Hey, I’m Drivin’ Here!
In Part 3 of this series, I promised that I’d conclude by exploring “how the social dynamic of transit relates to our experience” today.
I need to cinch up that loose statement, so here goes:
Our car dependence is a social ill, and the remedy is right at our feet.
This dispatch will not be uber-practical. I don’t have the space for that, and I can go on all day about walkability, biking, and life integration practices.
Rather, I simply wish to move the dial toward a greater appreciation for walking.
Maroon (9)5
Didn’t we all pity the poor souls who were shipwrecked on I-95 during the recent ice storm in northern Virginia?
Addison Del Mastro picked up on this in his worthwhile Substack, Deleted Scenes.
Weather has a way of reminding you how little power a device like a car actually has. It operates on nature’s terms.
28 hours in a log jamb is a long time to ration your fuel and to worry about basic necessities. Waving off traffic helicopters while you’re peeing in the snowbank is no fun either.
Granted, no one was hurt in that freak moment of highway distress, and beautiful stories of neighborliness emerged.
A family returning from Florida shares oranges car-to-car while a delivery man offers rolls from his truck.
Picturing these helpers walking around attending to their marooned neighbors gives me hope that humanity ain’t all the way bad. It also makes me giggle.
Walking immediately connects us to others we encounter. Driving automatically turns us into impersonal competitors.
As I mentioned last time, if the mighty rulers of ancient days depended on their chariots to ensure their social status, cars today give us a similar sense of power over our obstacles, other people, and nature herself.
The difference is that our current reliance on automobiles is a democratization of invincibility.
In the words of the Fresh Prince
Hundred thousand dolla’ cars, er-body’s got ‘em.1
We’re all out there jockeying for position in our chariots, are we not?
Don’t Tell ME To Slow Down!
We drivers are not the only problem.
Road planners, by our votes, habits, and tax subsidies, have created conditions that unfairly prejudice cars over pedestrians, bikers, and animals.
Cars literally dominate our public spaces, unless they’re beaten into submission by sufficient crowds or “traffic calming” procedures.
As an example, I was driving down President Avenue in Lancaster recently, the dividing boulevard between my sector of the city and the earliest ring of suburbs.
The speed limit is 25, but no one goes that dog-gone slow.
The benevolent lords of Lancaster Township had placed a Nanny on the avenue. You know the type: Orange light bulbs that tell you YOUR SPEED.
Because I care about my neighborhood’s safety and my driving record, I kept my speed to 30 with cruise control.
How insidious of me! I was tailgated by someone with the philosophy of driving I found on a bumper sticker in North Carolina.
It’s The Pedal On The Right.
I can’t blame the hurried crowders behind me because President Avenue encourages speeding:
12 blocks of uninterrupted arterial flow, connecting Columbia and Harrisburg Avenues
Two alluring lanes, separated by a lovely, tree-lined medial strip
Only a few Frogger® cross streets that are easily ignored
No signals or built elements to discourage acceleration.2
A speed indicator is no match for the top-fuelers who see a drag strip through their windshield. As it is, the boulevard is a casino for the weak-willed gambler.
Driving really is gambling, and we all know it, and we act like any restraints on our pursuits are limiting our freedoms.
Until someone we love gets killed, then we “need a Stop sign there.”
As Lewis Mumford says,
The assumed right of the private motor car to go to any place in the city and park anywhere is nothing less than a license to destroy the city. L’Enfant’s plan, (for Washington D.C.), by its very invitation to traffic, has now proved its own worst enemy.3
What Drives Us?
You might say, at our basic level, we are built to walk. But that doesn’t rule out our magnificent capacity to turn ore into metal into chassis into engines into chariots into bridges into superhighways.
Automobiles are a human invention, born of our God-given responsibility to cultivate the creation.
We’ve made cars in our own image.
The fact that they are both blessing and bane only reflects the reality of living in a wonderful world fallen from perfection.
But must we be tethered to them slavishly? Will self-driving vehicles rescue us from our dangerous captivity? We shall see.
Matthew Crawford, in his book Why We Drive: Toward A Philosophy Of The Open Road, admits to the benefits of eliminating human error from our roads through A.I., but he’s concerned that self-driving cars may rob us too.
Auto-driving, in the networked sense, might take us one step further from being in touch with our material existence.
He commends the human agency involved in driving, wrenching, and enjoying motorized vehicles.
Being a car nut with some penchant for mechanics, I sloppily devoured his book like a box of Chik-fil-A nuggets.
Hey, I’m Walkin’ Here!
Perhaps one day we won’t have to ask Dad or Mom to hand over the car keys, a moment of disappointment many of us are not prepared for.
But would self-driving cars free us from our dependency on them or simply put more talons in our addiction?
And what would a lack of driving agency do to us as individuals and communities?
As I write this, I’m returning from an impromptu jaunt to New York City on Amtrak. While in Manhattan, my friend and I bounded all over the place by subway. This is how most New Yorkers get around. Or they walk.
Imagine, now, an entire country bounding around, not in communal spaces like subway cars, but in their own, atomized luxury containers.
Would there be any constraint on our lust to be further and further separated from each other?
I’m amused and horrified by a picture from C. S. Lewis’s small fantasy, The Great Divorce.
Though he’s writing a story about a bus ride from hell to heaven, he’s clearly making some kind of commentary on our earthly condition.
The citizens of the city are quarrelsome—fights break out, even on the bus, and we are told that the streets are empty as residents keep moving further away from each other because they can’t stop quarreling with neighbors. We also learn that the city is unsubstantial. One can construct a house or come by various commodities just by thinking of them, but the houses can’t keep out rain or intruders and the commodities don’t satisfy needs.
Left to our baser nature, we do in fact move further from each other, all in the interest of some kind of illusion of “personal peace and prosperity.”4
What else could explain sprawl?
I guess I’m a bit of a split-personality when it comes to cars. I can tell you more about the new electric Mustang Mach E than I can a magnolia tree.
Yet, I’m also an avid student of the built environment and an outspoken advocate for towns, urban neighborhoods, and denser places.
Trying On “Vincibility”
There are many small steps any one of us can take to dial back our car dependency so that when the day comes to hand over the keys, we can shrug our shoulders and say, “N.B.D.”5
Walking is still available!
It’s amazing how a little bit of strolling can be done in our neighborhoods, at work, or and just about anywhere safe.
There is a spiritual dimension in slowing ourselves down enough to imagine how walking might make our days healthier.
Kosuke Koyama, a theologian, says that God moves at 3 MPH, referring to the incarnation of Jesus of Nazareth, who took on our human condition and (ahem) walked among us.6
Besides walking whenever possible, we also have the freedom to sell an extra car (freeing up a lot of money), use ride shares, take public transportation, rent vehicles, or use smaller modes of transportation such as a motorcycles, scooters, bicycles.
Aidan was a 6th century Celtic monk, a bishop, and an aristocrat. He shocked the peasants by insisting to walk in the lanes where he could minister to folk face-to-face.
He also encouraged the other brothers to do the same, rather than ride horses.
Cars are here to stay. They’re certainly a wonderful advancement in human transit, but their invincibility is an illusion that hinders intimate relationships.7
If our car dependence truly is a social ill, the remedy is literally at our feet. Getting free requires us to dial back our habits one step at a time.
I’ve referenced Jeff Speck before. For my money, his books on walkability and urban planning are the most practical and upbeat. Start with Walkable City Rules: 101 Ways To Making Better Places.
Mumford, Lewis, The City in History: Its Origins, Its Transformations, and Its Prospects (Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc: New York), page 408. In this chapter, Mumford describes how the “baroque” disposition in architecture (picture Versailles in France) dictated the scale and grandeur of capital city design, even down today. He views this as a vestige from the days after the Middle Ages where military strength was pictured in long, overly-drawn boulevards that allowed for quick military movement and pompous displays of might. Perhaps these monuments created the same Wow that travelers got when driving out on the brand new PA Turnpike: The pristine beauty of white concrete, the landscape it bulldozed through, and the thrill of unfettered motoring. Invincibility once again.
Schaeffer, Francis A, The Church At The End Of The Twentieth Century (Crossway Books: Nashville), 1985
No Big Deal. Nah, Bro, Done. Not a Buick Day.
I can’t vouch for this book, only its title and what little I know of the concept. It’s on my long list.
Of course, inside the car, closeness can happen whether we like it or not: Behold the smelly Youth Group Retreat van ride, the awkward Backseat Romance, and the Great American Road Trip. 🇺🇸