MEMORIA DE ESTRUCTURA

road, the car and the economy. As govern- ing bodies were willing to build roads suitable for cars, so too were people willing to buy cars to utilise this infrastructure. Industries responded by manufacturing more cars. The car industry, particularly in America, contributed to huge eco- nomic boom, which governments were keen to encourage – through the building of more car- oriented roads.

"For a variety of reasons several branches of industry in the U.S.A. and other countries were

interested in building new motorways:…an efficient road-system increases the demand for cars, there are fewer accidents on the motorways than on ordinary roads, and they encourage the tourist trade" (Schreiber, 1961:224-225). The sheer mass of goods bought home by the car swamps that brought home by a consumer walking or using public transportation.

The way transportation changes patterns of consumption still shapes the economy. British supermarkets trying to break into the American market have to adjust their type and volume of stock- the car encourages buying more bulk, frozen and tinned foods, while public transport users buy more fresh foods, more frequently (The Economist Maga- zine, 23 June 2007:77-79).

In Wellington, the economic benefits of car sales to one individual helped shape the transportation network. Councillor Anthel, a car dealer, headed the transport com-

79 Figure 20 Figure 20 Figure 20 Figure 20 Walking on Walking on Walking on Walking on Lambton Quay Lambton Quay Lambton Quay Lambton Quay in the 1920s in the 1920s in the 1920s in the 1920s

81 committee that removed New Zealand’s last running trams from the streets. He is

pictured waving off the last tram “ a cigar between his teeth” (Yska, 2006:181-182). Geographer John Adams points out the continuing mismatch in the feedback loops informing the system of road development:

The rewards of motoring are also reduced to monetized abstractions. In their cost-benefit analyses of their road building projects, the principle benefit is time-saving for motorists. Motorists are wealthier than those without cars and their time is worth more… People without cars are economically inferior; their concerns barely register in the cost-benefit calculations of the Depart- ment of Transport. In the formalizing of their decision making procedures,

both the convenience and safety of people in cars are accorded greater significance than the welfare of people outside cars. (Adams,

1995:156).

People using public transport and/or walking are not only likely to be poorer than those with cars, but the way space has been shaped by the road and the car means that people without cars are more likely to stay poor. Without a car, more time, effort and (often) money must be expended to travel the same distance (Larsen et al., 2006:53), leaving the car-less with less

ability to earn their way out of their situa- tion.

The feedback loops for driving and walk- ing are different. Feedback loops are necessary mechanisms in the evolution of self-adaptive sys- tems (Kauffman, 1995).

The personal positive feedback from driv- ing is immediate. You are encased in comfort, arrive dry and tidy. The personal negative feed- back is slow and accumulates over time, making it hard to perceive and act on. Driving is a seden-

tary, and ill health from sedentary lifestyles comes slowly.

The walker has the immediate feedback of arriving at their destination with sore feet, maybe wet, and tired form carrying stuff. Their long term feedbacks, the benefits to physical and mental health, are slow to arrive.

The wider feedback- from society, the tax system and so on- is also different, dis- torted. The car emits pollution that kills around four hundred per year in New Zealand (Fisher et al., 2002:1), but there is no path for negative feedback to the individual driver. The response to congestion is often to spend more money on roading, giving positive feedback to the driving system. Car marketing thrives on the positive feedback loop be- tween vehicles and the consumer, evolving more and more seductive cars.

The ways in which these and other feedbacks and interactions construct the mate- rial of the road system are discussed as a mineralization of a complex system next.

83 By the nineteen

sixties planning com- missions took for

granted that cars must run smoothly through the city. In fact, traffic planning was understood as a celebration of flowing.

The influential Traffic in towns completely dis- misses buses or trains from consideration in the plan- ning process. “Events have passed far beyond the point at which it would have been possible to revert to rail- ways, though doubtless some loads could even now be transferred to them with advantage.” (Buchanon, 1963:31). Walking is considered very carefully and among his recommendations (a thread to be picked up in chapter eight) is the complete modularisation of walking, based on an comparison with Venice, which has:

an interdependent system of vehicular and pedestrian ways can be contrived with complete physical separation between the two - so complete that they do not even seem to be-

long to the same order - and that it works (Buchanon, 1963:224)

More than traffic modularization occurs in the Venice movement form/movement system. The speed limit for boats on the canals is five miles per hour. Per- haps this is important to Venice’s success, with the pace of motorized vehicles in sympathy with the pace of the human body. In Venice the module of walking-only space is three times the area of the vehicle only module (Buchanon, 1963:221). In the car cities these ratios are likely to be reversed.