Who's gonna drive you home?

My mother hates to drive through central Portland. It's too confusing she says. I think the real reason is that my mother likes the "story of cars" that we told for the last half-century. Cars are the ultimate space/time annihilation device, and we should build roads the maximize that capability. The problem, i think, that my mother really has with central Portland is it does not tell that story to itself.

 Cars still dominate, yes, but walking and bicycling are much closer to parity in terms of what is deemed "important." After living here 8 years I am much more like to walk a few blocks and kickbike a few more than I am to grab a car and go. So much so that I actually sold my car after a couple years of light use because it didn't seem worth the cost right now. Central Portland is still not my ideal transportation environment, but it's much closer than most any other western city in the U.S. where cars and the cultural and philosophical assumptions that come with them absolutely dominate.

For instance in Boise, where my mother is from, the lanes are wide and the speed limits are high. This used to be largely because point A to point B usually had nothing but safely fenced farm animals on the side of the road. Over the last 20 years, every farm I used to drive by between church school and anywhere else has been slowly converted into suburbs or shopping centers. But the speed limits are, if anything, higher, the roads are even wider, and while there are sidewalks, it's a trek of at least a mile or two to get from the housing communities to stores of any type. But the sidewalks are generally empty. No one is really expected to walk. The mass transit system in Boise is, well, it's not a priority and is generally only useful in the downtown area. Downtown Boise is the historical remnant of a time when the walkable communities were the cultural norm which as long since been cast aside in favor of living in quiet suburbs and spending an hour or two a day in one's car.

Cars prefer to dominate at speed. Less than 45 mph and the car and drive are operating sub-optimally.  Ideally, the car proceeds at the highest velocity in the maximum amount of comfort. This is all my mother wants from a vehicle. The problem being, nature and virtually every other element of civilization move at a much slower pace. This is why freeways exist. Paved lanes built specifically as anti-natural spaces, where time and space can be neatly annihilated with no worry about ecological concerns.

Of course, any animals who wander into these anti-nature zones are quite likely damned. This is because animals don't understand 80 mph. Except maybe for the speedsters that live on african savannas. But in most of the world, 80 mph might as well be witchcraft. An animal that sees a car moving faster than 25 mph, give or take, will not be able to react to it sanely. There's no predator in nature that moves like that. And so they make the wrong choice and are damned. Generally, we don't care how many animals we sacrifice, the need for the speed and dominance of the automobile is so strong. I only say that because we seem to have tried very little to prevent roadkill on our highways. We kill an acceptable number of wild animals in the name of speed and that is as far as we tend to think about it.

This is also why freeways are usually cut separate from the other roads in a city ecosystem. The ideal speed for cars and their occupants is generally hostile to community ecosystems as well. It's hard to work safely or quietly, take a stroll, talk to friends with vehicles moving at speeds greater than 45 mph or so right next to us. Life in a city is built for slower speeds. What is sanity for the driver is insanity for the pedestrian or the bicyclist. Any attempt at parity between them will simply result in bicyclists and other vehicles slowing down to speeds the pedestrian animal can make sense of.

This is not to damn cars as evil things. I just sometimes wonder if the cultural mindsets surrounding them aren't out of balance with equally important things. For instance the survival of wildlife and the health and happiness of people not currently driving.