THE AUTOMOBILE AS A FACTOR IN
TRANSPORTATION OF THE AMERICAN CITY*

By Z. A. FAULKNER, City Traffic Engineer, Evanston

Traffic in our cities is so great that most of the solutions we formerly used are obsolete.

A few statistics reveal some startling facts. Between 1930 and 1954 the urban population of the United States increased by more than 40 per cent, and during the same period automobile ownership increased more than 100 per cent, and automobile travel increased by 170 percent. In 1957 there were approximately 60 million motor vehicles in this country. It is predicted that by 1965 there will be 85 million motor vehicles on our streets and highways.

We have been trying to fit this tremendously increased volume of traffic into street patterns relatively unchanged over the last 25 years. It is certainly apparent that the small physical changes we have made are bearing diminishing returns in meeting this onslaught of motor vehicle traffic. Some authorities disagree with the theory that the automobile is the primary form of urban transportation. They still refuse to agree that the automobile is here to stay.

The basic fact is that we all prefer to drive our car wherever we are going. Each and every one of us wants to drive and park as close to our destination as possible. As Traffic Commissioner Wiley of New York City says, and I quote, "Each and every woman wants to drive right up to the hosiery counter," and I venture to say, the men are just as bad. It's just human nature.

I want to talk about those cities of 100,000 population or less. What can be done to help the traffic situation? We can do several things to relieve the pressure of traffic on our streets. The Traffic Engineer can study and watch the flow of traffic on those streets that seem most desirable for traffic use. His main idea is to make the most efficient use of what streets he has. He can eliminate parking, open up one-way streets, eliminate angle parking, widen streets, set up through streets and progressive signal systems to smooth out the flow of traffic, and create parking lots and structures to accommodate the suspended traffic. (That is all parking really is—suspended traffic.)

We need expressways near our smaller cities and semi-expressways connecting our cities to the expressway. We need adequate major through streets into the business areas. We need wide periphery systems of streets around the busines areas for traffic circulation. Parking meters are needed to finance the off-street parking program. All net revenues from parking meters should be earmarked solely for this purpose. Meter time-limit parking should be "zoned" to accommodate the various types of parking demand, such as 12 minute, 24 minute, 1 hour, 2 hour, 3 hour, even 5 and 10 hour areas for the employee parking, and this can certainly be a serious problem. Some cities have set up monthly fee lots for business men and employee parking, so as to get their cars off the street and make room for customer parking. These lots are a little farther out, of course, and less desirable for customer use.

Some cities are using various forms of merchant validation parking, to entice the customer away from the shopping centers that are springing up short distances from the established business areas. Such validation schemes must be supported by the business men of the area. In some cities such schemes are very successful and in a few they have tailed because of a lack of support by the business men.

As stated above, we can do many things now with the streets we have. We must be bold about it and do what we can NOW. At the same time we must also be looking and planning for the future.

Today many people have resigned themselves to what they consider the dilemma of the traffic snarl in cities. It is no wonder that traffic is snarled in cities and also in suburbs, which in many instances are undistinguishable from the large metropolitan centers. Almost the entire population growth of the United States in the last 15 years—about 15 million—has piled into cities and the suburbs that surround them.

The impact of this population growth is enormous. Already more than half our traffic volume flows within our highly congested metropolitan areas. Compound this choking load with a three-million-a-year increase in motor vehicles, and many cities will be faced with a predicament that could degenerate into a dilemma.

The core of the traffic problem is, of course, the downtown area. We might ask ourselves questions, such as: Should there be a pedestrian island in this area from which all vehicles are barred? Or should we adopt a regulation similar to that in Paris under which, between the hours of 8 a.m. and 6 p.m., no commercial vehicles—trucks, push carts, etc.—are permitted in certain downtown areas, these areas being reserved for the automobile, mass transit and the pedestrian? How should public transportation be geared to the center of cities and its suburbs? How should automobile transportation figure in this problem?

It seems to me there is no "pat" answer, unless it be this—and that is the best application of the best teamwork by traffic engineers, state and local authorities, planners, business men, and others who are interested in tackling today the problems that can be converted to the assets of tomorrow.

I stress this point of cooperation most earnestly, because in some communities and areas it does not exist today. The result is a compounded serious traffic problem, with staggering economic losses.

Finally, I would like to make a few suggestions:

First, to the City Planner: Give serious consideration in future zoning problems toward eliminating high density areas for residential use. Try to spread residential housing out over larger areas. This will tend to solve many other problems as well as traffic and parking.

Second, to the State and County Engineers : Open up good, wide, and safe highways for access to business areas, both in cities and the shopping centers.

Third, to the City Officials: Open up your streets to moving traffic. Shoppers, as well as all other traffic, tend to avoid congested streets. Create plenty of off-street parking. Use smaller parking areas and spread them out. One large parking facility adds too much congestion on the streets adjacent to it. I have found it must better to surround the business area with parking facilities, even though they are smaller.

The main thing, as I see it, is to make it easier for the motorist to drive to, in, and through our cities. It we do this we know that we will also make it safer for him, and pay dividends to all concerned.

There is much we can do that is well within our financial means. Let's do It.

Page 84 / Illinois Municipal Review / April 1958