Car dependency

This is so great.

Welcome to City Smart Toys, where we're on a mission to reframe playtime with urban toys, books and vehicles! It all started with a simple realization – after our 3 year old received his 3rd(!) plastic parking garage set, we knew there had to be more to playtime than endless loops of car-centric toys. As parents, we were determined to provide a different kind of play experience, one that celebrates the richness and diversity of urban life.

At City Smart Toys, we believe that playtime should reflect the vibrancy of urban places around us. That's why we've curated a thoughtful collection of toys and books that embrace the urban experience in all its glory. From bustling cityscapes to boundless imaginations, our selection is designed to inspire creativity, exploration, and a sense of wonder.

This mission is not anti-car. Many families depend on cars to get around because their neighbourhoods and towns are designed a certain way. For certain trips, cars are indeed the best option. But there is a clear imbalance that is apparent when you step into any toy-store. Our goal is to fix this. Yes, car toys are great fun but there need to be options for more urban-positive alternatives.

Join us in embracing the urban-positive movement and discover a world of play that goes beyond the car, the parking lot and the traffic jam. Whether it's through imaginative city adventures or captivating stories, let's redefine playtime together – one toy at a time.

According to new survey of U.S. drivers, the average American is spending 20 percent of her monthly income on auto loans, fuel, insurance, maintenance, which is around twice or at the absolute upper limit of what financial experts recommend they spend on transportation costs, depending on who you ask. (Federal statistics estimate that the average U.S. household spent 15 percent of its income on transportation in 2022, but that includes those who are lucky enough to live in communities where they can rely on other, cheaper modes.) 

Ten percent of surveyed drivers, meanwhile, estimated they spent 30 percent of their take-home pay on car payments alone, while more than 12 percent "found themselves living paycheck to paycheck due to the financial strain of their cars," the report authors wrote. Close to 17 percent of the survey respondents say they'd gotten a second job specifically to afford their vehicle.

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The Marketwatch study did not analyze how respondents' local transportation systems influenced their likelihood to take on onerous automobile costs, but a larger March 2020 survey from Data for Progress found that 80 percent of all Americans feel they have "no choice but to drive as much as they do." 

Despite the widespread harm caused by cars and automobility, governments, corporations, and individuals continue to facilitate it by expanding roads, manufacturing larger vehicles, and subsidising parking, electric cars, and resource extraction. This literature review synthesises the negative consequences of automobility, or car harm, which we have grouped into four categories: violence, ill health, social injustice, and environmental damage. We find that, since their invention, cars and automobility have killed 60–80 million people and injured at least 2 billion. Currently, 1 in 34 deaths are caused by automobility. Cars have exacerbated social inequities and damaged ecosystems in every global region, including in remote car-free places. While some people benefit from automobility, nearly everyone—whether or not they drive—is harmed by it. Slowing automobility's violence and pollution will be impracticable without the replacement of policies that encourage car harm with policies that reduce it. To that end, the paper briefly summarises interventions that are ready for implementation.

By popular demand -- a comprehensive review of all the ways car dependency destroys our communities, our health, and our planet. With gratuitous commentary by your host!

A bracing editorial.

In the 1970s a nation confronted a crisis of traffic deaths, many of them deaths of children. Protesters took to the streets to fight an entrenched culture of drivers who considered roads their domain alone. But this wasn’t the U.S.—it was the Netherlands. In 1975 the rate of traffic deaths there was 20 percent higher than in the U.S., but by the mid-2000s it had fallen to 60 percent lower than in the U.S. How did this happen?

Thanks to Stop de Kindermoord (“Stop Child Murder”), a Dutch grassroots movement, traffic deaths fell and streets were restored for people, not cars. Today the country is a haven for cyclists and pedestrians, with people of all ages commuting via protected bike lanes and walking with little fear of being run over. It’s time the U.S. and other countries followed that example.

Children need more independent mobility. Modern suburbia is car-dependent, and kids/teenagers cannot get around without their parents driving them. This has serious consequences on their physical and mental health and well-being.

Aside from the less pleasant aesthetics of American stadiums’ surroundings, car parks are surprisingly costly. “In Australia, each parking space in high-density locations is worth about $100,000”, says urban planner David Mepham, who recently published the book Rethinking Parking. “Yet a lot of that parking is not very well used, if it’s used at all.”

In Melbourne, an estimated 25-41% of parking in apartment blocks in the inner city — which developers are often mandated by law to build — stand vacant. Such unused parking costs Australians more than $6 billion.

For public projects, the cost can be even higher. The Victorian government recently announced a new car park for Frankston station, which will cost approximately $174,000 per space. That money could buy a lot of extra bus services or bike infrastructure, so people wouldn’t need to drive there. But as the Morrison years taught us, politicians still go to great lengths to cut the ribbons on new car parks.

This is one of the best summaries of the problems of car dependency I've seen (and I've seen many).

I’ve loved cars since I was a kid. I’ve owned 60 cars in my life and currently own 9. How did I go from being an absolute car fanatic to someone that can’t stand car dependency? In this video, we delve deep into the issues surrounding our automobile-centric society:

• The endless hours lost to traffic congestion.
• The threats posed to our children.
• The alarming fatalities from distracted driving and flawed vehicle designs.
• The troubling reasons behind bigger cars and the higher risks they pose.
• The questionable decisions of traffic engineers and the infrastructure built for speed over safety.
• Unveiling how the auto industry actively promoted car dependency.
• The disturbing history of how low-income neighborhoods bore the brunt of freeway constructions.
• The alarming shift from pedestrian rights to vehicle dominance.
• How the car industry redefined 'crashes' as 'accidents'.
• How other nations are getting public transportation right.
• And importantly, the crucial role car enthusiasts can play in reshaping this narrative.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said Guilbeault's a "radical" who seems intent on banning federal funds from road projects. 

Conservative MP Mark Strahl, the party's transport critic, said Guilbeault's talk about no more new funding for "large" roads is "outrageous" and an affront to the people who rely on cars to get to and from work.

"This isn't something many Canadians do without. To simply say we're not going to allow any federal money to go into that is extreme, it's divisive and it's right in line with what this government does," Strahl said.

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Guilbeault's comments put into question the future of Ford's promised Highway 413 project, a new highway in the northwest part of the Greater Toronto Area that will connect two major arteries in the area and ease travel between booming areas like Vaughan and Brampton.

Ontario has argued that the project should be fast-tracked because the population growth in these Toronto suburbs demands more infrastructure to ease congestion.

Environmentalists and some local groups have vigorously opposed the 60-kilometre highway because it will cut through farmland and waterways and pave over parts of the province's protected greenbelt.

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As for the government's push to ban single-use plastics by deeming them "toxic," the Federal Court ruled last year that the policy is "unreasonable and unconstitutional."

The new study comes from the University of Nebraska, which received funding from the U.S. Army to examine the impact of electric vehicles on guardrails. The university is a natural location for such research; its Midwest Roadside Safety Facility designed and tested the metal barriers known as the Midwest Guardrail System that are a familiar sight along American highways. The MGS is a beam with a dip running horizontally in the middle—if you think of a guardrail, you’re probably picturing one. “It’s the most frequently used guardrail system, because it’s the cheapest to install and maintain,” said University of Nebraska engineering professor Cody Stolle, noting that all 50 states use it.

The current version of MGS was developed to withstand cars weighing a maximum of 5,000 pounds, but many of today’s SUVs and trucks exceed that threshold. A Cadillac Escalade, for instance, now weighs over 6,200 pounds, and the latest model of the Ford F-150, the most popular vehicle in America, can tip the scales at almost 5,700 pounds. You don’t really want to hit a guardrail with a vehicle like that, but electrification can make things even dicier. Electric cars often weigh around 30 percent more than a gas-powered counterpart, because big vehicles require enormous batteries to propel them hundreds of miles between charges. The goliath-like GMC Hummer EV weighs a staggering 9,083 pounds, 2 tons more than a gas-guzzling H3.

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It’s worth highlighting that this study isn’t really about the merits of EVs. After all, you can buy an EV that weighs less than 5,000 pounds. You just can’t electrify your favorite already-large car—or even buy a hulking gas-powered car—and expect guardrails to work as intended.