The West Is Approaching Peak Car Use

[M II A II R II K]

We Are Approaching Peak Car Use


July 5th, 2011

By Ariel Schwartz

Read More: http://www.fastcompany.com/1764562/have-we-reached-peak-car-use

PDF Report: http://www.eco-logica.co.uk/pdf/wtpp17.2.pdf


Even oil companies admit that we are reaching peak oil--the point when the maximum rate of petroleum production is reached and begins to go into an unstoppable decline. But one thing would, at least somewhat, mitigate that problem. We may have also reached peak car usage in our major cities. A study from the Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute says that many cities--including Vienna, Zurich, Atlanta, Los Angeles, and Houston--have already seen a decline in car usage between 1995 and 2005. Driving rates in the U.S. did, however, rise in 2010 by 0.7%, but the study's authors believe a number of factors could come together to decrease our overall car use.

The first is that cities are hitting what's known as the Marchetti wall. Most people don't like having to travel more than an hour each way to work, and cities tend to not get larger than one hour via car in every direction. The growth of public transport and the reversal of urban sprawl have also played a role, as more people in concentrated areas means more central shopping locations. There is also the growth of a culture of urbanism, resulting in more people who enthusiastically take public transportation, walk, and ride bikes. There's also, of course, the rise in fuel prices, which is probably the largest factor. If all of these factors actually do cause a dramatic decline in car usage, city planners will have to think more about factoring light rail, buses, cycling, and walking routes into their plans.

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[SimonP]

The first is that cities are hitting what's known as the Marchetti wall.

I've heard of this issue before, but never this term. It is useful to have a quick way to refer to this phenomena, but is this term actually used? Some quick Googling finds it has never appeared much of anywhere online except in this article.

 

[andrewpmk]

I'm not sure if the statement that cities never grow beyond 1 hour commute time from the core is really true though. What seems to happen when cities get very large is that jobs move to the suburbs and the city keeps growing, while people in the outer suburbs commute to other places in the suburbs rather than downtown. The statement that car usage reaches a peak at some point may be true because people working in suburban job centres rarely commute more than 30 mins-1 hour, but the statement that urban sprawl is finite is probably false. For instance most residents of Mississauga work there and it can take a long time to get downtown in rush hour traffic. Most Mississauga residents do not work downtown though. Same thing is true in many big cities in the US, Silicon Valley for instance is a giant suburb but so far from San Francisco that is effectively a separate city.

 

[Mapleson]

I've heard of this issue before, but never this term. It is useful to have a quick way to refer to this phenomena, but is this term actually used? Some quick Googling finds it has never appeared much of anywhere online except in this article.

In the UK and Ireland, they use the terms "commuter effect" and "commuter belt" instead of "Marchetti wall", but the premise has been around for at least 25 years when the M25 ring road opened and wostened London traffic with induced demand.

I'm not sure if the statement that cities never grow beyond 1 hour commute time from the core is really true though. What seems to happen when cities get very large is that jobs move to the suburbs and the city keeps growing, while people in the outer suburbs commute to other places in the suburbs rather than downtown. The statement that car usage reaches a peak at some point may be true because people working in suburban job centres rarely commute more than 30 mins-1 hour, but the statement that urban sprawl is finite is probably false. For instance most residents of Mississauga work there and it can take a long time to get downtown in rush hour traffic. Most Mississauga residents do not work downtown though. Same thing is true in many big cities in the US, Silicon Valley for instance is a giant suburb but so far from San Francisco that is effectively a separate city.

As I've encountered the premise, the hour-commute isn't tied to the core, but rather the employment district ring. For example, commuters from Milton would be much more inclided to commute to say Rexdale or Etobicoke, while those from Durham might make it only as far west as the DVP.

I concur in questioning the finiteness of city growth. Without due checks on density, sprawl just merges together communities and commutes. If you lived in Waterloo Region and commuted to Toronto, you'd be more liable to move to Cambridge the closest point to avoid the second half of local traffic. Many cities already take more than a hour to go from one side of the catchment area to the other, Toronto included.

Finally, while we may be reaching "peak utilization", that doesn't mean it will translate into reduced oil consumption, as cars idle longer in traffic or continue to make supplimental non-commuter journeys.

 

[SimonP]

I think it was Bruegmann's book Sprawl that mentions that commute length has been relatively fixed for thousands of years. If you look back at Roman cities the workers, who travelled on foot, also held to a one hour maximum commute time.

While I agree that cities can, and do sprawl endlessly, downtowns are still important and once a downtown core reaches road capacity, people will start to find other ways to get there. There's still is a strong economic incentive for major employers to locate downtown. Suburban centres can't draw on the same raw number of possible employees, nor is the proximity to other businesses be as extensive. This is especially true of certain industries such as finance, law, and communications, which are also some of the fastest growing sectors of the economy.

As major North American cities hit road capacity, transit and bike usage rises as does residential construction downtown.

 

[nfitz]

There's an interesting implication. With the increasing worsening of traffic that is predicted over the next 20 years or so, if the 1-hour rule holds (and it probably would if it worked for the Romans!) then commutes will naturally get shorter.

Which means that any distant bedroom communties without their own employment base would probably be a bad place to buy real estate.

 

[kEiThZ]

There's an interesting implication. With the increasing worsening of traffic that is predicted over the next 20 years or so, if the 1-hour rule holds (and it probably would if it worked for the Romans!) then commutes will naturally get shorter.

Which means that any distant bedroom communties without their own employment base would probably be a bad place to buy real estate.

Not necessarily. People assume that the 1hr commute has to be by car, in-traffic. I would argue that the rule might hold for transit commutes as well. And during rush hour, your 1 hr on GO gets you a lot farther than 1 hr on the 401. And given that rail can be sped up and made more efficient, that 1 hr ring is likely to grow. I see it as highly possible that over the coming years, instead of broadly having commutes to the core limited to Hamilton at its farthest, we'll start seeing places as far as Niagara Falls becoming established exurbs. It's a 2 hr train ride on weekends now and 2 hrs 40 mins by bus and train. But I could see it being cut down to 1.5 hrs with electrification, more express service, clearing bottle necks, etc.

It's not necessarily a bad thing. It all depends on how such changes are managed. If each of those small towns is developed as a small dense town focused on the train station (like what we see a lot in Europe), then it's really not much of an issue. If the towns simply build more massive subdivisions that'll be a problem.

 

[nfitz]

Not necessarily. People assume that the 1hr commute has to be by car, in-traffic. I would argue that the rule might hold for transit commutes as well.

That's true ... so perhaps avoid buying in distant communities that will have no GO service.