Top 15 Andy Singer Quotes

Major efforts should be made to make cities more livable…More city streets should be made car-free and, where possible, private cars should be banned from city centers entirely.

Zoning has a tremendous impact on transit.

by using public transit, you become a better advocate for it since you know more exactly how it works and how it could be improved.

By living near your job or working near your home, you can save hundreds of hours of driving each year, giving yourself more free time to do other things (like draw cartoons). From having to walk or bike a little more, you stay in better shape and learn to be more efficient with your trips away from the house.

you can debate whether cars improve or degrade our quality of life, but there is no debating this fact: If we don't stop building new cars and roads, our environment, and we who depend on it for life, are done for.

While many debate the quality of life issues, one thing is certain: from an environmental point of view, cars are decimating the planet.

We have created a mechanized concrete environment that is increasingly unfriendly and hazardous to human beings. As we spend more and more time trapped behind the wheels of our cars, as ever more land is bulldozed and made into strip malls and parking lots, the experts tell us our "standard of living" is increasing dramatically. But what about our quality of life?

In contrast to the romantic images of advertising and pop culture, increased "automobility" has meant a loss of community, causing further distancing of social groups and alienation.

Images of cars and highways fill our literature, songs, movies and art, not just in America but worldwide. Books like "On the Road" by Jack Kerouac or "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test" by Tom Wolfe were among the first to romanticize driving and road trips. Old blues and early rock songs like "Route 66," "Brand New Cadillac," and "Goin' Mobile" further romanticized cars and highways for the postwar "Baby Boom" generation. Thousands of films and T.V. shows have focused on or predominantly featured cars and car chases: "Rebel Without a Cause," "American Graffiti," "Easy Rider," "Bullet," "The Dukes of Hazzard," the "James Bond" films, and at least half a dozen Burt Reynolds movies. The list goes on... All this pop culture, combined with relentless commercial advertising, has made cars an integral part of our personal identity. We have been taught to equate motor vehicles with wealth, power, romance, rebellion and freedom. Now, everywhere I go in the world, I see cars-millions and millions of cars-in Rome, Guatemala City, Kuala Lumpur, Bombay and Beijing. Everywhere there are huge traffic jams and poor air quality. The number of motor vehicles in the world is growing three times faster than the population.

There are too many damn cars. I first recognized this in 1983, just after high school. A friend and I were unable to buy tickets for a rock concert on Long Island, New York, and had to sit outside the Nassau Coliseum for three hours, waiting for a ride home. Looking out, I saw seemingly endless parking lots surrounded by endless highways, streets and exit ramps, all of them filled with cars-thousands and thousands of cars. Amidst all this concrete, I couldn't see a single tree, a single bush or even a single blade of grass. Once I became sensitized to cars, I realized that almost everything in North America is centered around the automobile. This is true of architecture, urban planning, socializing and even the basic procurement of goods and services. We have become a society in which the simplest human gatherings, like going to hear music or see a sporting event, require thousands of motor vehicles and miles of asphalt. There are precious few places where you are not within sight or sound of a road.

I believe that creating one large car-free section of an American city would be a powerful example of what's possible. It would prove to people that it could be done and would show how eliminating cars could improve quality of life, improve the environment, and reduce American dependence on foreign oil.

At some point, however, you must participate in the political process. There is no substitute for making major legislative changes. Meetings are no fun, but political power goes to those who are willing to sit through meetings. Your local zoning boards, community councils, and metropolitan planning organizations can have a big impact on urban design and transportation choices. I encourage people to pay attention to these organizations and become active on transportation issues.

Many politicians perpetuate car-oriented transportation planning and land use, not out of malice but because they have no idea what it's like to traverse their city without a car. They often don't realize how much of a barrier a highway or big boulevard poses to pedestrians and how this might be hurting businesses or negatively impacting their city. Taking them on walking, biking, or transit tours of their city or getting them to bike or walk to work can make them see the need for transit or pedestrian improvements.

This may seem obvious but it's important to realize all the ways our society consciously or unconsciously pressures us to travel. There are advertisements for vacations and travel destinations, pressure to work at places only accessible by car, pressure to purchase larger homes outside of town, and pressure to visit family or friends as frequently as possible. Travel is often presented as a way to make us happier, more relaxed and less lonely. In reality, all this traveling often makes us more stressed out, tired, and isolated.

Not having a car makes you come up with creative solutions and enables to see and overcome the influence of car culture on your own life. When my wife and I got married, we had to figure out how to get from the ceremony to the reception and decided to ride bicycles. It was fun but it also made me appreciate how the wedding and funeral industries have managed to make automobile processions a part of our sacred rituals.