Car Culture

From the Onion via Planetizen's Friday Funny:

On weekends, 200 vehicles and 4,500 pedestrians per hour make their way down Prince Street, yet the vast majority of the street's public space is given over to motor vehicle traffic and parking.

Even before the NYPD identified a hooded cyclist as the this morning's likely Times Square bomber, two reports of bike commuters being ticketed and harassed by the police have already hit the Streetsblog inbox. Perhaps it's just that the weather's getting nicer and more people happen to be out on bikes but at least one cyclist says an officer told him that the police are gearing up yet another organized "crack down" on cyclists.

The Post had a short item today, which we've linked to a couple of times, reporting that members of the City Council have sent a letter to Mayor Bloomberg asking for changes in the congestion pricing proposal that would raise fees for New Jersey car commuters or have the Port Authority commit more funds to the MTA.

Now for some good news: Car culture is on the wane, at least in Japan. The Wall Street Journal reports that car sales in Japan are down 31 percent since the peak in 1990, and not only because of stagnant population growth. The newest generation of would-be buyers, it turns out, just doesn't think cars are all that necessary:

Working for a failing automaker to make enough money to keep your beat-up, failing mini van rolling through your sprawled-out, failing city. From today's New York Times story on escalating gasoline prices.

Here's one for the anti-pricing populists. 

The NRDC's "Beyond Oil" campaign. Are national environmental groups ready to shift their strategy?

As attention turns to the next federal transportation bill, and livable streets fans scan the platforms of presidential candidates for glimpses of what to expect from Washington over the next four years, Alex Steffen, editor and CEO of the blog WorldChanging, has posted an essay-in-progress called "My Other Car is a Bright Green City." Steffen says that reining in fuel standards and auto emissions, for instance, is not nearly as important to present and future generations as developing communities that behave more like cities, which are, by environmental measures, much cleaner than commute-intensive suburbs and exurbs. Here are some excerpts.