The Problematic Dependency on Cars in America

By designing our national infrastructure around the car and the assumption of cheap fuel and roads, we have created a system of dependency that requires an automobile for even the most basic of life tasks. This dangerous dependency on cars would force America to rebuild its infrastructure if any one of the assumptions proves false.

The predominant infrastructure model for the last few decades in America incorporates clusters of large houses surrounded by sprawling strip malls and big box retail stores, all of which are located far from dense urban areas. This form of infrastructure was born on the idea that the further you live from a city center the cheaper the land, buildings, and taxes become. Enabling this idea to take form is the assumption that the cost of driving is so negligible that you can save money and live in a bigger house by living further away from a city center even though it requires longer commutes. The problem with living an urban lifestyle in a rural or ex-urban setting is that it transforms the automobile from a convenience into a lifeline for getting to work and meeting basic life tasks like going to the grocery store. Walking to work or biking to the grocery store are no longer options.

If you have made yourself dependent on an automobile for all your life needs, then you are also at the mercy of the assumptions that enable this infrastructure. Cheap fuel and roads are not a given right of being American. The United States makes up six percent of the world’s population but consumes 24 percent of the world’s oil and “. . . owns over half of the world’s motor vehicles” (Bailey 96). With countries like China and India rapidly becoming industrialized, it is difficult to see how the U.S. can sustain this oil consumption rate without seeing drastic changes in price or availability. From August 1998 to August 2008 the national retail price of gas went from $1.03 per gallon to $3.88 per gallon. How much of this increase was due to growing international demand? While retail gas prices have drastically reduced since this summer the volatility of the price of this vital resource should be unsettling. Even the true cost of roads is obscured from citizens by the federal government paying for up to 90 percent of local road projects (Bailey 95). If budgets get tight and government spending on roads decreases, then the driver pays the difference, either directly through tolls and fees or indirectly through added maintenance to their vehicle from driving on deteriorating roads.

A disruption in the assumptions of cheap fuel and roads would make the current American transportation infrastructure unsustainable. If we ever got to a point where we could not perpetuate the system, we would be forced to begin the lengthy process of rebuilding our infrastructure at great cost. What would be the impact on housing prices if people abandon their far away houses en masse? The two most obvious solutions to the transportation problem are energy independence and mass transit. However, a solution like that would first require Americans to transcend their emotional enchantment with cars.

Works Cited

Bailey, Lee Worth. The Enchantments of Technology. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005.

Energy Information Administration. “Energy in Brief – What Everyone Should Know About Energy”. 2008. (Aug. 22, 2008). Oct. 26 2008. <http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energy_in_brief/foreign_oil_dependence.cfm>.

—. “Weekly U.S. Regular All Formulations Retail Gasoline Prices”. 2008. Department of Energy. Oct. 27 2008. <http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/dnav/pet/hist/mg_rt_usw.htm>.

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