Reclaiming The City From The Car

The motorcar has undoubtedly been one of mankind’s most useful inventions to date, a fact which is evidenced by our continuing love affair with our four wheeled friends. They represent some of the largest investments we ever make, we spend hours talking about them, we spend small fortunes maintaining them, we cherish them, we love them.

But our affair with the car has blinded us to some of the obvious drawbacks, such as its lack of compatibility with urban life which leaves our cities clogged by semi stationary vehicles with fuming engines and fuming drivers.

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This point has not been lost on Yvonne Joos of Umverkehr, an environmental organization which recently launched a campaign to improve public transportation in Swiss cities, re-addressing the balance between the car and life in the city. Launching the campaign against a backdrop (pictured) demonstrating the difference between a car free, care free city and today’s car dominated environment, Joos told reporters “Traffic is continuously increasing in cities and agglomerations and at some point the amount of car traffic will no longer be supported.”

Explaining that a single tram has the capacity to replace 210 cars on the road, Umverker point out the numerous benefits of a less car dominated city environment. Besides the obvious improvements in air quality and noise pollution, an increased focus on public transport will make cycling safer - many commuters have rejected the bicycle on safety grounds – and result in less stress for those who must use cars and currently face ever increasing traffic chaos.

Obviously Switzerland has one crucial advantage in such campaigns – the fact that a comprehensive and reliable public transport infrastructure already exists. Having experienced the horrors of public transport in other parts of the world I am sorry to say that for many of us the car, and our love affair with it, are set to stay.

Photo courtesy of umverkehR

Additional source: SwissInfo

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