Beyond the Car: Essays on the Auto Culture

A.A. den Otter is a professor of history at the Memorial University of
Newfoundland and co-author of Lethbridge: A Centennial History.

In the last half of the 20th century, the automobile has become an
essential part of urban culture. Few people living in a developed nation
can conceive of surviving without one or two family cars—this despite
congestion, pollution, accidents, and a heavy drain on the family
budget. Beyond the Car arose out of a conference of Torontonians
committed to an auto-free society.

This collection of 20 short, very readable essays, examines the adverse
side-effects of the automobile in contemporary society. Geographers John
G.U. Adams and Mayer Hillman, for example, argue convincingly that,
although the car may have provided people with unprecedented freedom to
move great distances quickly and at will, at the same time it has
severely curbed the liberty of children to walk to school and play on
the street.

Fortunately, Beyond the Car takes the reader beyond the catastrophic
impact of the automobile and offers viable and attractive solutions to
the problem. Daniel Egan’s recommendations would slow traffic in
residential areas with ingenious and tried obstacles, while Chris
Bradshaw’s suggestions would make a city’s decisions on planning,
engineering, and even taxation focus on how these policies contribute to
a community’s walkability. Not surprisingly, many of the essays stress
the promotion of better walking, public transit, and bicycle facilities.

Beyond the Car is not aimed at eradicating the automobile altogether.
It merely advocates that many areas within the city be devoted to
human-speed pedestrian traffic rather than machine-speed automobile
travel. Perhaps the book’s most compelling theme is that the freedom
of movement that the car has granted has made interpersonal
communication more difficult. All the authors agree that walking a
car-less street, even if congested with pedestrians, will draw people
together.