You’ll carpool a lot more in the coming decades, or ride a bike to work. Either way, you probably won’t consider a car as your first option for the daily commute.
“I need a car,” I grumble as I reluctantly rise to start the daily ritual of preparing to catch my morning train or bus to get to work. Sometimes, when the public transport system fails me, I take a cab. And then I find myself stuck in endless traffic, watching bikes, taxis and even what I’m pretty sure was a modern day horse and cart pass me by.
After paying for my ride, I am left reconsidering whether I want or need a car at all. I am not the only person with these ambivalent feelings towards motor vehicles. I discovered at the Mobility Indaba in Cape Town towards the end of 2016 that, to move forward, we might need to move back – to a society with fewer cars on our roads. POPULAR MECHANICS investigates the alternatives.
Rising petrol prices, insurance and maintenance costs, hours spent in traffic and environmental issues have all turned the car into an enemy of efficiency and led big business and government to start thinking of other options for commuters.
“Investment in transport infrastructure over the past 40 years has focused on the development and expansion of the road network for general traffic and policies have encouraged the widespread and unconstrained use of private cars,” says Richard Gordge, CEO of Transport Futures. Transport Futures is an independent consulting company specialising in providing planning, management and strategy support to the public transport sector. Gordge identifies twin threats that represent a very inefficient and hugely costly status quo for mobility: increasing levels of car ownership along with very low vehicle occupancies.
Car ownership has been boosted, he says, at the expense of public transport. “While money was invested in making it easier for people who use private cars, public transport investment, management and operations were extensively overlooked.”
Esta historia es de la edición January 2017 de Popular Mechanics South Africa.
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Esta historia es de la edición January 2017 de Popular Mechanics South Africa.
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