The automobile has long been one of the defining symbols of American culture. It permeates just about everything in our experiences and lifestyles. It’s often seen as a manifestation of our independence and individuality — the ability to jump into a car and drive anywhere you want, with no government-mandated public transit routes to determine your path. We’ve paved millions of miles of road, driven on anything from the Ford Model T to the Honda Civic. However, in recent years, the longstanding effects of our car culture are becoming increasingly apparent — and, to many, increasingly negative.
For one, our consistent and exclusive reliance on cars for the past seventy years has resulted in an urban landscape with many glaring issues. The “stroad”, as it has become known (a combination of a street and a road) is on full display right next to the Vandegrift campus, in the form of highway 620. The abundance of concrete jungles, filled to the brim with traffic, complement the problems of suburban sprawl. It’s resulted in a landscape that is both extremely inconvenient, with a 30 minute round trip required for me to get to Chipotle (which is geographically extremely close), but also quite ugly. The absolutely hideous menagerie of concrete, turn lanes, interchanges, and traffic lights makes it completely unpleasant to get anywhere.
Not only is the sprawl ugly and inconvenient, it’s also dangerous. Just in Travis County, the amount of wrecks that occur on 620 is ridiculous. According to World Population Review, the United States has the most car accidents out of any country in the world, at nearly 2 million per year. There are many reasons for this. Obviously, we are more reliant on cars than other countries, but our roads are also designed in confusing and dangerous ways that encourage crashes. The routine grievous injuries that occur, whether physical, mental, or financial, are not only grave, but entirely avoidable. As urban planners Victor Dover and John Massengale put it:
“We are no longer able to capture the value of shar[ing] the space. A modern stroad… is about the least safe traffic environment you could be in, too, with high-speed designs mashed up with turning traffic, stop-and-go traffic, sudden lane changes, and obnoxious signage. This ridiculously unsafe design is accepted as “normal” just because it was allowed to become ubiquitous.”
Cars are also not a small investment. They require an enormous upfront cost and constant expensive maintenance, so not everyone is able to afford one, and not all families have them. This puts lower-income groups at a significant disadvantage when everything about our country is tailored towards car drivers. There isn’t a single business I could walk to within half an hour of where I live, which makes me seriously question what I would do if I couldn’t drive. This is a significant contributor to the cycle of poverty, as those with cars are overwhelmingly more situated to succeed than those without them.
For those with cars and without, there are plenty of other adverse effects to cities geared around cars. They contribute heavily to both air and noise pollution, increasing smog levels and raising the ambient volume beyond healthy levels. Then there’s the fact that driving a car is a sedentary activity, which contributes to the high levels of obesity in America. It sounds minor, but just living in a walkable area greatly increases the activity of everyone who lives there, allowing them to live a more healthy lifestyle.
A major point often discussed when it comes to transit is the environmental issues. According to the US Energy Information Administration, automobiles accounted for about 31% of all emissions, and 80% of all transportation emissions. Electric cars, while more efficient, still create waste with the production of electricity and batteries. Of course, walking doesn’t create emissions, and public transit such as trains and buses also are significantly more energy efficient.
Ultimately, the effects of American car culture, though they represent many of our values, also have effects far greater than you may think. There are many surface-level issues with the system, both on the scales of our day to day and on a wider scope. Urban planning is often overlooked in terms of policy, but in reality there’s almost nothing that shapes our lives more. Take the modern day culture, which is overwhelmingly divided and polarized. Could it be that most of the population is actively discouraged by our infrastructure to leave their houses? And that when we do, it’s in noise-proofed metal pods that cut off any outside contact? And though I have no evidence to support this connection, I can’t imagine that car culture is helping us. If we had the chance to get out and walk or ride the train amidst our fellow Americans, we may be more understanding of each other and the country as a whole.
