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Page 21

The Virtue of Cars

New Urbanists often describe Americans' relationship

with their cars as a "love affair" or an "addiction."  The

implication is that Americans' use of autos is irrational or

some sort of sickness.  In fact, for short-distance travel

within a large urban area, the auto is the most convenient

and efficient form of transportation ever devised.

That is largely because the auto is completely decen-

tralized.  Urban areas, too, are decentralized, partly

because centralization, with or without autos, creates

uncomfortable crowding and congestion.  Few cities have work

centers that employ more than 15 to 20 percent of the city's

workers.  So very few trips have the same origin and desti-

nation.

Thus, high-capacity rail transit is not a viable alter-

native to the automobile.  There simply are not enough

origins and destinations between which enough people want to

travel to justify rail.  Even large buses are marginal as

substitutes for the auto.  One possible substitute might be

jitney services that provide door-to-door transportation for

no more than 10 or 12 people at one time.  But many cities

forbid the private provision of such services, and most

public transit agencies are more interested in rail and

other large projects than in jitney service.

Density and Driving

New Urbanists attempt to counter decentralization both

by providing more transit and by increasing population

densities to make high-capacity transit more viable.  But

that is self-defeating because most people in high-density

developments will still use cars for most of their travel.

Thus, high-density developments without added road capacity

simply lead to increased congestion.

All of the numbers support this view.  According to

Census Bureau data, there is no clear relationship between a

city's density and the share of trips in that city that is

made by auto.40  The New York metropolitan area, which

includes northeastern New Jersey, has the smallest percent-

age of commuters driving automobiles--65 percent--and the

highest percentage using transit--26 percent.  But no other

large metropolitan area has less than 81 percent auto usage

or more than 14 percent transit usage.  Two college towns,

Iowa City, Iowa, and State College, Pennsylvania, have

slightly less than 80 percent auto usage but less than 8