Urban Regimes

It's critical to recognize that for travel behavior there exist different urban regimes, which can be defined in terms of the "D variables" (Density, Diversity, Design). And in one regime, it's painfully absurd to do anything but drive. Distances are long, routes are indirect, all the infrastructure is auto-centric, parking is plentiful and free. And that regime characterizes 95% of the urban area. But when distances are shorter, routes are direct, you've got infrastructure that is safe and humane for people not in cars, and parking is painful. Useful transit exists. And in the latter regime, that car is no longer the most efficient mode of transport.

And when that happens, we should stop privileging the automobile as the most efficient mode. Even conceptualizing what it would be like to privilege another mode is astonishingly powerful, because it rapidly leads to a catalogue of things we have to do for cars: the space we provide, the risks we tolerate, the funding we provide, the denial of access, the regulation of unrelated matters (Daylight Savings Time), the distortion to every development, etc. And we have to ask: "If cars are no longer the most efficient mode, why are we spending millions prioritizing the movement of cars, and mandating everyone else spend millions providing for the storage of cars"?

The simple answer is that for most trips, one end of a trip lies in the auto-centric regime, and it's a choice between imposing costs in the smaller area where cars are less efficient, or in the larger area, where cars are more efficient. And benefitting the suburbs to the detriment of central cities was official US policy for decades. It wasn't until the "Urban Transportation Problem" hit, when congestion outstripped road building, that thoughtful people realized building their way out of congestion was impossible--traffic was growing faster than the capacity to pay for it, even as the cost of paying for it became exponentially higher. And then we started building rapid transit. (And saving older transit systems).