WHAT KIND OF HERITAGE?

Stéphanie Hirtz

A Heritage Foundation by John Semmens alleges the inefficiency, inequity and ineffectiveness of public transportation, promoting the use of private cars in American cities. Two main questions occur to me. In the long term, what are the economic, social and environmental costs of the generalized use of cars? What if the entire world adopted the American or Australian dream of the private automobile as primary transport?

A study by Newman and Kenworthy from the late 1980s, even before the disastrous effects of carbon emissions were well-known, U.S. cities were consuming two times more fuel for transport than Australian cities, four times more than European cities, and six times more than Asian cities. As a result, motorized transport accounts for 24% of global CO2 emissions and related greenhouse gases. My question is: what is more important, the flexibility, convenience and speed of automobile transport, and the quality of life of a more humane system of transportation that concern the very perpetuation of life on earth? Given the context of the 2007 Stern Report, which for the first time shows the economic costs of global warming, to deny the benefits of public transportation and instead promote  the massive use of cars, as the Heritage Foundation has done, seems totally irrational.

A graph from Newman and Kenworthy shows that fuel consumption is directly related to urban density, and suggests that the transportation is directly related to land-use policy. The following list represents the  rounded off figures from Newman and Kenworthy. The first number represents density or the lack of it (people per hectare) and the second number represents annual fuel use per person, as measured in gigajoules.

Houston and Phoenix: less than 20 people per hectare  /   above 70 gigajoules

Detroit and Denver:  20 people per hectare / nearly 70 gigajoules

Houston and Washington DC: 20 people per hectare / nearly 60 gigajoules

New York and Chicago: 20 people per hectare / nearly 50 gigajoules (the lower number of gigajoules may have something to do with superior public transport systems)

Perth, Brisbane, Melbourne and Sydney: also 20 people per hectare but 30 gigajoules

Hamburg, Stockholm, Paris: 40-50 people per hectare / less than 20 gigajoules

Berlin and Vienna:  over 60 people per hectare / 10 gigajoules

Singapour and Tokyo: over 80 people per hectare / less than 10 gigajoules

*Copenhagen and Amsterdam: these cities have achieved around 10 gigajoules but are not as dense as other cities with similar low rates of fuel use. This happy combination may have something to do with the fact that the bicycle is a primary means of commuting in these cities

The fast-growing cities of the global “South” are now experiencing the damages related to the massive use of private cars and other motorized transportation. The challenge for urban infrastructures is to differentiate between congestion and density. Low-density cities in the above list often experience higher congestion than some of the high density cities. As the list shows, fuel consumption for transportation is directly linked with urban density.

From the above set of data, we could imagine a land-use policy based on both compulsory regulation, incentives and subsidies that would promote density and functional diversity such as mixed-use zoning in order to reduce distances between housing and commerce, jobs and activities. In addition to adequate land-use policy, there is an absolute need to promote a more efficient and clean public transportation system. The bus transport network in Curitiba, Brazil is an often-referred to model of successful integration of transportation and land use. The fundamental idea is to develop a Mass Rapid Transport system becomes more efficient, cheaper and cleaner than using the automobile. This could mean the foundation of a cleaner and more fruitful heritage for humanity.