Wow, time flies when it's flying.
Looks like yesterday the region dodged the bullet on the Great Freeway Closure, and alternate methods easily moved a lot of people off I-5, but the radio box says today, things are more on the sucky side. Was taking the train for one day so hard on Seattle commuters that they decided to brave the highway regardless of delays? How are we ever going to move away from the car culture?
We watched Incident at Loch Ness on the wall last night. This movie within a movie within a movie within a movie - it is by turns a documentary on the life of Werner Herzog, a documentary on Loch Ness, a sort-of State and Main movie-movie, and a Blair Witch ripoff - is ultimately unsuccessful and interesting only because of Herzog's charisma and a surprisingly textured performance from the least likely source - the supposed eye candy.
The weather's great, though!
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6 comments:
"How are we ever going to move away from the car culture?"
You realize what that adjective - "car" - involves, right? Unless we all get reborn into a society where public transportation is the norm and no independent options exist, we will always desire autonomy and privacy, in our homes and in our transportation. I mean once a person has tasted those things there's really no going back.
For example, you can say you frequently ride a bicycle, and that's private and autonomous, but does your bicycle have three seats? If all bicycles were multi-person, do you think they'd be quite as popular? We like to share, sure it gives us warm fuzzy feelings. But we also like to make our own decisions and think by ourselves once in a while. I love going for a drive.
You might as well ask when communal housing and the eradication of private bathrooms will become the norm. We'll die out as a species before consolidating our bedrooms or toilets or cars to save electricity or water or gasoline, not because we hate the environment but because we love (need?) independence.
(goes back to cursing that idiotic HOV lane)
Here's a link for Steve who may be closer to the truth than he thinks: http://www.endofsuburbia.com/.
On the other hand there are plenty of peoples across the world who have never enjoyed the luxury of a private bathroom or toilet let alone a car so maybe we should amend the sentence to 'we will die out as a society ....
WV: libslm - what some people might think of my comment?
Steve, I think you are begging the question. You are positing, without proving it, some need for independence that compels us to prefer cars, and using that to explain why we prefer cars. While we may or may not have an intrinsic demand for independence to some degree - and the nature of tribal communities (which Otis mentioned after reading your post) argues against any absolutist response to this question - its expression in the need for unsustainable transportation is far from a given, as anyone who has lived anywhere with a fully-developed mass transit system could attest.
I think it more likely that dependence on the car is a social construct, the result of many forces, one of which is found in your own statement "I love going for a drive." Driving is fun, and characterizing it as a some sort of biological imperative allows us to engage in it without thoughtfully considering the consequences.
I agree with you that the car culture will not pass until some alternatives are presented to the general public; with the state of the infrastructure as it is, only outliers will ever completely give up their cars.
The particular frustration that I was feeling this morning was that in this particular experiment, even with options presented - Sound Transit geared up for this situation with extra service - and even with a disincentive to continue current behaviors, people still chose the car. This does not bode well for ever getting the ball rolling on changes to the transportation system that might make choices other than the car just as much fun as driving.
And I'm afraid if we don't do that, you might have to learn to love parking more than driving.
I interpret "car culture" as "culture of independence and control." I'm not surprised by the unflagging demand for cars even though gas prices are high and the planet (lights match) is in some kind of trouble (burns bag of trash).
You noticed that "they decided to brave the highway regardless of delays." That should be all the obstinate proof you need that people are loath to give up their mobile sensory-deprivation chambers. And, as the news has been shocked to report, gas purchases are not inversely proportional to the spikes in gas prices. Yes it costs more, but most of us don't care.
"Steve,"
My real name! :)
"I think you are begging the question. You are positing, without proving it, some need for independence that compels us to prefer cars, and using that to explain why we prefer cars."
We need and love independence, cars are the most independent means of transportation, therefore we gravitate towards cars. A=B, B=C, therefore A=C. That's begging? I was surprised that you would ask how this society is going to detach from cars - like wondering how we're going to give up cell phones - so I replied that we'll never move away from the car culture because we have deep-set desires for personal freedom and control.
Cars might one day run exclusively on electricity or vegetable oil i.e. cleaner, or all be the size of a refrigerator i.e. more economic, but I think they're here to stay because of the privacy and autonomy involved.
"and the nature of tribal communities (which Otis mentioned after reading your post) argues against any absolutist response to this question"
Let me clarify - when I say "we," "us," or "our," I'm referring to American society in 2007, the car culture of which you speak. I don't mean all people, or a tribal community that wouldn't think like a bunch of competitive, stuff-oriented, car-driving Americans.
And yes, I should have said "die out as a society" rather than "species" because I guess there are some people who, like, live in other places and stuff. (fools!) Anyway. We do excel at confusing needs with wants - have television and advertising warped us into this mess?
"Driving is fun, and characterizing it as a some sort of biological imperative allows us to engage in it without thoughtfully considering the consequences."
Well yeah. You don't see deadly diseases stopping the world from having sex, do ya? Sex is fun and necessary! Same thing with driving cars! The only thing better would be... sex in a car! WHILE driving!
"changes to the transportation system that might make choices other than the car just as much fun as driving."
The only thing more fun than driving a car would be riding a dragon. Cause you could burn up towns and stuff.
"And I'm afraid if we don't do that, you might have to learn to love parking more than driving."
Never! I will take up rollerblades before I learn to love parking. Maybe what we need is some kind of bungee-lasso for rollerbladers so they can grab cars stuck in traffic and pull themselves forward, the way Spider-Man uses his webbing.
Steve:
To make sure we understand each other, check this out.
You are using the fact that people don't want to get out of their cars to prove there is some inherent need for people not to get out of their cars. That's circular reasoning, or begging the question.
We all acknowledge that we as a society are tied to our cars. You seem to be saying this behavior is the manifestation of some internal drive that cannot be changed; others say that maybe it can. That's the difference.
You implicitly recognize this when you state how good we are at confusing wants with needs. That American society is currently competitive, stuff-oriented, and car-driving is not proof that it need always be so.
Dragons and rollerblades aside, it boils down to a question of choices. You seem to have made yours; maybe you can recognize it as such and not characterize it as destiny.
There is a beautiful poem by Stephen Dunn about this connection we (Americans? Westerners?) have to cars today. Here it is:
The Sacred
After the teacher asked if anyone had
a sacred place
and the students fidgeted and shrank
in their chairs, the most serious of them all
said it was his car,
being in it alone, his tape deck playing
things he'd chosen, and others knew the truth
had been spoken
and began speaking about their rooms,
their hiding places, but the car kept coming up,
the car in motion,
music filling it, and sometimes one other person
who understood the bright altar of the dashboard
and how far away
a car could take him from the need
to speak, or to answer, the key
in having a key
and putting it in, and going.
We have very few rites of passage in our culture, but one of these rites is getting a driver’s license. For many this represents freedom and independence. So, I understand what you are saying, Steve, about this cultural “pull” to feel these things by way of driving a vehicle.
I have felt what Dunn describes above. As a person who desires privacy and aloneness much of the time, I feel how being in my car alone, with my music playing, and the scenery flitting by fills some desire I have for actualizing my own autonomy. I can go where I wish on my own. I can leave or escape a situation.
It is unfortunate to me, though, that we’ve clung to cars and driving as a way to manifest this feeling. I cannot say whether there is any part of this desire for independence and freedom that is innate or not, but I do see very clearly how we learn to feel this way. It makes me wonder if we can un-learn this…or at least learn a new way of channeling our desire for autonomy.
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