Designing a city without cars: is it the future?

By MiNDFOOD

Designing a city without cars: is it the future?
Should we be designing our cities without cars in mind? Research from the University of South Australia says we need to rethink the way we look at our cities and streets.

Australia is a car country – more than half of Australian households own two or more vehicles and only 7% own none.

Hulya Gilbert, an urban planning researcher believes we should be rethinking our car-driven lifestyles – and has the research to back it up.

Gilbert’s research points to the ways cities designed around cars have restricted our lifestyles – from kids walking to school, to the elderly getting around.

“There’s obviously the environmental impacts, and the health and fitness consequences of using cars, but there’s also a huge social impact,” Gilbert says. “Despite the common view across the world that cars provide freedom and flexibility, increasingly we’re seeing the priority given to cars is infringing people’s ability – and right – to get around without one.”

The assumption that most people travel by car has taken precedence in the transport discussions, dictating the urban planning of cities, says Gilbert. Once cities are built that way, its hard to move away from the plan.

“It’s not enough just to say, ‘kids need to walk to school more’,” Gilbert says. “In many situations, we have planned that possibility out of cities, and now it’s just not safe or practical for children to ride or walk to the places they need to go – so much so, that there are now perceptions that parents who do let their kids ride or walk are being negligent.”

The solutions Gilbert proposes include building and maintaining safe walking and cycling paths, green spaces, reducing speed limits and ensuring public transport is connected to important travel networks throughout the city – such as around schools and sporting clubs.

Gilbert believes this shift towards car-less urban planning will benefit those throughout society – not just children and teenagers, but other people disadvantaged by being unable to drive, like the elderly, vision-impaired and low-income earners.

“At the moment, our cities and societies are set up based on the idea that having a licence and owning a car is the norm, and we often consider the lack of car ownership as a disadvantage. Our right to move around our cities without a car is not commonly considered…planning and thinking as if they don’t would open up many possibilities and opportunities,” says Gilbert.

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