On March 15 I tweeted, “If America hadn’t decided to create a new national transportation system based on individuals in private cars driving everywhere for everything, climate change would be a very different—and smaller—problem than it is.”
I posted the Tweet on a couple of listservs for urbanists and followed up with some notes, comments, and questions in reaction to comments on the listservs. Some of the answers about data exist in various places. But frankly I’m not great at looking up data, so I wanted to run this by people. At this point, I’m intentionally avoiding extending the comments into conclusions.
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- In 1908, when the Ford Model T went into production, America had a great national transportation system of trains, subways, streetcars, and boats. Many of the services were privately owned but regulation required public access for both passengers and freight.
- The transportation system connected walkable towns and cities. They had to be walkable since most people didn’t own a car or a horse. The carbon footprint produced by Americans was low. See below
- Today we have a system that primarily depends on private vehicles on public streets. In more urban situations, that includes the storage of private vehicles on public streets.