“How About We Get Rid of the Cars?”

Barring major catastrophe, I don’t think we’ll ever be entirely rid of cars. But can we create a non-car-centric society? New York Times writer seem to be coming to that conclusion.

First, Ariel Kaminer wrote in a City Critic column about the problems of NYC pedicabs (three-wheeled, human-powered cabs). Despite the fact that relatively few New Yorkers drive cars, pedicabs and autos have had trouble getting along. Kaminer mentions a highly publicized brawl between a pedicab driver and a taxicab driver, and a pedicab involved in an accident because it was someplace it wasn’t supposed to be.

Kaminer’s conclusion is interesting:

In 2007, a city councilman was quoted in the Village Voice saying that pedicabs caused pollution by increasing congestion. Perhaps he’s right; perhaps pedicabs and cars cannot coexist in Manhattan. Maybe it’s not safe to have three wheels darting in and out of four-wheel traffic. Maybe the time has come to make a change. How about we get rid of the cars?

Next, we have an article by Micheline Maynard, “Is Happiness Still That New Car Smell?” Maynard looks at the increasing number of people choosing to live car-free or car-lite, “whether because of cost, convenience or environmental awareness.”  Maynard also looks at the issues automakers face because people are making these choices — will they just make fewer cars, or different kinds of cars, or develop entirely new forms of transportation? And then she says:

At least in the short term, automakers face an imperative to make sure that the fundamental basis of their business — selling cars — remains intact. If public opinion swings too far away from cars, some environmentalists warn that the car industry could find itself in the same circumstances as cigarette manufacturers, who have hung on to their most fervent users even as public policy, health concerns and public opinion have cast a shadow over their products.

Yep. Cars are like cigarettes! And at some point, we’re going to have to quit. Or at least cut back severely. It will be interesting to see if public opinion really does swing this way eventually.