TITLE:
Gasoline Consumption and Cities Revisited: What Have We Learnt?
AUTHORS:
Peter Newman, Jeff Kenworthy
KEYWORDS:
Automobile Dependence, Gasoline Consumption, Transit, Walkability, Den-sity
JOURNAL NAME:
Current Urban Studies,
Vol.9 No.3,
September
9,
2021
ABSTRACT: This article provides a personal reflection 30 years
after we created the concept of automobile dependence. The paper entitled “Gasoline
Consumption and Cities: A Comparison of US Cities with a Global Survey and Its Implications”
and an associated book “Cities and Automobile Dependence” stirred up transport
planning, especially in the US. We examine the criticisms, this evoked at the time within the perspective of
what has happened in cities since then. Key policy prescriptions of
re-urbanizing cities and prioritizing transit, walking and cycling, have been largely mainstreamed, though not without
some painful changes in professional practice such as road capacity
increases being seen as the only solution
to traffic. Urban planning and transport policies adopted in innumerable
cities worldwide have moved to reduce automobile dependence, though academic
and policy debate continues. The future is likely to continue this debate,
especially over autonomous cars where there will remain a fundamental need to
keep cities on a path of reduced automobile dependence by ensuring that hard-won principles of reurbanization of
corridors, integrated with new transit alternatives and walkability at
precincts/stations, are given the highest priority.