EDITORIAL: Americans love driving, but too much of it is making us unhappy
Americans love their cars.
We’ve been celebrating them in song at least since “My Automobile Boy” in 1901, and continuing on through to “You Can’t Afford to Marry, If You Can’t Afford a Ford,” “Cadillac Boogie,” “Little Red Corvette” and “Pink Cadillac.”
We spend on average more than $12,000 per year on transportation, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation, with the cost of a new vehicle increasing by more than half over the last 10 years, and the cost of insurance going up in tandem. All told, the cost of getting around is typically the second-highest household expense, after housing.
Americans may love their cars, but the reality is a lot of Americans can’t get by without them.
More than 90% of households in this country have at least one car, and 87% of those households use them every day. Some of the people in those households would undoubtedly love to leave them in their driveways, but they have no other choice given how paltry public transportation options are in many parts of the country, and how unwalkable many communities have become. It’s estimated that the average member of the workforce commutes 1,000 miles a month – basically, the distance from Pittsburgh to Tampa.
No other country matches us for dependence on cars.
It turns out, according to a study from Arizona State University, that the amount of time we spend in our vehicles may not be bringing us a whole lot of joy. It found that feelings of anxiety and depression increase the more time we spend in our cars and trucks. The same goes for back pain and elevated blood pressure. In addition, it’s been determined that the odds of obesity increase by 6% for every additional hour spent in a vehicle.
The more you drive, the likelihood increases of being in an accident. Cars emit carbon, harming the environment. About two-thirds of Americans admit to experiencing road rage.
Rababe Saadaoui, an urban planning expert at Arizona State University who led the study, explained that “extreme car dependence comes at a cost, to the point that demands outweigh the benefits.”
She added, “The study doesn’t call for people to completely stop using cars, but the solution could be in finding a balance. For many people, driving isn’t a choice, so diversifying choices is important.”
And maybe the crossroads we find ourselves at right now is a good time to start thinking about how we would like our communities to be arranged in the three-quarters of the 21st century still remaining. With more white-collar workers carrying out their daily chores from home, downtowns can be reimagined and commutes can be less frequent. The United States is short millions of homes, and as those dwellings are constructed, perhaps planners and developers can place greater emphasis on building walkable communities.
Public transportation is chronically underfunded, and it’s not likely it will get any kind of boost in the next four years, at least on the federal level. Giving it sufficient funding and replacing worn-out infrastructure, would make it more accessible and give people more of the choices that Saadaoui talks about.
Cars aren’t going anywhere, that’s for sure, and few of us would want to exchange our keys for buggy whips. But anything that can be done to make us use them a little less would lower our stress levels and make our communities more liveable.