Car Lovers For A Camry-Free America

Over at the New York Times, a story this week about a car-free city in Germany has kicked off a debate about the possibility of American cities minus the automobile. The paper gathered a bunch of transportation and land use experts for their thoughts. Although their ideas are interesting enough, the panel includes no car lovers. So here’s our two cents: It’s not a car-free America we need. It’s a Toyota Camry free world. Nowhere in the American love affair with the car does the scene exist of a driver travelling five-miles-an-hour in a taupe 4-door in Beltway traffic. We are a nation of hot rodders stuck in gridlock in cars we hate. And we’d like out.
Here at rumblenote, auto love does not extend to the shitboxes many of us are making payments on. Give us a cheap, clean, fast and efficient way to get to work and the store and we’ll happily give up our clunkers. Frankly, we’d much rather use the money for cars we care about, which are better suited for joy rides than commuting.
Marc Schlossberg, a professor at the University of Oregon, puts it best in the New York Times discussion. “The way forward is not to eliminate cars, but to relegate them to the tasks they do well,” he writes.
Indeed Mr. Schlossberg, like racing and weekend thrills—top down, country roads, fellow travellers the only traffic.