The most insidious result of the car-first development pattern is the constituency of car owners it creates. Once you own a car - and so mentally discount the cost of insuring, maintaining, fuelling the car - then every trip looks free. Political discussions and public investment decisions begin to assume that everybody comes with a machine; they conflate 'driver' with citizen, and relegate non-cyborg humans to a category of 'other', the 'pedestrian' who isn't naturally considered first in site layout or public space design, but who must be 'accommodated' by so-called 'complete' streets and 'extra' features like crosswalks.
(Hat tip to Strong Towns blog)
Marginal cost of transportation: robotaxis and sprawl repair Jun 09, 2014 05:00 am | Neil Salmond
The most insidious result of the car-first development pattern is the constituency of car owners it creates. Once you own a car - and so mentally discount the cost of insuring, maintaining, fuelling the car - then every trip looks free. Political discussions and public investment decisions begin to assume that everybody comes with a machine; they conflate 'driver' with citizen, and relegate non-cyborg humans to a category of 'other', the 'pedestrian' who isn't naturally considered first in site layout or public space design, but who must be 'accommodated' by so-called 'complete' streets and 'extra' features like crosswalks. Sidewalks are the original war on the car. |
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