Texas Transportation Institute issued the Urban Mobility Report (2009), in which the estimated current cost of traffic congestion (in wasted fuel and lost productivity) was $87.2 billion in the U.S.[14]
In Australia, through the twentieth century, Clapton makes the observation that the automobile has, "killed, injured and maimed more people than war has done to Australian soldiers" (Clapton, 2005, p.313).[2]
In the 21st century Western automotive city, road engineers fight against the phenomenon of induced traffic (new infrastructure creating more congestion), road authorities strive for balance between traffic safety, the independence awarded to private transportation users and the rights of various road users in a democratic society, while land speculators continue to design dormitory commuter neighbourhoods, in cities where planning agencies facilitate (or do not regulate) car dependent sprawl.[2][7][15]
The vast majority of passenger travel in the United States occurs by automobile for shorter distances and airplane or railroad for longer distances. Most cargo in the U.S. is transported by, in descending order, railroad, truck, pipeline, or boat; air shipping is typically used only for perishables and premium express shipments. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.
Transport economics is a branch of economics founded in 1959 by American economist John R. Meyer that deals with the allocation of resources within the transport sector. It has strong links to civil engineering. Transport economics differs from some other branches of economics in that the assumption of a spaceless, instantaneous economy does not hold. People and goods flow over networks at certain speeds. Demands peak. Advance ticket purchase is often induced by lower fares. The networks themselves may or may not be competitive. A single trip may require the bundling of services provided by several firms, agencies and modes.
Transportation planning is the process of defining future policies, goals, investments, and spatial planning designs to prepare for future needs to move people and goods to destinations. As practiced today, it is a collaborative process that incorporates the input of many stakeholders including various government agencies, the public and private businesses. Transportation planners apply a multi-modal and/or comprehensive approach to analyzing the wide range of alternatives and impacts on the transportation system to influence beneficial outcomes.
An intelligent transportation system (ITS) is an advanced application which aims to provide innovative services relating to different modes of transport and traffic management and enable users to be better informed and make safer, more coordinated, and 'smarter' use of transport networks.
Bicycle-friendly policies and practices help some people feel more comfortable about traveling by bicycle with other traffic. The level of bicycle-friendliness of an environment can be influenced by many factors including town planning and cycling infrastructure decisions. A stigma towards people who ride bicycles and fear of cycling is a social construct that needs to be fully understood when promoting a bicycle friendly culture.
Since the start of the twentieth century, the role of cars has become highly important, though controversial. They are used throughout the world and have become the most popular mode of transport in many of the more developed countries. In developing countries, the effects of the car on society are not as visible, however they are nonetheless significant. The development of the car built upon the transport sector first started by railways. This has introduced sweeping changes in employment patterns, social interactions, infrastructure and the distribution of goods.
Utility cycling encompasses any cycling done simply as a means of transport rather than as a sport or leisure activity. It is the original and most common type of cycling in the world. Cycling mobility is one of the various types of private transport and a major part of individual mobility.
The General Motors streetcar conspiracy refers to the convictions of General Motors (GM) and related companies that were involved in the monopolizing of the sale of buses and supplies to National City Lines (NCL) and subsidiaries, as well as to the allegations that the defendants conspired to own or control transit systems, in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act. This suit created lingering suspicions that the defendants had in fact plotted to dismantle streetcar systems in many cities in the United States as an attempt to monopolize surface transportation.
Sustainable transport refers to ways of transportation that are sustainable in terms of their social and environmental impacts. Components for evaluating sustainability include the particular vehicles used for road, water or air transport; the source of energy; and the infrastructure used to accommodate the transport. Transport operations and logistics as well as transit-oriented development are also involved in evaluation. Transportation sustainability is largely being measured by transportation system effectiveness and efficiency as well as the environmental and climate impacts of the system. Transport systems have significant impacts on the environment, accounting for between 20% and 25% of world energy consumption and carbon dioxide emissions. The majority of the emissions, almost 97%, came from direct burning of fossil fuels. In 2019, about 95% of the fuel came from fossil sources. The main source of greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union is transportation. In 2019 it contributes to about 31% of global emissions and 24% of emissions in the EU. In addition, up to the COVID-19 pandemic, emissions have only increased in this one sector. Greenhouse gas emissions from transport are increasing at a faster rate than any other energy using sector. Road transport is also a major contributor to local air pollution and smog.
A living street is a street designed with the interests of pedestrians and cyclists in mind by providing enriching and experiential spaces. Living streets also act as social spaces, allowing children to play and encouraging social interactions on a human scale, safely and legally. Living streets consider all pedestrians granting equal access to elders and those who are disabled. These roads are still available for use by motor vehicles; however, their design aims to reduce both the speed and dominance of motorized transport. The reduction of motor vehicle dominance creates more opportunities for public transportation.
The street hierarchy is an urban planning technique for laying out road networks that exclude automobile through-traffic from developed areas. It is conceived as a hierarchy of roads that embeds the link importance of each road type in the network topology. Street hierarchy restricts or eliminates direct connections between certain types of links, for example residential streets and arterial roads, and allows connections between similar order streets or between street types that are separated by one level in the hierarchy. By contrast, in many regular, traditional grid plans, as laid out, higher order roads are connected by through streets of both lower order levels. An ordering of roads and their classification can include several levels and finer distinctions as, for example, major and minor arterials or collectors.
A carfree city is an urban area absent of motor vehicles. Carfree cities rely on public transport, walking, and cycling for travel as opposed to motor vehicles. Districts where motor vehicles are prohibited are referred to as carfree zones. Carfree city models have gained traction in the second half of the 20th century due to issues with congestion and infrastructure, and proposed environmental and quality of life benefits. Many cities in Asia, Europe, and Africa have carfree areas due to the cities being created before the invention of motor vehicles, while many developing cities in Asia are using the carfree model to modernize their infrastructure.
Transportation demand management or travel demand management (TDM) is the application of strategies and policies to increase the efficiency of transportation systems, that reduce travel demand, or to redistribute this demand in space or in time.
Land transport is the transport or movement of people, animals or goods from one location to another location on land. This is in contrast with other main types of transport such as maritime transport and aviation. The two main forms of land transport can be considered to be rail transport and road transport.
Transport geography or transportation geography is a branch of geography that investigates the movement and connections between people, goods and information on the Earth's surface.
Car dependency is the concept that some city layouts cause cars to be favoured over alternate forms of transportation, such as bicycles, public transit, and walking.
Transport or transportation is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land, water, cable, pipelines, and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles, and operations. Transport enables human trade, which is essential for the development of civilizations.
Active mobility, soft mobility, active travel, active transport or active transportation is the transport of people or goods, through non-motorized means, based around human physical activity. The best-known forms of active mobility are walking and cycling, though other modes include running, rowing, skateboarding, kick scooters and roller skates. Due to its prevalence, cycling is sometimes considered separately from the other forms of active mobility.
Public transport is a system of transport for passengers by group travel systems available for use by the general public unlike private transport, typically managed on a schedule, operated on established routes, and that may charge a posted fee for each trip. There is no rigid definition of which kinds of transport are included, and air travel is often not thought of when discussing public transport—dictionaries use wording like "buses, trains, etc." Examples of public transport include city buses, trolleybuses, trams and passenger trains, rapid transit and ferries. Public transport between cities is dominated by airlines, coaches, and intercity rail. High-speed rail networks are being developed in many parts of the world.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to transportation planning.
References
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Norton, p. 2008, Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City, published by The MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, London, England, ISBN978-0-262-14100-0
1 2 3 4 Clapton, R. (2005) Intersections of Conflict: Policing and Criminalising Melbourne’s Traffic, 1890–1930, Doctor of Philosophy Thesis, submitted to the Department of History, The University of Melbourne
↑ Maller, J. and Dwolatsky, B. (1993) 'What is Fordism? Restructuring Work in the South African Metal Industry', in 'Transformation', 22:70–86
1 2 3 Slater, Cliff (1997). "General Motors and the Demise of Streetcars". Transportation Quarterly. pp. 45–66
1 2 3 4 5 Mcshane, C. (1999) 'The Origins and Globalisation of Traffic Control Signals', in Journal of Urban History, 1999, 25: 379, published by SAGE online, electronic resource retrieved; 5/05/2011, doi:10.1177/009614429902500304
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Newman, P. and Kenworthy, J. (2000) 'The Ten Myths of Automobile Dependence', in World Transport Policy & Practice, Vol. 6 No. 1, 2000, pp. 15–25
1 2 3 4 Holtz Kay, J. (1997) 'Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America and How We Can Take it Back', published by Crown Publishers, New York, 1997, ISBN0-517-58702-5
1 2 3 4 Hoyt, H. (1943) 'The Structure of American Cities in the Post-War Era', in The American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 48, No. 4 (Jan 1943), published by The University of Chicago Press. pp. 475–481
1 2 Perry, C. (1929) 'The Neighbourhood Unit', Reprinted Routledge/Thoemmes, London, 1998, p.25-44
↑ Unwin, R. (1911) 'Town Planning in Practice: An Introduction to the Art of Designing Cities and Suburbs', Reprinted Princeton Architectural Press, NY 1994, pp. ix–xvii,2–14
↑ Cherry, G. (1984) 'Britain and the Metropolis: Urban Change and Planning in Perspective', in The Town Planning Review,Vol. 55, No. 1, Jan, 1984, published by Liverpool University Press, electronic resource retrieved 9/05/2011, pp. 5–33
1 2 Vanderbilt, T. (2010) 'Cars' in 'The New Urbanism', published in The Big Question, World Policy Institute, Winter 2010/2011, electronic resource retrieved 5/05/2011
↑ Schrank, D. and Lomax, T. (2009) '2009 Urban Mobility Report', published by the Texas Transportation Institute, July 2009, electronic resource retrieved 15 May 2011, from "Archived copy"(PDF). Archived from the original(PDF) on 24 July 2011. Retrieved 15 May 2011.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
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