When The Car Was New

By Jeff Ferzoco, Creative and Technology Director, RPA

When I picture the Merritt Parkway in my head, Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant are usually zipping along in driving goggles and wind scarves, excitedly heading towards an upstate farm for a picnic.

But the haughty, heady, glamourous days of cars as road-tripping vehicles are long gone. We now look back on those images with envy as we sit in traffic and try to imagine how that ever could have been.

In 1929, when the car was still a new force, RPA's founders wrote a "Regional Plan of New York and its Environs" (aka, the First Plan) that tried to accommodate this new and increasingly affordable mode of transportation without harming the region's strong transit network or its vibrant pedestrian streets. Planned towns like Radburn, NJ -- presented in the First Plan -- were designed with separated pedestrian and vehicle systems to keep the two apart and distinct from each other. Similarly, RPA's vision of Manhattan's growth was a series of layered promenades, giving both the car and the stroller a separate and grand view of the city. Such visions are less in vogue now, but the goal of finding a livable arrangement with the automobile is still there.

Last week, The Museum of the City of New York opened its "Cars, Culture and the City" show, which highlights the ecstatic, ambivalent, annoying, contentious and sometimes joyous relationship our fair region has had with the car. The event shines a light on the historic moments: the early days of elite auto racing, the urgent need for auto-centric infrastructure in the 20's, the harsh mid-century realities of congestion, and the contemporary course-corrections. RPA proudly has a presence in the show, with important pieces from our archives on display. A short film, for example, shows the day-to-day scene from RPA's 1939 office -- a film that none of us here at the contemporary RPA had ever seen.

The show is beautifully and comprehensively curated by Donald Albrecht and team, and not much is missed, including the current need for balance and moderation. Streetsblog/Streetsfilms's excellent advocacy is highlighted, as is a contemporary vision of Times Square, fully-augmented with a PeopleMover. The show puts the peak of the love affair with the auto at the 1964 World's Fair, which offered a vision of an auto-centric future in GM's Futurama. After that, plans began to reflect the gnawing feeling that the tidal wave of cars was beginning to be more oppressive than liberating.

The truth is, cars have become part of our identity whether we like it or not. We relate to them as tools of freedom, a way to escape the crush of the crowd, reinforce our individuality and achieve day-to-day progress. The teenage couple making out in the back seat, the family safely cruising through a dangerous landscape and the mid-life crisis-bound gentleman Ferrarri-ing his way out of a bad time are iconic images in advertising and our psyches.

Unfortunately, cars have also given us the cultural isolation from being stuck in a glass box for hours a day, mounting pedestrian deaths, auto-constrained family finances, and a development pattern that has untold effects on our region. Climate change highlights the need to find alternatives to conventional automobile use. Whereas once owning a car was a symbol of status, driving less can now be a source of pride.

For both good and ill, modern autos represent something much, much larger than transportation in our society and in our heads. We are at another watershed moment in the history of the car. Whether the future holds all-electric cars like the high-end Tesla (which will be on display at our Regional Assembly on April 16), or in designing communities that don't require as much driving, it is probable that the car and the city will be companions for a long, long time.