By Ted Kleine
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Several months ago there was an auto show at McCormick Place. This was the antiauto show. The car was the Satan figure of the afternoon, and every speaker attested to its evil. Katie Alvord–who somehow lives without a car in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula–told the 100 or so people in the audience that a quarter of all U.S. car trips are less than a mile. She suggested that all those lazy-ass drivers buy a map, figure out what’s easy walking distance, draw a circle that big around their houses, and walk to every place that falls inside. Jane Holtz Kay, architecture and planning critic for the Nation, noted that cars kill 42,000 people a year, and declared Henry Ford’s baby “the chief cause of the diminution of species” because it makes urban sprawl possible. And Charles Komanoff, a cycling activist from Manhattan, declared that “the automobile is ushering in global warming almost by itself.”
None of the speakers demonized drivers. Indeed, the poor shlumps trapped in traffic on the Dan Ryan were seen as victims–of suburban planners who create neighborhoods that have no store within walking distance; of ad men and beat novelists who portray driving as fun, liberating, sexy; of mechanics, gasoline companies, and insurers who make a car a $6,500-a-year expense. Alvord is the author of a book called Divorce Your Car, but she realizes that for a lot of people going carless is impractical. So she suggests that instead of divorce they try the equivalent of seeing other people. “There are a lot of places in North America where it’s extremely challenging to be car free,” she acknowledged. “If you’re ‘car lite,’ you use public transportation as much as possible.”
Anderson works for the city, deciding where to place bike racks. He’s also a member of Chicago Critical Mass, the gang of bike activists who gather in Daley Plaza during rush hour on the last Friday of every month, then ride together on busy downtown streets. “The action is not only a form of civil disobedience and protest because we’re blocking traffic,” he said, then caught himself. “But we’re really not blocking traffic, because we are traffic.”
