In Americans’ travel choices, the gears are clearly shifting

The front page of this past Sunday’s New York Times featured a report on European cities’ efforts to reorient their streets towards people instead of cars. Rather than the government imposing undue restrictions on the ability to drive (as the Times’ headline might have made one think), these measures are merely responses to shifts in the “free” market. The higher cost of gasoline in Europe (over $8 per gallon, as quoted in the article), where taxes bring the price at the pump more in line with driving’s true cost to society, is a major factor contributing to the continent’s lower rate of automobile use than North America.

Higher gas taxes, in turn, enable greater investment in transit (note the dense tram, i.e. streetcar, networks in the cities the article profiles), intercity rail, and wildly popular bike-sharing systems. Even without these amenities, many European urbanites simply find a car-free or car-lite city life—a more social, physically active and healthy lifestyle—preferable to the alternative. Thus, measures restricting the harm automobile traffic does to a city’s social fabric and air quality are welcomed as common-sense.

And it’s not just environmentalists and urbanists saying that we should try the same thinking in the US—even the CEO of the Ford Motor Company doesn’t think the future can rely exclusively on easy motoring. “We need to develop better mass transit systems and strive to find new forms of individual mobility,” CEO Bill Ford wrote for CNN after his talk at the annual TED conference. “Cars will continue to evolve, but they will need to work in harmony with other cars, city infrastructure and other forms of transportation.”  Ford acknowledged that simply switching to cheaper, less-polluting fuels won’t solve any problems unless society also attacks “global gridlock,” the result of the overreliance on unfettered personal mobility. He touted the potential for the research and development of smarter transportation technologies—both auto and non-auto—to create a plethora of high-skill jobs that won’t be easy to outsource. Ford went as far as to say that restricting private automobile use in Manhattan is a good idea.

Ford’s statements came within days of of a national summit of transportation experts last Friday at San Francisco’s Commonwealth Club. The summit’s attendees agreed on the need to fix existing transportation infrastructure, and to modernize the national travel network by adding high-speed rail. They also lamented the lack of viable ideas for how to pay for these critical investments, as raising fuel taxes remains a political nonstarter in the US—reconfirmed by a February 2011 Rockefeller Foundation poll.  Nevertheless, as Americans continue to see congestion worsen and roads and transit service deteriorate, they expect the political will to be mustered for doing what needs to be done.

Amtrak passengers interviewed last week while awaiting a northeast-bound train at the Newport News, VA station echoed these growing concerns, telling the Newport News Daily Press (video) that they were taking the train to avoid the high costs and hassles of driving and flying. “Most of the time, I prefer the train because of the comfort, convenience and safety,” said one rider. And this is at a station that only sees two outbound trains most days, yet routinely fills with passengers at train time. Their attitudes reflect the shift that is spreading across the country, hastening the day when policies like those being implemented in Zurich may not seem quite so foreign.

The Daily Press also reports that work is underway to bring Amtrak service directly into Norfolk via a southerly route from Richmond through Petersburg. Enabling such improvements here and elsewhere to meet public demands will require sustained federal commitments, which means train advocates have our work cut out for us in these times where the predominant pressure is towards austerity. It will also require governors willing to apply for federal rail funds.