Thinking back to high school, I’m hard pressed to remember anything more exciting than getting my driver’s license. I had finally reached sixteen, and my mom had agreed to hand over the keys to her old blackberry-colored Saturn. It wasn’t anything flashy—one of the side view mirrors had fallen off, left to dangle by a few cords on the side, and speeds above 55 mph made it shudder—but it was still an important part of my identity. I was independent; I was mobile. No longer defenseless against my mom’s sleep schedule (who goes to sleep by 9pm?) or dependent on the kindness of my friend’s parents, I could zip around to any part of my small, but sprawling, Kansas hometown. I was fed up with walking and biking—neither protected me from the sub-zero wind chill of the winter or the oppressive heat of the summer in the way my car did. It became my haven, shuttling me to and from wherever I wanted, whenever I wanted, with whomever I wanted (with the exceptions, of course—my little brother wasn’t going to walk all the way to tennis practice, was he?). Gas prices be damned, I didn’t want to take the bus—my car was crucial to my way of life, and I didn’t even consider compromising that long-awaited independence for a more carbon-friendly alternative.
As you can imagine, this exuberance wore off. Between traffic, flat tires, gas prices (they started to matter, after all), and the many quirks of my old, dying car, driving became more and more irritating, wearing on my patience and my paycheck. To add to the general weariness, personal responsibility came into the picture. As I learned more and more about transportation’s hand in global warming, I was forced to assess the impact of my driving habits in the greater scheme of things. The Pew Center on Global Climate Change reported in 2003 that each year Americans travel a total of 4.8 trillion person-miles; measured out, this number is almost equivalent to a trip around the world for every person in the United States, every year. The same report found that in 2000, greenhouse gas emissions from U.S. transportation amounted to 515 million metric tons of carbon equivalent, or more than a quarter of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, making it the second highest emitter, just behind industries. Although I knew my impact on these numbers was relatively insignificant, I couldn’t help but see how I was part of the bigger picture. Even my small part couldn’t excuse me from taking some responsibility, and I began to feel somewhat guilty for my role in global warming. My driving habits were only a small sliver of the whole problem, but that didn’t help me feel any better about the melting polar ice caps.
Moving to San Francisco was an easy way to phase driving out of my life. To begin, I couldn’t bring a car out here—my car wouldn’t have made it from Kansas in one piece. And so for my freshman year, the bus system got me where I needed go. Sometimes I was late, sometimes I had to sit next to a homeless guy talking to himself, but at worst, the ride made a good story. Biking became my main mode of transportation sophomore year. Let me tell you—San Francisco sure has some hills, and riding around the city was rough on my muscles for the first few weeks. But despite my sore thighs, getting my first bike felt like getting my first car all over again, but better. The independence from the bus system, the wind in my hair, the gas money I wasn’t spending—I loved the feeling of cruising through my favorite city. So, I had solved my moral conundrum in the best possible way, with something that I adored. Bussing, biking, and walking became my low-carbon way of getting around. As an environmentally-friendly way to get from here to there, I transferred my enthusiasm for driving to options like these and don’t regret my decision one bit.
However for some, parting with their vehicle may seem impossible, and reasonably so. My experience was pleasant and untraumatic, but to be fair, I don’t have the responsibilities of such things as carting around kids or trekking to a full-time job. For me, owning a bike made sense—San Francisco is a dense, urban city, with residential neighborhoods commonly mixing with job centers and entertainment venues, making most everything easily accessible. But in cities like Los Angeles, suburban neighborhoods situated great distances from business centers force residents to own a car, as transportation by bike or bus would be much too long or simply inconvenient. Commuting long distances has become the norm, and extensive freeway systems support this lifestyle. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, fifty percent of U.S. residents live in suburbs as of 2000, and their isolated location from their jobs, schools, grocery stores, and all else complicates the transition away from vehicle dependence.
Luckily, city planners are realizing with increasingly frequency that this style of zoning—housing in one sector, jobs in another—creates a broken, unsustainable system. Peter Calthorpe, a visionary architect and city planner, spoke at the University of San Francisco this semester as part of the Davies Scholar lecture series, and shared his insight into solving this dilemma. His experience has shown him that mixed zoning makes a huge impact on the amount of driving an individual does on a daily basis; the convenience factor has a powerful effect when trying to get people out from behind the wheel. By locating a person’s job near enough to their home that it enables them to walk to it within a five minute time period, we can reduce car emissions dramatically. And, if restaurants, shops, and other retail opportunities locate themselves near these workplaces, the neighborhood becomes a self-sustaining entity—no longer forced to drive long distances for resources, residents can use their own two feet for their daily necessities. Calthorpe also cited the importance of contained city development. Instead of continuously sprawling our populations on the outskirts of cities, perpetuating our current dependence on cars, new growth needs to occur within city limits. This can be achieved by utilizing unused land or revitalizing areas with bad design; for example, many businesses allocate too much land for parking lots, which could be transformed into something infinitely more useful. In addition, giving a building multiple levels doubles its potential for occupancy, and allows for businesses to exist side by side with residences. Creative strategies like Calthorpe’s shape cities to be more pedestrian-friendly, and must be integrated into future development to reduce our the greenhouse gas emissions of the transportation sector.
A carbon-friendly city and way of life must embrace a carbon-friendly transportation system. Both our personal decisions as well as city planning techniques make an impact on the progression of climate change, and we need to act now to reduce our dependence on cars as a mode of transport. For me, driving was easy to give up—gas prices were expensive, traffic was irritating, and my conscience kept bugging me. Maybe it can be the same for you. Sometimes all we need is a quick bike ride to remind us that transitioning to a more sustainable future isn’t all that difficult. The wind in your hair and the sun warming your arms may be good enough to convince you that biking is fun, and that cars are the way of the past.
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