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We’re addicted to cigarettes — and cars

Daniel Acker/Bloomberg

We’re addicted to cigarettes — and cars

Consider what would happen if President Biden said the country can do with 25% fewer cars, especially in urban and suburban areas. Or the mayor of a city the size of Pittsburgh, my hometown. I hinted at this to our mayor at the polling site on his election day. He laughed.

America is choking itself with the personal automobile, and everyone from local city planners to the president is under the cloud of its addiction — a learned behavior akin to the cigarette habit of the 1950s. The personal automobile addiction is woven into the tapestry of the world economy, and America is the biggest abuser.

Visionary technocrats are now calling for sensible urban planning away from automobile infrastructure. But just as the cigarette habit remained steadfast in American lifestyles, cars have become endemic to our culture. It may take another 20 years for good sense to filter down to the masses.

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I have an idea that most people think is ludicrous: eliminate the car from your personal life. There exists a world of options that magically appear once people give up their cars but not before.

Emil Bruce Lester Jr.
Point Breeze

First Published: June 5, 2022, 4:00 a.m.

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