- 56 percent of Michigan teenagers had driver’s licenses in 2021, down from 66 percent in 2000
- Reasons for the decline include being too busy to learn and high car ownership costs
- Cuts in driver’s ed funding may be disproportionately impacting Black and low-income teens
We don’t want cars, we want walkable cities
Horse has already left that barn. We need public transportation to link our sprawl.
Why not both?
One is extremely cheaper and more economically viable than the other. We’re not going to magically go back to a time when everyone lived and worked within a small town with a cute main street with a handful of local stores. That vision of a walkable town never really existed for most.
Car dependent living is incredibly subsidized. It’s also (slowly) becoming more obvious as the cause of our pollution and traffic problems. For those reasons, and my own determination, I am optimistic that we will see the magical towns you describe in our lifetime.
Redevelopment can be walkable. It’ll take a half century or two to get a lot of walkable areas, but we can get there over time.