This is the two thousandth post on Price Tags, according to WordPress. Seems appropriate to put up the 10th and last post on my Inroads article: Vancouver and the Insatiable Automobile.
There are essentially two kinds of urban form: one dependent on the vehicle; the other with roots in the streetcar era, with many transportation choices.
It has taken almost a century of building for the car to get us to our current state of congestion. It will take time to achieve long-term solutions. Ultimately, they can only be found in the way we build our cities….
There is no single solution. Top-down planning can never be comprehensive enough or flexible enough. People with enough transportation options can by and large work out their own solutions. That in turn is dependent on the design and integration of land-use and transportation choices. …
In the end, the direction we need to go, that we know has a good chance of working, is found in the plans, local and regional, we have had since the 1950s and now more clearly see the benefits of. Concentrate growth. Build complete communities. Preserve the green zone. Provide transportation choice. …
The streetcar city may have been the best way human beings have found to build aspirational urban fabric. Adjusted for our times, the pre- Motordom city can serve as the model for the post-Motordom city.
But to do so, we will first have to be aware of the impediments, rooted in the unrealistic beliefs and assumptions we have associated with the success of the car.
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