The prospect of car-free cities, or at the very least car-free streets in dense downtowns has been a goal of livable street advocates for decades. Their reasons revolve around safety and social connectivity, citing the envelope of harm and loss of humanity created in places overrun with automobile traffic. Rarely do such advocates talk about getting rid of cars for their most dangerous side effect: carbon emissions.
Cars kill about 40,000 Americans a year, about a million globally. As grim as those numbers are, within a few short decades they’re going to pale to the numbers of people killed by the effects of changing climate on our warming globe.
Climate justice advocates are heavily focused on the fossil fuel industry, occasionally pointing out the role of animal agriculture in creating climate change, but almost never criticize the automobile industry itself, or personal fossil fuel use by those driving cars.
That needs to change. We cannot expect to hobble the fossil fuel industry while continuing to provide them with an endless demand for their product.
I just liked “Revisiting Donald Appleyard’s Livable Streets” on #Vimeo: https://t.co/DTpsQePF8e
— Louis Roberge (@MacRoberge) September 16, 2016