Park or parking lot? Why we should stop letting cars dictate urban planning

Think of the last time you went into a church building. What is in the centre of attention, where is the whole architecture directed at? Right, the altar. Now think of your city. How is it designed? What is one thing, that can hardly be overlooked anywhere? For many cities, cars are the altar. Their presence is unquestionable. Why are so many cities still stubbornly focussed to plan around cars instead of humans? A commentary.

The word “worship” might be a strong one, but it can definitely be used to describe our society’s relationship with motorised private transport. In many cities, its role must not be questioned – alternative mobility concepts, that would push back the number of cars or their share of public space are regarded “blasphemy” – undiscussable to many. Attempts to open a debate about mobility are dismissed with the same arguments over and over again. Without cars, local economy will suffer (often heard in connection with the demand for pedestrian areas) and of course personal freedom, the holy grail and knockout argument in many public discourses. And naturally, “it’s always been like this.”

Of course, most of these arguments are outdated and do not hold in a city that wants to be called smart or sustainable. One example: Economic disadvantages following the introduction of car-free zones in cities have not only been proven wrong, depending on the circumstances, even the opposite effect can be observed. In many cases, reducing the number of cars in an urban area can stimulate economic growth.

But economic data should not be the only measurement for determining successful urban planning. The highest goal of any city’s administration should be to increase liveability. In order to do so, we will have to give back public space to humans. Every single city appearing in various world’s most liveable cities lists has made efforts to make roads public space again. But aren’t roads public space? Not really, if they’re filled up with private vehicles, which is basically an excluding factor. Imagine you could only enter a park, if you have your own bench with you. Sounds crazy, right?

Questioning the unjustifiable dominance of cars in cities doesn’t even require pointing out ecological and health factors. Another aspect, that speaks for pushing back the role of cars in urban areas is efficiency. The average footprint of a car is about 4.2 m2. Most of them often not carry only one person – the driver. The picture below puts this into perspective. You don’t have to be an economist to recognise that driving a car is neither efficient use of space, nor fair, regarding the distribution of public space. In order to make room for the most inefficient means of transportation, multi-lane roads were built, cutting up entire cities and occupying significant chunks of surface area.

Although it is politically difficult and often very unpopular to undertake steps to give public space back to its owners – the city’s residents – many examples have shown that it is possible. Alternative means of urban mobility do not only exist, they are even superior to motorised private transport. Smart solutions don’t even require to ban cars completely or to introduce hardly affordable traffic tolls, as Barcelona shows. Examples like this encourage citizens and planners worldwide to turn the wheel into the right direction; or better, to take a step towards a more liveable urban environment.