I want people to question, at the most fundamental level, the role of the car in the city. – Mark Gorton

For more than 100 years New York City government policy has prioritized the needs of the automobile over the needs of any other mode of transport. Working under the faulty assumption that more car traffic would improve business, planners and engineers have systematically made our streets more dangerous and less livable. As a result, even the idea that a street could truly be a “place” – a shared space for human interaction and play – has been almost completely destroyed.

In “Rethinking the Automobile” livable streets advocate Mark Gorton explores the history of transportation in New York City with a focus on how policies that prioritize the car have diminished many other aspects of life in the city. As a cyclist, pedestrian, neighbor, and parent, Gorton questions why we have allowed automobiles to transform our streets from vibrant places full of play, human interaction, and commerce, into dangerous, stress-inducing thoroughfares.

Gorton relates how many of the assumptions we make about traffic are either poorly considered, or simply wrong. He argues that the automobile is an inappropriate transportation technology for a dense urban environment:

Not only have we systematically ruined the most important and plentiful resource of public space in our cities, we’ve done so to facilitate the use of a fundamentally inefficient transportation technology.

Despite ample proof to the contrary, myths still abound about the detrimental effects of creating more livable streets. Gorton examines the key myths that are often cited to defend autocentric urban planning decisions and provides clear evidence against them.

Examples from both New York City and elsewhere prove that we can have a much safer more equitable street system that still allows for efficient movement of emergency and commercial vehicles, mass transit, and taxis. Gorton argues that in order to achieve this we must alter policies that prioritize the needs of private automobiles at the expense of all other forms of transit.

As the founder of both OpenPlans and the New York City Streets Renaissance Campaign Gorton has been on the front lines of the battle to transform New York’s streets. He contends that the recent improvements that have been implemented in New York should only be considered as the “tip of the iceberg” and that a truly comprehensive set of changes are necessary. Gorton continues his lecture with an overview of strategies that can be employed to start bringing about these significant changes to our streets immediately. He closes with a vision of life in New York City after a broad adoption of livable streets principles.