Michael McCarthy: Car-free towns are impossible without railways
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Independent Minds
Vauban is what doctors speaking of disease in an improbable patient – TB in a wealthy European, say – sometimes refer to as an end-of-spectrum case. It shows what is unlikely, but possible – modern living minus the automobile – and it is thus at the other end of the spectrum from Los Angeles, where social existence is entirely predicated on having four wheels.
Does it prove we can live without the car? Yes and No. It shows it can be done in a tightly-knit, specifically urban community, where personal motor transport can be in effect "designed out", especially if there is a solid constituency of citizens with a strong commitment to environmental values, as has always been the case in Germany.
On a wider scale, actually doing without motor vehicles is much more problematic, especially in the countryside. For most rural communities in Britain, for example, the car is an absolute essential, not least as so many of them are hard if not impossible to reach by public transport. It is arguable that no greater environmental damage was done to the fabric of life in this country after the War than by the slashing of the national railway network recommended by Richard Beeching, the portly, self-satisfied industrialist whose 1963 report led to the closure of thousands of rural stations and hundreds of branch lines, leaving myriad British villages and small towns ultimately car-dependent.
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Comments
The issue is separating (segregating) public transport from traffic congestion.
Transport systems don't need to be on steel rails to be effective.
The Paris Metro runs on rubber tyres (Mexico similar).
Guided busways do a similar job to railways, but with less noise and more traction. Arguably they facilitate lower vehicle weights and thus energy savings.
Rubber tyred electric traction is possible - e.g. trolley buses and battery buses
Having created low density suburbs and out of town industrial estates, how do we serve them?
Railways are great for high density traffic, but what about low density situations? High overheads plus low density equals regular losses.
Low density developments are intended for car use and are difficult to rehabilitate for public transport.
New developments need to be planned in a way that consolidates viable transport corridors - which coincidentally is part of government planning guidance.
The trouble is, since bus privatisation, many local authorities won't work together with bus operators this way, on the basis that this would be aiding a private interest.
I firmly believe the use of fossil fuels is over. We stand at a turning point, literally. Do we conceive and implement other forms of energy or do we continue to pollute and send our world into devastation? The safe level of CO2 for human consumtion is maximum 350 parts per million. We reached this level during the 1980's and now teeter at 387 parts per million. Even on a good day we do not have enough oxygen to breath. The good news is that is if we cease to use fossil fuels and convert to solar or wind it is possible to reduce the level to 350 parts per million within twenty years. But this means direct action immediately. Any other course of action will send our planet into a non ice state with temperatures rising minimum 9 degrees over that same twenty years.
Perhaps, Vauban is not perfect and has been described as middle class but they are my heros!
The concept of villages that use alternate energy, perhaps also growing food for the villagers and for sale to city dwellers has long been a vision of mine. We need transit systems to connect to the larger cities. We also need vehicles powered not by fossil fuels. I humbly suggest that the billions of dollars spent on wars and on bail outs of giant corportations be used instead to swiftly implement these changes so that our earth survives.
It is time to place the well being of our world and those less fortunate at the top of our priorites. Vauban is an excellent starting point.
Laara WilliamSen
South Surrey
British Columbia
CANADA
V4P 1R9
Canadian Citizen