Implementation of a sustainable foundation to an
automobile centric culture
A community’s growth is paramount to its future. Since the automobile is totally
unsustainable, all automobile centric growth is also unsustainable. By adhering to the claim “that’s just the way
things are” and continuing to use automobiles as the foundation for community
growth is the acceptance of willing ignorance for a destructive pattern of
urban growth. Urban growth in the US
since the 1920s has altered its original transit oriented design from train and
street car orientation to what it is today: urban sprawl; a conglomeration of
unsustainable automobile oriented development.
To have a future that is sustainable, urban growth has to be
re-established on a sustainable foundation with efficient mobility.
Many of the Western Society downtowns have lost their
functionality as commerce centers. To
re-create commerce, these downtown commercial centers have to have a functional
transit system to effectively use their original transit oriented design. Throughout the country are examples of cities
having patterns of land-use change by their abandoned street car system in the
early 1930s. Although these cities were
built with transit oriented land-use designs they are now changed to automobile
centric land-use design.
Revitalization efforts in successful downtown areas include
a mobility component carrying large numbers of people throughout the downtown
areas. These transit systems have served
to reinstitute the function of the original transit oriented designs of
downtown areas. These revitalization
efforts allow downtowns to once again maintain land-use positions of regional
financial hubs of commerce.
The necessity of sustainable mobility is crucial to urban
growth.
In the late 1960’s the federal government established National
Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), in 1970 California established the California
Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Although
many people claim the laws are restricting and obtrusive, the intent of
regulating guidelines creates a healthier environment. It is an unfortunate consequence of politics that
government regulations are manipulated by industries lobbying corrupted self-serving
agendas of greed.
In 2006 California passed AB32 which set into law a target
of air quality to meet 1990 measures by 2020.
In 2008 SB 375 was passed, which mandated the AB32 targets. These mandate the MPOs (Metropolitan Planning
Organizations) to find a way to comply with Air Resource Board (ARB)
targets. SB 375 augments CARB’s
(California Air Resource Board) ability to reach the AB 32 goals by demanding
regional greenhouse gas emission reductions are achieved from the automobile
and light truck sectors for 2020 and 2035.
There are 18 MPOs in California the ARB will work with towards achieving
its goal in the regional transportation, housing and land-use plans to prepare
“sustainable communities strategy” (SCS) for each region.
These SCS plans were envisioned to reduce the amount of
vehicle miles traveled in the most powerful way for California to lower its
carbon footprint. These newly enacted
laws are designed to accelerate this necessary transition towards transit
oriented urban growth, promote the rapid development of a cleaner, low-carbon
economy, create vibrant livable communities; and improve the ways we travel and
move goods throughout the state.
However, most of the MPOs and city planners are staffed by
schooled workers regimented with a strict policy of compliance
orientation. There is a disproportionate
absents of thought capability to “think out of the box” when the voice of their
choir is “the box”. There also is a necessary requirement to
garner changed perspective to replace automobile centric urban growth. The MPOs are caught up in “mapping” and newly
marketed computerized techniques of modeling.
It is ludicrous to use the word sustainability
and continue urban planning based on the automobile; while considering that an
adherence to transit oriented urban expansion.
The resolve of city planners in accommodating SCS legislative mandates
is forcing smaller lot size requirements onto tract housing developers. This is the receipt for oblivious acumen.
The transit oriented design is not acquiescent to automobile
use. The consequence to this
nonconformity is a dysfunctional land-use design.
Philosophically speaking, there has been a suicidal tendency
of US society since the assassination of President Kennedy. Western culture once had a goal driven direction
of striving to greatness and achievement for the good of mankind. Over the past five decades it has been caught
in the vortex of self-seeking gratification and politics that elevates a
dictatorship government by psychopathic narcissists. The grandiose speech of President
Kennedy when man landed on the moon; was the last grand speech spoken by a
politician regarding man’s instinctive nature to seek and explore as their
directive to achievement. The dichotomy
of politics is that a bird needs two wings to fly: a left wing and a right
wing. Politics of the left have created
an impaling ultra conservative social agenda that fails in letting people
strive for greatness on their own merit.
Politics of the right declare that government is intrusive while at the
same time invoking the over-regulation of intrusive government.
Where is the US space program that required innovation and
created the long list of products we use today?
What happened to the promised Moon colonies, Mars exploration, and the
achievement of innovation? Where are the
startling innovations of our bright future?
They were lost into the stagnation of deceitful social
blight. We need the jobs created from
manufacturing in weightless environments, new technologies and building parts
for further space exploration more than feeding on the lies of racism
controversy. Whose idea was it that
declared it is better to give welfare money and nurture the dysfunction of
doing nothing rather than having self-worth with a job and providing for one’s
self?
The status-quo of a non-sustainable culture is problematic
on every level.
Capitalism is market driven.
Capital costs in building infrastructure for a community wide transit
system are expensive. The only way to
reach sustainable urban growth is to use a new form of sustainable
transportation. To expend $hundreds of
millions for unproven technology is not a risk bureaucratically compelled
personnel could support. Hence, the
ongoing deterioration of problem oriented urban growth.
Building a sustainable urban environment requires
sustainable transportation. Capital cost
infrastructure outlays for new technology transit are the most affordable of
all transportation systems. There are
three factors to sustainable transportation: environmental requirements,
economy need, and social demands. All
three expanses are directly related to mobility and within the ability of
private sector development. Legislative
mandate has established guidelines for the private sector to develop
sustainable urban growth and yet it is the political pursuit of corrupted
status-quo that stagnates and disrupts the progress of sustainability.
Current environmental, economic, and social problems are
directly attributed to the arrangement of unsustainable urban growth based on
automobile centric land-use design.
Convenience of the automobile is offset by the intrusive increase to
their numbers, exacerbating the problems.
The demand for transportation is proportionate to the
population. As the population is growing, transportation needs grow at a
proportionally greater rate. With the growing population, there is an increased
demand for land and mobility. Gasoline price increases at the pump will
continue to increase with inflation, and depletion of oil supply.
The importance of introducing new technological industries into
the automobile centric based society is economic growth of job creation. As the industrial revolution began
manufacturing and computers have led to the information revolution, mankind’s
next step in intellectual evolution is the field of mobility.
The automobile is not a sustainable technology. The societal impacts from our car culture
have blemished many areas of our lives and continue as the current state of
urban development opposes the legislative concept of NEPA and CEQA regulations. The necessity of sustainable mobility is
crucial to urban growth.
