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Radioactive steel components discovered in France & Sweden
Written By mediavigil on Friday, October 31, 2008 | 11:31 AM
Radioactive steel components discovered in Sweden
23 Oct 08 08:11 CET
Swedish officials discovered small traces of radioactivity on steel items imported from India and the same substance was found on Indian-made elevator buttons in France, officials said Wednesday.
The levels of Cobalt 60, a radioactive form of the metal, were considered harmless and the steel components have not been recalled, the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) told AFP.
"Dutch customs discovered that a shipment of industrial flanges from India to Sweden showed traces of Cobalt 60," SSM spokesman Mattias Sköld said.
That find led to the discovery that a similar shipment had been sent several weeks earlier from India and delivered to three companies at four sites in western, southern and central Sweden.
Sköld did not disclose the names of the companies that had received the contaminated parts, but said they were oil and heating groups.
"Inspections were carried out and it was found that the level (of Cobalt 60) found in these products was very low and wasn't dangerous," Sköld said.
The exact number of contaminated flanges was not known, he said. However, at one company, nine of 1,200 flanges were found to be contaminated with Cobalt 60.
On Wednesday, French elevator maker Otis said it would remove the buttons from hundreds of lifts it has installed after faint traces of Cobalt 60 were found in the Indian-made buttons.
Sköld said SSM had contacted France over the Swedish discovery.
"It seemed important to contact France to inform them of the contaminated steel flanges which also came from India," he said.
AFP/The Local (news@thelocal.se)
Going down! French engineers hunt radioactive elevator buttons
Paris, France (AFP) Oct 22, 2008
A French lift-maker scrambled Wednesday to remove buttons from hundreds of elevators after the nuclear safety authority said Indian-imported materials used in them were radioactive.
Otis planned to remove the buttons from "500 to 600 lifts out of the 2,500 that Otis has installed, modernised or repaired between August 21 and October 9 even if there is no danger for users," said a company spokesman.
The firm, a French subsidiary of the US group of the same name, also said it had isolated thousands of contaminated buttons in three production sites and would destroy them under the control of the country's nuclear waste authority. Employees of the sites were asked not to come to work on October 10, after the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) told Otis there were traces of radioactive Cobalt 60 in Indian-made buttons it had received, the company said.
Otis' announcements came after the ASN said Tuesday that 20 French workers who had handled buttons used in lifts had been exposed to to excessive levels of radiation.
The authority classed the incident at a factory of the Mafelec firm in the east-central town of Chimilin at level two on the seven-level International Nuclear Event Scale.
It said that of 30 workers exposed, 20 had been exposed to doses of between one mSv (milli-Sievert) and three mSv. The maximum permitted dose for workers in the non-nuclear sector is one mSv, said the ASN.
But France's institute of radioprotection (IRSN) said the health risk for the Mafelec workers was "extremely low."
The incident in the factory belonging to Mafelec, which delivers the buttons to Otis, happened in early October, said the Nuclear Safety Authority.
The Mafelec workers were using materials that came from an Indian supplier, it said. Faint traces of Cobalt 60, a radioactive form of the metal cobalt, were found in the buttons.
The ASN said it believed that several Indian companies had exported products contaminated with Cobalt 60 to a number of countries.
It named them as Bunts, Laxmi, SKM Steels, Vipras Castings, and Pradeep Metals, and said it was in contact with Indian authorities "in order to find out the result of inspections being carried out on these sites."
Officials here said the radioactivity in the buttons was probably due to the fact that the metals used to make them were from contaminated recycled materials.
Swedish officials meanwhile said Monday that steel items imported from India showing faint traces of radioactivity had been found in Sweden.
The levels of Cobalt 60 in the steel were considered harmless and the steel components have not been recalled, the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) told AFP.
"Dutch customs discovered that a shipment of industrial flanges from India to Sweden showed traces of Cobalt 60," a spokesman said.
That find led to the discovery that a similar shipment had been sent several weeks earlier from India and delivered to three companies at four sites in Sweden.
Skoeld said SSM had contacted France over the Swedish discovery.
"It seemed important to contact France to inform them of the contaminated steel flanges which also came from India," he said.
23 Oct 08 08:11 CET
Swedish officials discovered small traces of radioactivity on steel items imported from India and the same substance was found on Indian-made elevator buttons in France, officials said Wednesday.
The levels of Cobalt 60, a radioactive form of the metal, were considered harmless and the steel components have not been recalled, the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) told AFP.
"Dutch customs discovered that a shipment of industrial flanges from India to Sweden showed traces of Cobalt 60," SSM spokesman Mattias Sköld said.
That find led to the discovery that a similar shipment had been sent several weeks earlier from India and delivered to three companies at four sites in western, southern and central Sweden.
Sköld did not disclose the names of the companies that had received the contaminated parts, but said they were oil and heating groups.
"Inspections were carried out and it was found that the level (of Cobalt 60) found in these products was very low and wasn't dangerous," Sköld said.
The exact number of contaminated flanges was not known, he said. However, at one company, nine of 1,200 flanges were found to be contaminated with Cobalt 60.
On Wednesday, French elevator maker Otis said it would remove the buttons from hundreds of lifts it has installed after faint traces of Cobalt 60 were found in the Indian-made buttons.
Sköld said SSM had contacted France over the Swedish discovery.
"It seemed important to contact France to inform them of the contaminated steel flanges which also came from India," he said.
AFP/The Local (news@thelocal.se)
Going down! French engineers hunt radioactive elevator buttons
Paris, France (AFP) Oct 22, 2008
A French lift-maker scrambled Wednesday to remove buttons from hundreds of elevators after the nuclear safety authority said Indian-imported materials used in them were radioactive.
Otis planned to remove the buttons from "500 to 600 lifts out of the 2,500 that Otis has installed, modernised or repaired between August 21 and October 9 even if there is no danger for users," said a company spokesman.
The firm, a French subsidiary of the US group of the same name, also said it had isolated thousands of contaminated buttons in three production sites and would destroy them under the control of the country's nuclear waste authority. Employees of the sites were asked not to come to work on October 10, after the Nuclear Safety Authority (ASN) told Otis there were traces of radioactive Cobalt 60 in Indian-made buttons it had received, the company said.
Otis' announcements came after the ASN said Tuesday that 20 French workers who had handled buttons used in lifts had been exposed to to excessive levels of radiation.
The authority classed the incident at a factory of the Mafelec firm in the east-central town of Chimilin at level two on the seven-level International Nuclear Event Scale.
It said that of 30 workers exposed, 20 had been exposed to doses of between one mSv (milli-Sievert) and three mSv. The maximum permitted dose for workers in the non-nuclear sector is one mSv, said the ASN.
But France's institute of radioprotection (IRSN) said the health risk for the Mafelec workers was "extremely low."
The incident in the factory belonging to Mafelec, which delivers the buttons to Otis, happened in early October, said the Nuclear Safety Authority.
The Mafelec workers were using materials that came from an Indian supplier, it said. Faint traces of Cobalt 60, a radioactive form of the metal cobalt, were found in the buttons.
The ASN said it believed that several Indian companies had exported products contaminated with Cobalt 60 to a number of countries.
It named them as Bunts, Laxmi, SKM Steels, Vipras Castings, and Pradeep Metals, and said it was in contact with Indian authorities "in order to find out the result of inspections being carried out on these sites."
Officials here said the radioactivity in the buttons was probably due to the fact that the metals used to make them were from contaminated recycled materials.
Swedish officials meanwhile said Monday that steel items imported from India showing faint traces of radioactivity had been found in Sweden.
The levels of Cobalt 60 in the steel were considered harmless and the steel components have not been recalled, the Swedish Radiation Safety Authority (SSM) told AFP.
"Dutch customs discovered that a shipment of industrial flanges from India to Sweden showed traces of Cobalt 60," a spokesman said.
That find led to the discovery that a similar shipment had been sent several weeks earlier from India and delivered to three companies at four sites in Sweden.
Skoeld said SSM had contacted France over the Swedish discovery.
"It seemed important to contact France to inform them of the contaminated steel flanges which also came from India," he said.
India opposes putting asbestos in hazardous list
U.N. hazardous chemical treaty faces deadlock at meeting in Rome
“Government position is untenable”
NEW DELHI: Reacting to the “anti-worker and anti-science” position of few “reckless governments” that has created a stalemate for the U.N. hazardous chemicals treaty, the Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI) has accused Canadian, Russian and Indian governments of turning a blind eye towards the poisonous atmosphere around the asbestos factories and the dangers it poses to the health and life of citizens. This was being done just to pander to the industry’s hunger for profit at human cost, it said.
“The Indian government has betrayed the public interest by taking an unpardonable position that endangers each and every citizen of the country at the fourth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP-4) of the U.N.’s Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure (PIC) for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade in Rome,” a statement issued by BANI said here.
As a consequence, the hazardous chemicals treaty faces deadlock in the Rome meeting. A very important proposal was placed to wriggle out of the situation where chemicals that meet the Convention’s criteria but on which the COP fails to reach consensus about listing in Annex III as has happened in the case of chrystolite asbestos aend endosulphan. Chemical and chrystolite asbestos industries and countries like India, Russia and Canada are opposed to the inclusion of these chemicals in the list although they meet the criteria to be listed as hazardous chemical. Fearing certain defeat, Canada stated that introducing voting for Annex III would create a dual system that could weaken the Convention. The Indian government took an untenable position at a U.N. meeting in Rome by opposing the inclusion of chrystolite asbestos in the U.N.’s hazardous chemical list under the “influence” of asbestos industry and Canadian and Russian governments. A number of countries, including some that continue to mine and export chrystolite asbestos, blocked its addition to the PIC list when the Parties to the Convention last met in 2006 and further opposition is expected at next week’s meeting, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
India is the largest importer and consumer of Canadian and Russian asbestos to the detriment of its citizens and workers.
When the matter came up for discussion on October 28, head of the Indian delegation R.H. Khawaja, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment opposed the listing of chrystolite asbestos and endosulphan in the PIC list for hazardous chemicals and pesticides.
The Indian government’s delegation acted under tremendous pressure from the representatives of Indian chemical industry and chrystolite asbestos industry who dictated government’s official position, the BANI statement said.
31 October, 2008
The Hindu
“Government position is untenable”
NEW DELHI: Reacting to the “anti-worker and anti-science” position of few “reckless governments” that has created a stalemate for the U.N. hazardous chemicals treaty, the Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI) has accused Canadian, Russian and Indian governments of turning a blind eye towards the poisonous atmosphere around the asbestos factories and the dangers it poses to the health and life of citizens. This was being done just to pander to the industry’s hunger for profit at human cost, it said.
“The Indian government has betrayed the public interest by taking an unpardonable position that endangers each and every citizen of the country at the fourth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP-4) of the U.N.’s Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure (PIC) for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade in Rome,” a statement issued by BANI said here.
As a consequence, the hazardous chemicals treaty faces deadlock in the Rome meeting. A very important proposal was placed to wriggle out of the situation where chemicals that meet the Convention’s criteria but on which the COP fails to reach consensus about listing in Annex III as has happened in the case of chrystolite asbestos aend endosulphan. Chemical and chrystolite asbestos industries and countries like India, Russia and Canada are opposed to the inclusion of these chemicals in the list although they meet the criteria to be listed as hazardous chemical. Fearing certain defeat, Canada stated that introducing voting for Annex III would create a dual system that could weaken the Convention. The Indian government took an untenable position at a U.N. meeting in Rome by opposing the inclusion of chrystolite asbestos in the U.N.’s hazardous chemical list under the “influence” of asbestos industry and Canadian and Russian governments. A number of countries, including some that continue to mine and export chrystolite asbestos, blocked its addition to the PIC list when the Parties to the Convention last met in 2006 and further opposition is expected at next week’s meeting, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).
India is the largest importer and consumer of Canadian and Russian asbestos to the detriment of its citizens and workers.
When the matter came up for discussion on October 28, head of the Indian delegation R.H. Khawaja, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment opposed the listing of chrystolite asbestos and endosulphan in the PIC list for hazardous chemicals and pesticides.
The Indian government’s delegation acted under tremendous pressure from the representatives of Indian chemical industry and chrystolite asbestos industry who dictated government’s official position, the BANI statement said.
31 October, 2008
The Hindu
Indian government under chemical industry's vice like grip
Written By mediavigil on Thursday, October 30, 2008 | 6:23 AM
Will Rotterdam Convention put controls over the killer mineral?
PRODUCERS of chrysotile asbestos, India, Russia and Canada, will again try to scuttle any controls over the mineral under the Rotterdam Convention that allows countries to monitor and control trade and use of hazardous chemicals.
Conference of parties (CoP-4) to the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure will be held in October-end in Rome. In the earlier three meetings, India had opposed inclusion of chrysotile asbestos on the pic list of hazardous chemicals.
The government claims there is not enough scientific evidence to prove asbestos-related afflictions, though asbestos is known to cause cancer and asbestosis, a chronic respiratory disease.
To build up support for controls on chrysolite asbestos, the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS), an independent ngo working for a worldwide ban on asbestos and justice for its victims, released a dossier, India’s Asbestos Time Bomb, on September 25.
The dossier is authored by Indian and international scientists. “During CoP-4, the issue of including chrysolite asbestos in the pic list will come up, and we fear the Indian government will again play dirty and oppose its listing. In this monograph we have put together all scientific evidence to build up a case against chrysolite asbestos," said Madhumita Dutta of Chennai-based campaign group Corporate Accountability Desk.
According to the dossier, between 1960 and 2006, 6.7 million tonnes of asbestos was used in India. It claims that the asbestos industry in the country has gone scot-free, while thousands of workers are suffering. “India’s asbestos industry is worth Rs 3,000 crore. Its might can be gauged from the fact that in spite of 50 countries banning the use, manufacture and trade in asbestos, the Indian government continues to support it," said Gopal Krishna, coordinator of the Ban Asbestos Network of India, a group of health, environment and labour activists.
The government has not taken any action against asbestos use because politicians own most asbestos mines, allege activists. Rather in September 2007, India, along with Russia and Canada, blocked proposals to control the movement of asbestos wastes being considered by a working group of the Basel Convention, a treaty on control of hazardous waste movement across international borders. The Indian delegate argued that more research was needed before declaring chrysolite asbestos a hazardous substance.
Qamar Rahman, dean of Research and Development at the Integral University, Lucknow, along with the Central Pollution Control Board, carried out a study on asbestos effects in Rajasthan and Maharashtra in 2001-02. She found that 21 per cent workers in the unorganized sector had asbestosis. In the organized sector, 26 per cent of the workers had the disease, Rahman said in her paper that is a part of the dossier. The figures remain the same even now, she added.
“The Indian government rather engaged in a 'scientific' hogwash by hiring Ahmedabad-based National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) to study the health impacts of chrysolite asbestos on workers,” alleges the report. The Rs 60 lakh study is being partially funded by the Indian asbestos industry and its representatives are part of the review committee of the study.
“The NIOH study is designed to hoodwink the international community. The scientific community, along with the Indian government, is to be blamed for turning a blind eye towards the problem. Most doctors also do not try to find out the history of patients suffering from mesothelioma, a type of cancer caused due to exposure to asbestos. There is no safe limit of asbestos exposure,” said S R Kamat, a retired professor of respiratory medicine at KEM Hospital, Mumbai.
V Murlidhar, founder member of the Mumbai-based Occupational Health and Safety Centre, a medical officer on a un Mission in Iraq, explained how the Indian medical community colluded with the asbestos industry by misreporting asbestosis cases as tuberculosis. He alleged that premier research institutions undertake several studies on asbestosis but the results are never made public. Added Prahlad Malwadkas, Murlidhar's colleague: “Asbestos patients are fighting a legal battle for compensation in the Bombay Labour Court and it may take years before they receive even a penny.” The industry even manipulates court hearings, he alleged. “To prove that a person is an asbestosis patient, the certifying doctor needs to depose before the court. But for months Murlidhar did not get a chance to depose before the court. Every time he came back from Iraq for a court hearing, the hearing got deferred.”
NIDHI JAMWAL
October 2008
Down To Earth
Business First
Despite it being a proven carcinogen, India imported 3 lakh tonnes of asbestos in 2006
GOPAL KRISHNA
At the upcoming fourth UN meeting to be held in the last week of October in Rome, the Indian government is expected to once again remain consistent in colluding with the corporate interests of the asbestos industry against manifest public interest. White asbestos or Chrysotile fibre constitutes about 95 per cent of the world production and commercial use of asbestos primarily in the construction industry.
All kinds of asbestos including chrysotile cause cancer and according to World Health Organisation, “there is practically no safe level of exposure or use of asbestos against cancer”. It is a “silent killer” in that its effects are both gradual and not easily noticeable. But asbestos poisoning reaches everyone from the person mining it to the ultimate consumer of products containing asbestos.
Irrespective of the political party in power, India has opposed the inclusion of chrysotile, a lethal fibre in the list of UN's Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals in International Trade at the three previous conferences of the parties to the convention against the interest of the Indian workers and citizens.
Asbestos is a generic term used for several naturally occurring fibrous, silicate materials and is used in a variety of everyday as well as industrial applications. Broadly there are three varieties of asbestos referred to as blue, brown and white Asbestos; all of them tend to break into microscopic fibres. Because of their small size, once released, they remain suspended in the air. Asbestos fibres are indestructible — they are resistant to chemicals and heat.
The threat from inhalation of asbestos fibre was known as far back as 1924. But this fact was not disclosed to workers involved in the asbestos industry. By the mid-1930s, it was proved that a small amount of asbestos fibre in the lungs could be fatal.
Asbestos-induced diseases like Mesothelioma and asbestosis currently kill more people than any other single work-related illness. These diseases have no cure. Worse, once the exposure has taken place, merely removing the victim from the site does not limit or arrest the progress of the disease nor the risk of cancer.
White asbestos continues to be in use in India although blue and brown asbestos are banned. It is used mainly for water pipes or as roofing sheets in the construction industry. Asbestos dust can be inhaled while drilling a hole, cutting a pipe, repairing, renovating or demolishing a building. Clinical reports show that asbestosis, mesothelioma and lung cancer can show up even 25 to 40 years after exposure to asbestos.
Chrysotile is a convicted mass killer. There is no single product in day-to-day use at work or at home that strictly needs to be made from deadly asbestos. Even then, over 3,000 workplace and home-based products contain this poison. Cellulose fibre, PVA fibre, clay, stone tiles and steel are all good substitutes for asbestos. Although expensive at first, they work out to be cheaper in the long run because of their long life.
Few months back Dr Anbumani Ramadoss helplessly informed the parliament on asbestos "A lot of poor people use it. As regards the issue pertaining to banning of asbestos, on health grounds, the government certainly has not taken it up. It is an occupational hazard and people working in the asbestos factories are prone to lung cancer, but we are taking the enormity of the usage of asbestos. Mostly, poor people in the villages use it. Hence, I cannot take a decision on this issue."
Indeed it is for the Union Commerce Ministry to take a decision and amend the existing import policy for chrysotile without which the alarming rise in the asbestos consumption is unlikely to change. As per data released by the U.N. Statistics Division, India imported about 306,000 tonnes of asbestos in 2006. Of which, 152,820 tonnes was imported from Russia and 63,980 tonnes from Canada. It is estimated that cumulative asbestos consumption will exceed 7 million tonnes by the end of 2008. Of the total sales of asbestos cement products, more than half goes to the rural sector, while 20 and 30 percent are in the urban and industrial sectors, respectively. This is all the more dangerous given the sad state of medical facilities in rural areas. In any case asbestos diseases are preventable but incurable.
It is unpardonable for the ministry of commerce to succumb to pressures from the domestic asbestos industry which has been lobbying with the help of Chrysotile Asbestos Cement Products Manufacturers’ Association and Asbestos Information Centre, both corporate NGOs and sharing the same platform with the international asbestos producers using the International Chrysotile Association.
Some 50 countries have banned asbestos to safeguard their citizens and workers but Indian government officials, like R K Vaish, Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Environment and Forests have, astonishingly objected to the extension of prior-informed consent to cover white asbestos as a hazardous material subject to trade control. India has consistently joined hands with Russia and Canada — from where most of the asbestos is imported— to scuttle attempts to include the material in the international list of chemicals under the Rotterdam Convention. The Convention, which came into force in February 2004 under the United Nations Environment Programme, is a globally-binding instrument that provides an early warning system and transparent information on chemicals that have been banned or restricted by at least two countries.
The Indian government’s current stance at the upcoming Rome meeting goes against the interests of Indian workers and citizens. India must disassociate itself from Russian and Canada, which have successfully blocked consideration of a proposed UN initiative on trade in white asbestos with support from Russia and 12 other asbestos-producing countries. The recent years have witnessed global movement against asbestos gaining ground amid reports of asbestos companies going bankrupt due to their huge compensation liabilities. Following on the footsteps of Europe, the latest countries to ban asbestos are South Africa, Japan and Australia.
Unmindful of the fact that “poison” does not become “non-poisonous” as a result of advertising and public relations campaigns, the asbestos producing countries and asbestos industry continues to support mythical “safe” and “responsible” use of white asbestos turning a blind eye towards disastrous health consequences.
The story of such criminal recklessness by the asbestos industry has been documented in a recently released dossier titled "India's Asbestos Time Bomb". The dossier recommends, "The only way for the government to remedy the situation created by the asbestos industry is to implement a complete ban on the mining, manufacture, use and trade of all kinds of asbestos including chrysotile (white asbestos)."
While the reality is quite grim as far as the workers and consumers are concerned, industry continues to enjoy the patronage of the central and state governments. So much so that on 24 September, 2008 an investment advisory said, "If I were to sell my house and buy a stock I would probably buy this (Visaka Industries) asbestos-cement (AC) sheets manufacturing stock because it is coming at a very good valuation and there is a significant increase in profits expected over the next two years."
A paper titled Asbestos-Related Disease in India notes: "Although mesothelioma, asbestos related lung cancer are recognised worldwide, in India, neither one of the diseases is commonly reported. This is not surprising as in India, cancer is not a notifiable disease.” It has resulted in the failure of the medical professionals who are not trained to issue asbestos related diagnoses, leaving the victims with no option but to die a slow and painful death.
It is noteworthy that under massive criticism from all quarters both the ministries of Environment and Forests and Labour and Employment admitted on 17 March 2008 in the Rajya Sabha and on 20 March 2008 in the Lok Sabha that the government has undertaken a conflict of interest ridden study to give clean chit to chrysotile, a human carcinogen.
Earlier in its 2001 verdict, Appellate Body of World Trade Organisation while upholding chrysotile ban in France had soundly rejected the "controlled use" and safe use argument of the Canadian asbestos industry. In its 95th Session of the International Labour Conference on 14 June 2006, International Labour Organisation adopted a resolution for the elimination of all forms of asbestos from future use as the only way forward for protecting workers. It passed this resolution: "Considering that all forms of asbestos, including chrysotile, are classified as known human carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a classification restated by the International Programme on Chemical Safety (a joint Programme of the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme)".
In the light of the an unprecedented occupational health crisis due to ongoing asbestos exposure, environmental, labour and human rights organisations have called upon the government to support the inclusion of chrysotile in the list of the Convention.
What is most alarming is that as of now there is a political consensus to promote its use in India. The acts of omission and commission by all the agencies that are working in tandem with Russian and Canadian asbestos producers must be brought under a scanner to set matters right. Insulated from media's attention in India, death toll due to asbestos is rising at an alarming rate. Even as such manifest acts of corporate crimes are underway routinely without any conviction till date, all news agencies remain dogmatically focussed on street crimes. Both state and central governments have devised a very simple way of responding to it. They have ensured that the deaths caused by asbestos are not recorded by any institution. As it stands now, Indian asbestos industry is well-insulated from the ongoing global ban on asbestos.
October, 2008
PRODUCERS of chrysotile asbestos, India, Russia and Canada, will again try to scuttle any controls over the mineral under the Rotterdam Convention that allows countries to monitor and control trade and use of hazardous chemicals.
Conference of parties (CoP-4) to the Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure will be held in October-end in Rome. In the earlier three meetings, India had opposed inclusion of chrysotile asbestos on the pic list of hazardous chemicals.
The government claims there is not enough scientific evidence to prove asbestos-related afflictions, though asbestos is known to cause cancer and asbestosis, a chronic respiratory disease.
To build up support for controls on chrysolite asbestos, the International Ban Asbestos Secretariat (IBAS), an independent ngo working for a worldwide ban on asbestos and justice for its victims, released a dossier, India’s Asbestos Time Bomb, on September 25.
The dossier is authored by Indian and international scientists. “During CoP-4, the issue of including chrysolite asbestos in the pic list will come up, and we fear the Indian government will again play dirty and oppose its listing. In this monograph we have put together all scientific evidence to build up a case against chrysolite asbestos," said Madhumita Dutta of Chennai-based campaign group Corporate Accountability Desk.
According to the dossier, between 1960 and 2006, 6.7 million tonnes of asbestos was used in India. It claims that the asbestos industry in the country has gone scot-free, while thousands of workers are suffering. “India’s asbestos industry is worth Rs 3,000 crore. Its might can be gauged from the fact that in spite of 50 countries banning the use, manufacture and trade in asbestos, the Indian government continues to support it," said Gopal Krishna, coordinator of the Ban Asbestos Network of India, a group of health, environment and labour activists.
The government has not taken any action against asbestos use because politicians own most asbestos mines, allege activists. Rather in September 2007, India, along with Russia and Canada, blocked proposals to control the movement of asbestos wastes being considered by a working group of the Basel Convention, a treaty on control of hazardous waste movement across international borders. The Indian delegate argued that more research was needed before declaring chrysolite asbestos a hazardous substance.
Qamar Rahman, dean of Research and Development at the Integral University, Lucknow, along with the Central Pollution Control Board, carried out a study on asbestos effects in Rajasthan and Maharashtra in 2001-02. She found that 21 per cent workers in the unorganized sector had asbestosis. In the organized sector, 26 per cent of the workers had the disease, Rahman said in her paper that is a part of the dossier. The figures remain the same even now, she added.
“The Indian government rather engaged in a 'scientific' hogwash by hiring Ahmedabad-based National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH) to study the health impacts of chrysolite asbestos on workers,” alleges the report. The Rs 60 lakh study is being partially funded by the Indian asbestos industry and its representatives are part of the review committee of the study.
“The NIOH study is designed to hoodwink the international community. The scientific community, along with the Indian government, is to be blamed for turning a blind eye towards the problem. Most doctors also do not try to find out the history of patients suffering from mesothelioma, a type of cancer caused due to exposure to asbestos. There is no safe limit of asbestos exposure,” said S R Kamat, a retired professor of respiratory medicine at KEM Hospital, Mumbai.
V Murlidhar, founder member of the Mumbai-based Occupational Health and Safety Centre, a medical officer on a un Mission in Iraq, explained how the Indian medical community colluded with the asbestos industry by misreporting asbestosis cases as tuberculosis. He alleged that premier research institutions undertake several studies on asbestosis but the results are never made public. Added Prahlad Malwadkas, Murlidhar's colleague: “Asbestos patients are fighting a legal battle for compensation in the Bombay Labour Court and it may take years before they receive even a penny.” The industry even manipulates court hearings, he alleged. “To prove that a person is an asbestosis patient, the certifying doctor needs to depose before the court. But for months Murlidhar did not get a chance to depose before the court. Every time he came back from Iraq for a court hearing, the hearing got deferred.”
NIDHI JAMWAL
October 2008
Down To Earth
Business First
Despite it being a proven carcinogen, India imported 3 lakh tonnes of asbestos in 2006
GOPAL KRISHNA
At the upcoming fourth UN meeting to be held in the last week of October in Rome, the Indian government is expected to once again remain consistent in colluding with the corporate interests of the asbestos industry against manifest public interest. White asbestos or Chrysotile fibre constitutes about 95 per cent of the world production and commercial use of asbestos primarily in the construction industry.
All kinds of asbestos including chrysotile cause cancer and according to World Health Organisation, “there is practically no safe level of exposure or use of asbestos against cancer”. It is a “silent killer” in that its effects are both gradual and not easily noticeable. But asbestos poisoning reaches everyone from the person mining it to the ultimate consumer of products containing asbestos.
Irrespective of the political party in power, India has opposed the inclusion of chrysotile, a lethal fibre in the list of UN's Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals in International Trade at the three previous conferences of the parties to the convention against the interest of the Indian workers and citizens.
Asbestos is a generic term used for several naturally occurring fibrous, silicate materials and is used in a variety of everyday as well as industrial applications. Broadly there are three varieties of asbestos referred to as blue, brown and white Asbestos; all of them tend to break into microscopic fibres. Because of their small size, once released, they remain suspended in the air. Asbestos fibres are indestructible — they are resistant to chemicals and heat.
The threat from inhalation of asbestos fibre was known as far back as 1924. But this fact was not disclosed to workers involved in the asbestos industry. By the mid-1930s, it was proved that a small amount of asbestos fibre in the lungs could be fatal.
Asbestos-induced diseases like Mesothelioma and asbestosis currently kill more people than any other single work-related illness. These diseases have no cure. Worse, once the exposure has taken place, merely removing the victim from the site does not limit or arrest the progress of the disease nor the risk of cancer.
White asbestos continues to be in use in India although blue and brown asbestos are banned. It is used mainly for water pipes or as roofing sheets in the construction industry. Asbestos dust can be inhaled while drilling a hole, cutting a pipe, repairing, renovating or demolishing a building. Clinical reports show that asbestosis, mesothelioma and lung cancer can show up even 25 to 40 years after exposure to asbestos.
Chrysotile is a convicted mass killer. There is no single product in day-to-day use at work or at home that strictly needs to be made from deadly asbestos. Even then, over 3,000 workplace and home-based products contain this poison. Cellulose fibre, PVA fibre, clay, stone tiles and steel are all good substitutes for asbestos. Although expensive at first, they work out to be cheaper in the long run because of their long life.
Few months back Dr Anbumani Ramadoss helplessly informed the parliament on asbestos "A lot of poor people use it. As regards the issue pertaining to banning of asbestos, on health grounds, the government certainly has not taken it up. It is an occupational hazard and people working in the asbestos factories are prone to lung cancer, but we are taking the enormity of the usage of asbestos. Mostly, poor people in the villages use it. Hence, I cannot take a decision on this issue."
Indeed it is for the Union Commerce Ministry to take a decision and amend the existing import policy for chrysotile without which the alarming rise in the asbestos consumption is unlikely to change. As per data released by the U.N. Statistics Division, India imported about 306,000 tonnes of asbestos in 2006. Of which, 152,820 tonnes was imported from Russia and 63,980 tonnes from Canada. It is estimated that cumulative asbestos consumption will exceed 7 million tonnes by the end of 2008. Of the total sales of asbestos cement products, more than half goes to the rural sector, while 20 and 30 percent are in the urban and industrial sectors, respectively. This is all the more dangerous given the sad state of medical facilities in rural areas. In any case asbestos diseases are preventable but incurable.
It is unpardonable for the ministry of commerce to succumb to pressures from the domestic asbestos industry which has been lobbying with the help of Chrysotile Asbestos Cement Products Manufacturers’ Association and Asbestos Information Centre, both corporate NGOs and sharing the same platform with the international asbestos producers using the International Chrysotile Association.
Some 50 countries have banned asbestos to safeguard their citizens and workers but Indian government officials, like R K Vaish, Joint Secretary, Union Ministry of Environment and Forests have, astonishingly objected to the extension of prior-informed consent to cover white asbestos as a hazardous material subject to trade control. India has consistently joined hands with Russia and Canada — from where most of the asbestos is imported— to scuttle attempts to include the material in the international list of chemicals under the Rotterdam Convention. The Convention, which came into force in February 2004 under the United Nations Environment Programme, is a globally-binding instrument that provides an early warning system and transparent information on chemicals that have been banned or restricted by at least two countries.
The Indian government’s current stance at the upcoming Rome meeting goes against the interests of Indian workers and citizens. India must disassociate itself from Russian and Canada, which have successfully blocked consideration of a proposed UN initiative on trade in white asbestos with support from Russia and 12 other asbestos-producing countries. The recent years have witnessed global movement against asbestos gaining ground amid reports of asbestos companies going bankrupt due to their huge compensation liabilities. Following on the footsteps of Europe, the latest countries to ban asbestos are South Africa, Japan and Australia.
Unmindful of the fact that “poison” does not become “non-poisonous” as a result of advertising and public relations campaigns, the asbestos producing countries and asbestos industry continues to support mythical “safe” and “responsible” use of white asbestos turning a blind eye towards disastrous health consequences.
The story of such criminal recklessness by the asbestos industry has been documented in a recently released dossier titled "India's Asbestos Time Bomb". The dossier recommends, "The only way for the government to remedy the situation created by the asbestos industry is to implement a complete ban on the mining, manufacture, use and trade of all kinds of asbestos including chrysotile (white asbestos)."
While the reality is quite grim as far as the workers and consumers are concerned, industry continues to enjoy the patronage of the central and state governments. So much so that on 24 September, 2008 an investment advisory said, "If I were to sell my house and buy a stock I would probably buy this (Visaka Industries) asbestos-cement (AC) sheets manufacturing stock because it is coming at a very good valuation and there is a significant increase in profits expected over the next two years."
A paper titled Asbestos-Related Disease in India notes: "Although mesothelioma, asbestos related lung cancer are recognised worldwide, in India, neither one of the diseases is commonly reported. This is not surprising as in India, cancer is not a notifiable disease.” It has resulted in the failure of the medical professionals who are not trained to issue asbestos related diagnoses, leaving the victims with no option but to die a slow and painful death.
It is noteworthy that under massive criticism from all quarters both the ministries of Environment and Forests and Labour and Employment admitted on 17 March 2008 in the Rajya Sabha and on 20 March 2008 in the Lok Sabha that the government has undertaken a conflict of interest ridden study to give clean chit to chrysotile, a human carcinogen.
Earlier in its 2001 verdict, Appellate Body of World Trade Organisation while upholding chrysotile ban in France had soundly rejected the "controlled use" and safe use argument of the Canadian asbestos industry. In its 95th Session of the International Labour Conference on 14 June 2006, International Labour Organisation adopted a resolution for the elimination of all forms of asbestos from future use as the only way forward for protecting workers. It passed this resolution: "Considering that all forms of asbestos, including chrysotile, are classified as known human carcinogens by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, a classification restated by the International Programme on Chemical Safety (a joint Programme of the International Labour Organization, the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environment Programme)".
In the light of the an unprecedented occupational health crisis due to ongoing asbestos exposure, environmental, labour and human rights organisations have called upon the government to support the inclusion of chrysotile in the list of the Convention.
What is most alarming is that as of now there is a political consensus to promote its use in India. The acts of omission and commission by all the agencies that are working in tandem with Russian and Canadian asbestos producers must be brought under a scanner to set matters right. Insulated from media's attention in India, death toll due to asbestos is rising at an alarming rate. Even as such manifest acts of corporate crimes are underway routinely without any conviction till date, all news agencies remain dogmatically focussed on street crimes. Both state and central governments have devised a very simple way of responding to it. They have ensured that the deaths caused by asbestos are not recorded by any institution. As it stands now, Indian asbestos industry is well-insulated from the ongoing global ban on asbestos.
October, 2008
Cell Phone Boycott Protests War in Congo
Written By mediavigil on Wednesday, October 29, 2008 | 11:32 AM
Note:What Is Coltan? It is Columbite-tantalite — coltan for short — is a dull metallic ore found in major quantities in the eastern areas of Congo. When refined, coltan becomes metallic tantalum, a heat-resistant powder that can hold a high electrical charge. These properties make it a vital element in creating capacitors, the electronic elements that control current flow inside miniature circuit boards. Tantalum capacitors are used in almost all cell phones, laptops, pagers and many other electronics. The recent technology boom caused the price of coltan to skyrocket to as much as $400 a kilogram at one point, as companies such as Nokia and Sony struggled to meet demand.
Coltan is mined through a fairly primitive process similar to how gold was mined in California during the 1800s. Dozens of men work together digging large craters in streambeds, scraping away dirt from the surface in order to get to the coltan underground. The workers then slosh water and mud around in large washtubs, allowing the coltan to settle to the bottom due to its heavy weight. A good worker can produce one kilogram of coltan a day.
Coltan mining is very well paid in Congo terms. The average Congolese worker makes $10 a month, while a coltan miner can make anywhere from $10 to $50 a week.
A U.N. Security Council report recently outlined the alleged exploitation of natural resources, including coltan, from Congo by other countries involved in the current war. There are reports that forces from neighboring Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi are involved in smuggling coltan from Congo, using the revenues generated from the high price of coltan to sustain their efforts in the war. By one estimate, the Rwandan army made at least $250 million over a period of 18 months through the sale of coltan, even though no coltan is mined in Rwanda. All countries involved in the war deny exploiting Congo's natural resources.
Environmental Consequences
In order to mine for coltan, rebels have overrun Congo's national parks, clearing out large chunks of the area's lush forests. In addition, the poverty and starvation caused by the war have driven some miners and rebels to hunt the parks' endangered elephants and gorillas for food. In Kahuzi Biega National Park, for example, the gorilla population has been cut nearly in half, from 258 to 130.
Tracing the Source
The path that coltan takes to get from Central Africa to the world market is a highly convoluted one, with legitimate mining operations often being confused with illegal rebel operations, and vice versa, making it difficult to trace the origin. To be safe, in recent months many electronics companies have publicly rejected the use of coltan from anywhere in Central Africa, instead relying on their main suppliers in Australia. American-based Kemet, the world's largest maker of tantalum capacitors, has asked its suppliers to certify that their coltan ore does not come from Congo or bordering countries. But it may be a case of too little, too late. Much of the coltan illegally stolen from Congo is already in laptops, cell phones and electronics all over the world.
Cell Phone Boycott Protests War in Congo
WASHINGTON: A student and activist coalition is urging cell phone users to "Cell Out" this afternoon in solidarity with the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where millions have died as a result of conflict over coltan, a rare mineral used in cell phones and other electronics.
Friends of the Congo is working with university students at dozens of colleges and universities in the United States and around the world to carry out a cell phone boycott between noon and 6:00 PM Wednesday.
The boycott is part of "Break the Silence Week," an effort to raise awareness among cell phone users and others about the ongoing civil war in the DRC and the role of minerals such as coltan in stoking the conflict.
The organizers particularly want to reach the media, which has provided little coverage of a chronic conflict in which nearly 6 million people have died since 1997, and some 45,000 people die each month.
The United Nations characterized the conflict in the Congo as the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.
Congolese journalism student Kambale Masavuli, a student at North Carolina A&T University and one of the organizers of this week's events, said about the large numbers of deaths: "The equivalent of a Darfur happens in the Congo every five and a half months, yet mainstream media does not cover the Congo properly."
Most of the world's coltan (short for columbite tantalite) is found in the DRC -- about 80 percent. Armed militias from Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, along with local militias from the DRC, are exploiting most of the reserves and selling the product to multinational corporations that produce cell phones and other electronic devices.
Companies benefiting from the coltan wars are based in Belgium, China, and Germany, along with several in the United States. Once processed, coltan is used by major firms such as Nokia, Compaq, and IBM in products as diverse as pacemakers, jet engines, digital cameras, and laptops, as well as cell phones.
The presence of these armed militias has been deadly for local populations in eastern DRC, where frequent attacks by militias have forced countless numbers to flee their homes and villages. According to UNICEF, many women and girls have been raped, and the lives of large numbers of young children are put at risk.
In mid-September a spike in the fighting over control of coltan mines produced "a brutal impact on the children and women of the Kivus," said UNICEF's Julien Harneis, referring to an area in the eastern part of the country that has long been considered the epicenter of the fighting. "Many children are split up from their families as they flee; in displacement they are even more vulnerable to malaria, measles, cholera, and malnutrition."
In addition to the "Cell Out" boycott, the organizers of Break the Silence Week are also encouraging university students to show a film or video on the Congo, ask a professor to teach a special class, or ask university administrators to issue a public statement deploring the situation in the Congo and the lack of media coverage.
Alison Raphael, OneWorld US
http://us.oneworld.net/article/358139-cell-phone-boycott-protests-war-congo
Coltan is mined through a fairly primitive process similar to how gold was mined in California during the 1800s. Dozens of men work together digging large craters in streambeds, scraping away dirt from the surface in order to get to the coltan underground. The workers then slosh water and mud around in large washtubs, allowing the coltan to settle to the bottom due to its heavy weight. A good worker can produce one kilogram of coltan a day.
Coltan mining is very well paid in Congo terms. The average Congolese worker makes $10 a month, while a coltan miner can make anywhere from $10 to $50 a week.
A U.N. Security Council report recently outlined the alleged exploitation of natural resources, including coltan, from Congo by other countries involved in the current war. There are reports that forces from neighboring Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi are involved in smuggling coltan from Congo, using the revenues generated from the high price of coltan to sustain their efforts in the war. By one estimate, the Rwandan army made at least $250 million over a period of 18 months through the sale of coltan, even though no coltan is mined in Rwanda. All countries involved in the war deny exploiting Congo's natural resources.
Environmental Consequences
In order to mine for coltan, rebels have overrun Congo's national parks, clearing out large chunks of the area's lush forests. In addition, the poverty and starvation caused by the war have driven some miners and rebels to hunt the parks' endangered elephants and gorillas for food. In Kahuzi Biega National Park, for example, the gorilla population has been cut nearly in half, from 258 to 130.
Tracing the Source
The path that coltan takes to get from Central Africa to the world market is a highly convoluted one, with legitimate mining operations often being confused with illegal rebel operations, and vice versa, making it difficult to trace the origin. To be safe, in recent months many electronics companies have publicly rejected the use of coltan from anywhere in Central Africa, instead relying on their main suppliers in Australia. American-based Kemet, the world's largest maker of tantalum capacitors, has asked its suppliers to certify that their coltan ore does not come from Congo or bordering countries. But it may be a case of too little, too late. Much of the coltan illegally stolen from Congo is already in laptops, cell phones and electronics all over the world.
Cell Phone Boycott Protests War in Congo
WASHINGTON: A student and activist coalition is urging cell phone users to "Cell Out" this afternoon in solidarity with the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), where millions have died as a result of conflict over coltan, a rare mineral used in cell phones and other electronics.
Friends of the Congo is working with university students at dozens of colleges and universities in the United States and around the world to carry out a cell phone boycott between noon and 6:00 PM Wednesday.
The boycott is part of "Break the Silence Week," an effort to raise awareness among cell phone users and others about the ongoing civil war in the DRC and the role of minerals such as coltan in stoking the conflict.
The organizers particularly want to reach the media, which has provided little coverage of a chronic conflict in which nearly 6 million people have died since 1997, and some 45,000 people die each month.
The United Nations characterized the conflict in the Congo as the worst humanitarian crisis since World War II.
Congolese journalism student Kambale Masavuli, a student at North Carolina A&T University and one of the organizers of this week's events, said about the large numbers of deaths: "The equivalent of a Darfur happens in the Congo every five and a half months, yet mainstream media does not cover the Congo properly."
Most of the world's coltan (short for columbite tantalite) is found in the DRC -- about 80 percent. Armed militias from Rwanda, Uganda, and Burundi, along with local militias from the DRC, are exploiting most of the reserves and selling the product to multinational corporations that produce cell phones and other electronic devices.
Companies benefiting from the coltan wars are based in Belgium, China, and Germany, along with several in the United States. Once processed, coltan is used by major firms such as Nokia, Compaq, and IBM in products as diverse as pacemakers, jet engines, digital cameras, and laptops, as well as cell phones.
The presence of these armed militias has been deadly for local populations in eastern DRC, where frequent attacks by militias have forced countless numbers to flee their homes and villages. According to UNICEF, many women and girls have been raped, and the lives of large numbers of young children are put at risk.
In mid-September a spike in the fighting over control of coltan mines produced "a brutal impact on the children and women of the Kivus," said UNICEF's Julien Harneis, referring to an area in the eastern part of the country that has long been considered the epicenter of the fighting. "Many children are split up from their families as they flee; in displacement they are even more vulnerable to malaria, measles, cholera, and malnutrition."
In addition to the "Cell Out" boycott, the organizers of Break the Silence Week are also encouraging university students to show a film or video on the Congo, ask a professor to teach a special class, or ask university administrators to issue a public statement deploring the situation in the Congo and the lack of media coverage.
Alison Raphael, OneWorld US
http://us.oneworld.net/article/358139-cell-phone-boycott-protests-war-congo
Indian govt betrays its citizens supports asbestos industry
Written By mediavigil on Tuesday, October 28, 2008 | 11:10 AM
Indian government took an internationally untenable position on 28th October at a UN meeting in Rome by opposing the inclusion of Chrysotile Asbestos in the UN's hazardous chemical list under the manifest influence of Asbestos industry and Canadian and Russian governments.
Italy born President of Indian National Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi and her government headed by Manmohan Singh ignored the appeals by its own Environment & Health Ministry along with trade unions & environmental groups to support the inclusion of Chrysotile Asbestos in the list of hazardous chemicals but Indian officials at the UN meeting in Rome are all set to disregard the public interest concerns and be guided by the industry.
Manmohan Singh government has betrayed the public interest by taking an unpardonable position that endangers each and every citizen of the country at the fourth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP-4) of the UN's Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure (PIC) for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade commenced today at the headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome, Italy. The meeting would conclude on 31 October.
There are 39 substances on the Rotterdam Convention's international trade watch list, under which an exporting nation must ensure no substance on the list leaves its territory without the consent of the recipient country. The watch list is formally known as the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade.
Chrysotile asbestos, which is widely used in building materials, accounts for some 94 per cent of global asbestos production. The UN World Health Organization (WHO) has identified it as a human carcinogen, and reports that at least 90,000 people die each year of asbestos-related diseases such as lung cancer and mesothelioma. And International Labour Organisation has called for the elimination of its use.
A number of countries, including some that continue to mine and export chrysotile asbestos, blocked its addition to the PIC list when the Parties to the Convention last met in 2006 and further opposition is expected at next week's meeting, according to FAO. India is the largest importers and consumers of Canadian and Russian asbestos to the detriment of its citizens and workers.
Manmohan Singh government has turned a blind eye towards how the atmosphere around asbestos factory and asbestos products becomes poisonous.
When the matter came for discussion on 28 October, Head of the Indian delegation R H Khawaja, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment opposed the listing of Chrysotile asbestos and endosulphan in the PIC list for hazardous chemicals and pesticides. Indian government's delegation acted under tremendous pressure from the representatives of Indian Chemical Industry and Chrysotile asbestos industry who dictated government's official position.
Reacting to the unfortunate position of the government for the fourth time, Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI) condemned the Indian position and said,
"It clearly illustrates that the ruling Indian National Congress Party politicians are either themselves owners of asbestos companies or are in hand in glove with these companies in their naked lust for profit."
--
For Details:Gopal Krishna,Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI), Mb: 9818089660
E-mail:krishnagreen@gmail.com
Italy born President of Indian National Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi and her government headed by Manmohan Singh ignored the appeals by its own Environment & Health Ministry along with trade unions & environmental groups to support the inclusion of Chrysotile Asbestos in the list of hazardous chemicals but Indian officials at the UN meeting in Rome are all set to disregard the public interest concerns and be guided by the industry.
Manmohan Singh government has betrayed the public interest by taking an unpardonable position that endangers each and every citizen of the country at the fourth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP-4) of the UN's Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure (PIC) for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade commenced today at the headquarters of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Rome, Italy. The meeting would conclude on 31 October.
There are 39 substances on the Rotterdam Convention's international trade watch list, under which an exporting nation must ensure no substance on the list leaves its territory without the consent of the recipient country. The watch list is formally known as the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) Procedure for Certain Hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in International Trade.
Chrysotile asbestos, which is widely used in building materials, accounts for some 94 per cent of global asbestos production. The UN World Health Organization (WHO) has identified it as a human carcinogen, and reports that at least 90,000 people die each year of asbestos-related diseases such as lung cancer and mesothelioma. And International Labour Organisation has called for the elimination of its use.
A number of countries, including some that continue to mine and export chrysotile asbestos, blocked its addition to the PIC list when the Parties to the Convention last met in 2006 and further opposition is expected at next week's meeting, according to FAO. India is the largest importers and consumers of Canadian and Russian asbestos to the detriment of its citizens and workers.
Manmohan Singh government has turned a blind eye towards how the atmosphere around asbestos factory and asbestos products becomes poisonous.
When the matter came for discussion on 28 October, Head of the Indian delegation R H Khawaja, Additional Secretary, Ministry of Environment opposed the listing of Chrysotile asbestos and endosulphan in the PIC list for hazardous chemicals and pesticides. Indian government's delegation acted under tremendous pressure from the representatives of Indian Chemical Industry and Chrysotile asbestos industry who dictated government's official position.
Reacting to the unfortunate position of the government for the fourth time, Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI) condemned the Indian position and said,
"It clearly illustrates that the ruling Indian National Congress Party politicians are either themselves owners of asbestos companies or are in hand in glove with these companies in their naked lust for profit."
--
For Details:Gopal Krishna,Ban Asbestos Network of India (BANI), Mb: 9818089660
E-mail:krishnagreen@gmail.com
Carfree Cities
Written By mediavigil on Monday, October 27, 2008 | 2:12 PM
Carfree Cities, a book authored by J.H. Crawford offers a practical solution to the many urban problems caused by cars and trucks. The carfree city saves energy, preserves the environment, and improves the quality of our lives.
Imagine life in a city free from the noise, stench, and danger of cars, trucks, and buses. Imagine that all basic needs, from groceries to child care, lie within a five-minute walk of every doorstep. Imagine that no commute takes more than 35 minutes from door to door, and that service is provided by a fast, cheap, safe, comfortable public transport system. This is the future that J.H. Crawford envisions in Carfree Cities.
YARDSTICKS FOR CITIES
Throughout this book, we will be discussing urban form. In order to make meaningful comparisons of various urban forms, we will need some measuring tools to assist us in comparing cities and their success at meeting human needs. Transport systems exert a large influence on urban form and the quality of urban life, and urban form in turn exercises considerable influence on transport systems. Because the relationship between transport systems and quality of life is so important, many of the measures assess the performance of transport systems or the resources they consume.
The first part of this chapter defines a number of measures that indicate how well a city performs its function as the host for civilization. The second part applies these measures to two extreme urban forms: auto-centric Los Angeles and carfree Venice.
Fine public amenities, Zermatt, Switzerland, 1998 Quality-of-Life Measures
Quality of life, as distinct from standard of living, cannot be measured directly, but several numerical measures are useful:
Frequency of days with poor air quality
Infant mortality rate
Poverty index
Unemployment rate
Literacy rate
Incarceration rate
Incidence of mental illness
Near the Torre dell’Orologio, Venice, 1997
This street in Venice is built at human scale. By the standards given here, it is nearly perfect. It lacks a bench, for which there is clearly no room. Public drinking water and toilets are available in Venice.
Except for air pollution, the range of variation on these measures will be relatively small among cities in rich nations.
To these statistical measures of quality of life, we must add one quality that is difficult to quantify: the prevalence of neighborhoods built on a human scale to serve human needs. Such neighborhoods are usually characterized by the following attributes:
Priority for pedestrians
Buildings no higher than six stories
Buildings oriented towards the street
Active street life created by mixed uses
Small signs without internal illumination
Public amenities such as drinking fountains & benches
Nearby, attractive parks
Strip mall, Los Angeles, 1999
This public area was scaled for cars, not people. The paved area is at least ten times larger than what would be required for foot traffic alone. Nobody cares what this place looks like, so it looks awful.
Transport Measures
A transport system is an integral part of a city and affects many spheres of life. Four points of comparison are especially important: travel time, area of land consumed, direct costs, and externalized costs.
Travel Time
The total time each person spends on travel is affected by both the distances to be traveled and the average speed of the trips. The following characteristics reduce the total distance that must be covered:
Compact development, so no part of the city is far away
Basic shopping within walking distance
Work, school, and health care close to home
The following attributes of any transport system, whether public or private, reduce the door-to-door travel time for a given trip:
Short walking distance to transport
No wait for service
No need to transfer from one vehicle to another
Direct routing without intermediate stops
High acceleration
High speed
Suburban sprawl is typified by the US pattern of postwar development. Single-family houses are built on large lots. Nonresidential functions are located in specialized districts, far from home.
Car drivers usually escape walking, waiting, and transferring, but in many urban areas these savings are overbalanced by the effects of suburban sprawl, which forces people to:
Drive to all shopping
Drive an hour or more to routine destinations
Search for parking
Wait in traffic
The Central Artery project in Boston will bury 257 lane-kilometers of highway costing $10.6 billion and will provide capacity for 190,000 cars each day, so the capital cost per daily car is $55,000.
http://www.bigdig.com Land Consumed by Transport
Transport systems must be measured against the area of land they occupy. A road lane and a railroad track are each roughly 4 meters wide. About 2000 cars/hr can pass over one traffic lane. At typical occupancy rates, this is just 2500 people/hr. Trains, on the other hand, can carry 50,000 passengers/hr over a single track. Cars are therefore up to 20 times more land intensive than trains for the same capacity, before any allowance is made for car parking. While railroads can be built underground, roads are too wide for routine tunneling.
The American Automobile Association estimates the direct costs of a mid-sized car at $4504/year.
from “Transportation Cost Analysis”
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
http://www.vtpi.org/tcasum.htm Direct Costs
The direct costs of passenger transport are easily measured. Transport is a large item in most family budgets, and this is especially true of families in sprawling suburbs, many of whom must own and operate several cars in order to meet their transport needs. Travel costs include mileage-based costs, per-trip costs, and periodic costs. The following table gives examples of costs paid by car and urban rail travelers:
Most urban rail systems charge a flat rate per trip, but some systems charge fares based on distance. Of course, if a passenger buys a season ticket, his entire cost is periodic and unaffected by usage.
Car Urban rail
Cost per unit distance Gasoline Nil
Cost per trip Parking Flat-rate
Cost per year Insurance Nil
Proposals have been made to charge for insurance on a per-mile rather than a per-year basis, in order to discourage driving and charge drivers for their actual risk exposure. Passengers usually pay at least some of the direct costs, but governments often subsidize much of the remainder. (In the USA, virtually every passenger transport mode is subsidized, directly or indirectly.) Most car drivers underestimate the out-of-pocket cost of driving and are unaware of the large subsidy they receive. Drivers tend to equate their costs of driving to the cost of gasoline consumed plus parking and tolls, but the driver actually pays much more than this: depreciation and maintenance are large costs that are not paid at the time of travel, so drivers are not particularly aware of them. The system is arranged in such a way that, once you have a car, the cost of driving additional distance seems fairly low, which tends to encourage more driving.
Externalized costs are the monetary and nonmaterial costs imposed on society at large by the consumer of a product or service.
Externalized Costs
While many externalized costs are difficult to measure, they are at least as important as direct costs. Every transport system externalizes costs to its neighbors and to the global ecosystem. For example, car drivers externalize the following costs:
Death & injury to bystanders
Intimidation of pedestrians & bicyclists
Diminished freedom for children
Road maintenance costs in excess of road taxes
Reduced availability of public transport
Noise & vibration
Air pollution & climate change
Loss of beauty to visual clutter
Deterioration of human-scale public spaces
Richard Risemberg was kind enough to share his local knowledge of Los Angeles. He and his son Jack took the photographs of Los Angeles, which are far from the worst examples that might be chosen: this is simply what Los Angeles looks like.
The Yardsticks Applied
The next ten pages contrast various facets of life in auto-centric Los Angeles and carfree Venice, using our yardsticks. First a few words by way of introduction.
Each page contrasts one aspect of life in both cities, taking first Los Angeles and then Venice. For each city, the influence of transport on that aspect of life is taken up first, followed by the consequences for quality of life in that city.
Some reviewers held such a comparison to be unfair, and while this criticism may be accurate, it misses the point. The comparison merely highlights the extreme deterioration of public spaces characteristic of auto-centric cities and shows that repulsive public areas are not intrinsic to modern life.
The miniaturized arches can be seen on page 157
The ugliness of Los Angeles stems quite directly from its auto-centric patterns. Other factors less germane to the subject of this book, such as the globalization of the world economy and the rise of multinational corporations, surely also affect Los Angeles. It is worth noting, however, that both McDonalds and international package express companies found ways to adapt their normal methods of operation to the unique requirements of Venice.
Indeed, the Fenice opera house, one of the jewels of Venice, was devastated by fire a few years ago, but the building will be completely restored. All of the necessary skills and materials are still available.
Even though Venice is centuries old, nothing in Venice could not be replicated today: there are no technical barriers to the construction of new cities just like Venice. Doubtless, some aspects of Venetian construction would be seen as prohibitively expensive today, but the large majority of buildings in Venice are actually quite ordinary and require nothing more difficult or expensive than a modest amount of stone-cutting of a type still commonly seen in new and reconstructed buildings throughout southern Europe.
This chapter concludes with a tabular comparison of Los Angeles, Venice, and the carfree city as proposed in Part II.
Strip mall, Los Angeles, 1999
No place to play Where Do the Children Play?
In Los Angeles, speeding cars make the streets too dangerous for young children, so they must play in fenced-in back yards and depend entirely on adults for all transport. Two small children who do not live next door can only play together if a parent drives one child to the other’s home. Older children may be allowed to bicycle, but the constant danger from cars and trucks makes this a nail-biting event for parents. Few children get themselves to school because traffic makes it too dangerous to walk or bike, so children are driven instead.
The constant travel within the confines of a car delays the exposure of children to the adult world and retards their social development. Only later do they discover the larger world and its expectations regarding public behavior. Children don’t get as much exercise as they need, one cause of obesity among American children.
Campo Santa Maria Formosa, Venice
Carnival, 1997 Venice has relatively few gardens and parks, but the complete absence of cars makes it safe for children to play anywhere, even in the middle of the street. The entire city serves as their playground, and, as children grow, they can explore steadily more of it. Two children who want to play together can safely walk to each other's homes, even from a very young age. Younger children walk to school, and older children sometimes take the ferry.
Because all but the very youngest children can go to school on their own, without adult help, children begin very early to learn how to get along in the real world. If children on the street become obnoxious, a passing adult may correct their behavior, so children begin to absorb social norms from a young age. By the time they reach their teens, children have learned how to behave in public.
The Beverly Center, Los Angeles, 1999
The first five stories are mostly parking garage Street Life
In Los Angeles, almost anybody with enough money to own and operate a car drives nearly everywhere, and since parking garages are often integrated into the buildings they serve, drivers headed for many destinations never even set foot on the street. In most places and at most times there are relatively few people on the streets except for drivers sealed up in air-conditioned cars. Most of the people who spend much time on the streets are poor and even homeless.
The constant heavy traffic makes the streets noisy, smelly, and abidingly ugly. It is unpleasant and even difficult to socialize on the street, and few people do. What passes for street life takes place inside large, privately-owned shopping centers that have little incentive to permit or encourage activities that are not directly profit-making. Unlike city streets, malls close at night.
Street musician, Venice, 1997
Better acoustics than some concert halls In Venice, cars never intrude upon the streets except for a small area near the parking garage at the entrance to the city. Rich and poor alike use the streets at every hour of the day and night. Long trips begin and end with a walk between the door and the nearest ferry landing. Water taxis are for hire at stiff rates, but even their passengers usually begin their trips with a walk down the street.
The streets echo to human sounds: footsteps, voices, whistling porters, singing gondoliers. The stink, roar, and danger of car and truck traffic never inhibit street life. People dawdle without worrying about onrushing traffic. All day long, people are present on the street, which serves as a stage for an endless stream of interesting and sometimes amusing episodes. Restaurants put tables outdoors, from which their patrons watch and participate in the play of life.
Another strip mall, Los Angeles, 1999 Public Spaces
Los Angeles has as many public spaces as any other city, but few of them are arranged for anything but the convenience of cars and the imperatives they impose on commerce. The stores are set back from the street in order to provide parking in front, and huge signs pass terse messages to fleeting drivers. Traffic signs and signals further erode the quality of the area, and drooping overhead communication and power cables complete the picture. The organizational principles are fast automobile movement and convenient parking.
Beauty and the needs of pedestrians are given little thought, and the long strips of low buildings bordering wide streets fail to create a sense of enclosure. Comfortable places where people gather to enjoy city life scarcely exist. Attractive public squares can hardly be found. Graffiti and litter abound in an environment about which no one cares.
Campo Santa Maria Formosa, Venice, 1997 In Venice, public squares large and small are scattered throughout the city. These squares were arranged for the sole convenience of pedestrians, many of whom are intimately familiar with the area, so few signs are required. In Venice, the church acted as a major organizational force, and each parish has its own church, usually fronting on a square that once served as a water catchment and storage area, furnished with a well from which people drew their water.
While drawing water is no longer an activity that regulates daily life, the wellheads remain gathering places, and people cluster around them to enjoy the vibrant street life. Building facades almost entirely delineate these squares, giving them an interesting and comfortable sense of enclosure. A few squares, including the great Piazza San Marco, border on the lagoon, with its arresting water views.
Yet another strip mall, Los Angeles, 1999 Major Streets
In the photograph of Los Angeles, every person in the scene sits isolated in a car: of the 10 or 12 people present, not one is actually visible. These few people almost fully occupy the large amount of space and make the street look congested. In order to offer their customers “free” parking, the stores have dedicated large areas of land to parking. The resultant low-density land usage gives rise to the power poles; underground service would have cost too much. The overriding concern is to minimize capital and operating costs.
The street is no place to stop to look around or to chat with neighbors. Should a motorist stop for any reason, drivers would begin honking their horns almost immediately. Giant signs and power lines blot the scene. No thought has been given to the provision of any amenity except parking. The street fails to serve as a social space.
The steps of Rialto Bridge, Venice, 1997 In Venice, people sometimes nearly fill a street, but real congestion is rare. In this photograph of one of the busiest spots in Venice, many more people are present than in the photograph of Los Angeles. There is room enough for everyone, even though the way is partially blocked by a few people sitting on the steps. The businesses face directly onto the sidewalk and have no need to shout in order to advertise their wares. As in most of Europe, the high density made it practical to put power lines underground.
None of the people are isolated in steel cages, so everyone is actively present on the street. Many stores have no signs at all. Restaurants put their menu cards out on small stands, and the tables in the street are sufficient to announce the nature of the business to passersby. The street is attractive and serves as an active social area.
Traffic jam, Los Angeles, 1999 Passenger Transport
In Los Angeles, driving is the nearly universal way to get anywhere. This has led to terrible congestion on the streets and highways. The once-famous Red Cars (trams) operated over a vast network, but most public transport is now provided by bus. Faced with intractable air pollution, the city has resurrected some rail service and is building a metro of modest extent. Handicapped access is provided mainly by buses equipped with cumbersome wheelchair lifts, although the new metro system provides elevator access.
Air pollution remains a serious issue as traffic continues to worsen. People waste large amounts of time stuck in traffic. Those without a car must endure dreadful bus service in order to get anywhere. Those who drive spend a large proportion of their disposable income for relatively low-speed transport, which is, of course, faster than the bus.
Ferryboats, Venice, 1997 In Venice, walking is the most common way to get around, and congestion is rarely an issue. At a reasonably brisk pace, one can cross the city in an hour. Pleasant, if slow, public transport is provided by ferryboats, but evening service is infrequent, and it is often faster to walk. (The gondola is little used as a serious means of transport today.) Those arriving by car must park in a large garage at the end of the causeway. A small area near the garage is the only part of the city in which cars, trucks, buses, or trains can be found.
The atmosphere aboard the ferries is pleasant, and passengers enjoy excellent views of the city. Arched bridges, necessary to allow boats to pass beneath, abound in Venice. These bridges all have steps, making this one of the world’s least accessible cities for those confined to wheelchairs. Lifts are now being added to the most heavily traveled bridges.
Trucks, Los Angeles, 1999 Freight Delivery
In Los Angeles, freight is usually delivered by truck. Almost all merchandise arriving from overseas is containerized and delivered by ship, with final local delivery of the container by truck. Some bulk cargoes, such as crude oil, are also delivered by ship. There are no inland waterways, so delivery by water is only possible along the harborfront. Rail is seldom used for local freight delivery, although some larger shippers do have rail access. However, many of the containers arriving by ship are transshipped to trains for through delivery to the hinterlands.
The use of trucks to deliver so much freight aggravates the already-severe road congestion. Most big trucks are diesel-powered and emit clouds of stinking exhaust, and all trucks exacerbate global warming because they burn fossil fuels and waste energy.
Freight handling, Rialto bridge, Venice, 1997 In Venice, virtually all freight is transported by boat, except for a small area near the train station that has direct rail and road service. The narrow waterways and low bridges restrict the size of freight scows, so their capacity is quite limited. Freight must be transshipped between rail or road and the delivery boats, a time-consuming and expensive task. Final deliveries, except to destinations along a canal, must be made by hand cart. The steps on the bridges make this a chore for the very fit, and it is doubtless a bit dangerous as well.
Despite these problems, freight gets delivered in Venice, and even the overnight express companies have managed to cope. Street and water traffic never interfere with one another, and congestion on the water rarely becomes an issue. While the diesel-powered boats do emit some pollutants, they are reasonably quiet and rarely intrusive.
City Hall, Los Angeles, 1999 Civic Buildings
The photograph shows one of the most important civic buildings in the Los Angeles region: the Los Angeles City Hall. This facility was clearly designed with the needs of cars and their drivers foremost in mind. The obvious expectation is that most visitors and employees will arrive by private car. This necessitates the huge parking facilities that swallow up the entire foreground. In the background, the city hall itself can just be seen.
The problem of car parking is insoluble. While multistory parking garages do reduce the amount of land required, they are never attractive structures. As long as the car remains the primary means of access, the design of beautiful public buildings in attractive surroundings will remain an impossible task. Despite its importance, this building could quite easily be mistaken for an ordinary office building.
Doge’s Palace, Venice, 1997 In Venice, the Doge’s Palace is clearly the most important civic building. No one arrives by car, so there is, of course, no car parking at all. One facade faces the Riva degli Schiavone, a busy waterfront where a variety of boats moor. This is as close to a parking lot as exists anywhere in the vicinity.
The moored and moving boats, rather than detracting from the appearance and habitability of the area, actually make it more interesting. While the monumental architecture of the Doge’s Palace is best appreciated from other vantage points, even here on the back side, one sees the attention paid to making the building beautiful. The principal facade of the Doge’s Palace faces the Piazza San Marco where it and the adjoining cathedral form the grandest architectural feature of the piazza, and thus of all Venice. The importance of this building is unmistakable from any prospect.
Oriental Mission Church, Los Angeles, 1999 Churches
In Los Angeles, churchgoers pile into the car and drive to church. There is no procession of people in their Sunday best through the streets. As with all public buildings in auto-centric cities, a vast parking lot must be provided, and, as usual, the most convenient and space-saving location is between the buildings and the street.
Most of what is visible from the street is parking lot. In this instance, a few token trees were added to shield the expanse of sizzling asphalt and the mass of parked cars, but the entire arrangement inspires awe only by the breadth and depth of its ugliness. Only the cross marks this site as different from any other. The building itself is in no way remarkable (this one was probably converted from a failed store). The fence and the gate imply that only some people are welcome, and this church provides no amenities whatever to passersby.
Church on the Záttere, Venice, 1997 In Venice, those going to church begin to meet each other in the streets during their walk to church. The social function thus begins well before their arrival at the church itself. Since everyone walks to church, there is no need to make any provision for parking. The street is narrow enough that the cost of stone paving was reasonable.
This church faces directly onto the street. The rich architectural details are seen from close up and intended to be appreciated by passersby as a sign that this building is important enough to be worthy of decoration. (By Venetian standards, this church is only barely worthy of note.) Great care was lavished on the design and execution of the lovely stone paving. This particular church is generous enough to provide a pleasant amenity to the general public: a sunny place to sit and watch the world go past.
Nine cars and nine garages, Los Angeles, 1999 Housing
In Los Angeles, housing is designed with the assumption that all transport outside of the immediate neighborhood is by car. The extreme reliance on automobile transport means that most adults need a car, which explains why there is never enough parking, despite the city’s requirement that developers provide parking spaces for all apartments.
A large percentage of almost every building site must be devoted to parking and access roads, leaving little room for public spaces. The ground floor may be dedicated entirely to garages, as here, so there is often no human presence at ground level, which makes the area hostile, forbidding, and even frightening. Few architectural elements can be more difficult to make beautiful than garage doors, and most housing is overwhelmed by these faceless artifacts of automobility, which foil every effort to design attractive buildings.
Housing, Venice, 1997 All residential buildings in Venice were designed with the assumption that everyone would arrive either on foot or by boat. No provision need be made for parking lots or garages. Most buildings that front on a canal are provided with landing stages for boats, although almost everybody makes all local trips on foot.
Absent the need for car parking, open space is invariably devoted to human uses. It is true that open space is scarce in the older parts of Venice, and much of this takes the form of private gardens. Parks are few and small, but the high quality of public spaces and the omnipresent water views offer a delightful alternative. The surroundings are never threatening. In the absence of the need for garages, the design of attractive buildings is a relatively straightforward matter, even here, where the style here has been kept rather simple.
Bulk food store, Los Angeles, 1999 Shopping
In Los Angeles, most retail sales are made by large enterprises housed in huge, featureless buildings from which a large staff serves a vast geographic area. Only inexpensive automobile transport made these enterprises economically feasible, and the traffic they generate exacerbates highway congestion. These businesses generally construct a new building to their own specification, complete with huge parking lot.
Because customers and store employees come from a wide geographic area, they seldom know or even recognize each other and rarely have any social contact outside the store. Should a customer burst into tears, no one would know why. The store is owned by a distant corporation and managed from afar. The business knows its customers only by their demographic profiles but does its best to accommodate them, for its livelihood depends upon it.
The people who work and shop in these stores know each other, sometimes quite well. Both customers and staff usually live within the same neighborhood, so sometimes they meet on the street. They know the local gossip and the recent misfortunes. A customer who is recently bereaved can expect to be greeted with compassion when entering the store for the first time since the death. The proprietor is present during opening hours. He has learned the special needs and desires of all his customers and does his best to accommodate them, for his livelihood depends upon it.
Crawford argues unapologetically that the car is a technology that has run wild, and that the time has come to reclaim city streets for human activities. He proposes a city planned to maximize the quality of life for individuals and communities, and gives practical suggestions for implementing this basic design in both new and existing cities. Crawford believes that sustainable development can only be achieved by ending car use within cities.
In the face of passive acceptance of declining quality of life, Carfree Cities is a beacon of hope and sanity that offers a practical solution to the danger, pollution, and breakdown of social systems caused by autocentric development. By rejecting the assumption that continued car use in cities is inevitable, Crawford takes us a step closer to the tantalizing possibility of a return to the pattern of lively, attractive streets that we had enjoyed for thousands of years, until the advent of automobiles.
INTRODUCTION
See especially Cities and the Wealth of Nations Mankind first settled in cities about 7000 years ago, and cities have served as the cradle of civilization ever since.
I believe that the future of cities is assured. Culture is hosted by cities because only cities can support great libraries, symphony orchestras, extensive theater districts, major-league sports teams, and vast museums. Cities also provide the principal setting for economic activity. Jane Jacobs believes that the wealth of nations is generated mainly by innovators located in urban areas with the broad infrastructure base needed to support the establishment of new enterprises. Innovators need a vast range of goods and services close at hand, plus, of course, good transport and communications. Only cities can provide such depth of resources.
Cities ought to be places where great buildings and lively outdoor spaces are found, which was usual until modern times. The European capitals still provide many wonderful examples of good urban spaces. Piazza San Marco is perhaps the greatest of them all, peaceful yet vibrant. Most Italian cities have gorgeous squares, a few of which have been protected from cars. New York, Boston, and San Francisco still have great districts, as did most US cities until cars and suburban sprawl bled their hearts dry.
Auto-centric cities are those based on transport by private automobile. Infrequent buses offer indifferent public transport. Car ownership is nearly essential, even for the poor. Los Angeles is the archetype.
When thinking about cities, we must remember that suburbs are an urban, not rural, form. This reality clashes with the suburban leitmotif: fleeing the city to live in the countryside. However, few US suburbs still offer even the illusion of country life, and they depend on central cities for work, health care, and culture. The "national automobile slum" is thus the worst of both worlds: vast areas of forest and farmland are turned into low-density residential neighborhoods organized around automobile transport. Inhabitants of these auto-centric areas must drive great distances through repulsive surroundings to reach virtually every activity.
Rural areas supplied the people, food, and resources to fuel the urban engine that produced the bulk of our technical advances. Although some of these advances turned out to have a dark side, there can be little doubt that technology has generally improved our lives, and we have our cities to thank for this.
Predictions abound that virtual reality will reduce the need for physical presence and thereby the need for cities. While virtual reality will provide an alternative to face-to-face meetings for some task-focused groups, I believe that most people will find it an unsatisfactory substitute for personal contact. I am no technical reprobate: I have computers in my home, make extensive use the Internet, and enjoy playing computer games. But for me, no form of virtual reality will ever replace a pleasant evening stroll among the neighbors. I believe this is true for most people.
For as long as people continue to want to meet in person, the future of cities is assured.
This small square is built to a human scale. The stone pavers are about the length of a human foot. The windows are smaller than the human form, and the door is, of course, somewhat larger. In the narrow streets just beyond, you can touch both walls with outstretched hands.
Cities & Community
City streets are the host for community, and community is central to the maintenance of a civilized society, which depends on a certain level of shared experiences and expectations. It is in the streets that the chance encounters essential to the sustenance of community occur. One indicator of the importance of this function is the degree to which its disappearance is now recognized and lamented in the USA. As classic "main street" towns have disappeared, the social space they once provided has been replaced mainly by shopping malls, a tepid substitute indeed. Not all social encounters on the streets of a well-functioning city are pleasant, but the friction that sometimes arises does serve an important function: it helps people to learn how to tolerate and get along with one another.
In the New World, quite a few social groups have been so marginalized that they no longer have a true place in society. At the same time, some of the richest members of society have in essence completely withdrawn from public life. They live in gated communities, to which the poor are only invited to wash the floors, clean the pools, and tend the gardens. Some rich people only venture into the outer world when isolated in their cars, and then often to travel to members-only venues.
In late 1999, many activists gathered in Seattle to protest secret negotiations being conducted by the World Trade Organization. Police mishandled the demonstrators, almost all of whom were practicing nonviolence. The confrontation has become known in some quarters as the "Battle of Seattle."
A carfree place for kids to hang out. But it’s not bus-free: a small, slow electric bus can be seen in the background. Kids play safely in the streets here. The French Revolution showed how dangerous it is for a privileged aristocracy to isolate itself from the population. No one who could say "let them eat cake" could possibly have had any understanding of what life was like for nearly all her subjects. I fear that a divide is arising in modern Western societies as the degree of segregation and alienation rises. As the "Battle of Seattle" showed in 1999, leaders must maintain some sort of common ground with the rank-and-file or risk unexpected and unpleasant confrontations with those who feel that they have been disenfranchised.
The splendid isolation in which most leaders live surely does not increase their sensitivity to the plight of their constituents. Most leaders are surrounded entirely by people like themselves: rich, powerful, well-educated, and assured of a place at the table. This is true not only among national leaders but also at much lower levels of government. Almost all leaders travel by car and rarely rub elbows with those who elected them. The restoration of streets as public spaces used by everyone will help to assure that citizens from every part of society maintain at least a modicum of contact with one another and to promote conditions under which civilized societies can flourish.
Cities & Transport
Transport is vital to cities: no city can function without its passenger and freight transport systems. As large cities based on car and truck transport approach gridlock, it has become apparent to almost everyone that a better solution is needed. So far, however, only half-hearted solutions have been proposed. While many of these proposals might somewhat improve the livability of our cities, most of them cause adverse effects, some of which are roughly as serious as the problems they are intended to cure. We must examine the prevailing assumption that continued automobile use is inescapable, and that examination is a major theme of this book.
The amount of space that an urban transport system absorbs has a critical effect on urban form. Cars are the most space-intensive form of urban transport ever devised and have forced cities to expand into rural areas. In many cities, attempts to accommodate cars required the construction of urban highways that severely damaged the neighborhoods through which they were driven. Other means would have provided better transport at far lower costs.
Rapid improvements in urban and intercity rail systems during the period 1850–1935 offered mankind the best transport that had ever been seen, but in the USA, cars began as early as 1915 to erode the quality of public spaces and to impede public transport vehicles operating on the streets. So began a long downward spiral in the quality of life in US cities.
The delivery of freight in cities has been problematic since Roman times. The chapter on freight delivery proposes a means to deliver freight in our cities simply by extending the use of standardized shipping containers. Such containers are now routinely moved by the thousand around the globe aboard ships, barges, trains, and trucks. The means I propose merely extend existing, proven technology, much of it fully automated.
The automobile industry has become such a large segment of the world economy that many fear any change that might threaten the continued production of tens of millions of cars each year. Any large decline in urban car usage will certainly cause major economic dislocations, so the change to carfree cities will require careful economic planning and implementation in phases (which is, in any case, almost essential). The auto industry will continue to sell millions of cars a year to those living in rural areas, for whom it is difficult to imagine any other practical means of transport.
Carfree Urban Areas
San Marco, Venice, 1997 Some will scoff at the viability of life in carfree cities, but remember that every city was carfree until about 100 years ago. Venice clearly demonstrates that carfree cities can at the very least continue to function in modern times. It is risky, however, to use Venice as the sole proof of the feasibility of carfree cities. Many regard Venice as a dying city and note the dramatic decline in population since 1945, from about 200,000 to around 75,000 in just 50 years. Venice is, in fact, a victim of its own success.
The combination of the delightful carfree environment, together with a large helping of the world’s art and architectural treasures, has made Venice one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. Rich people bought up many houses in Venice, and many of these buildings are vacant for most of the year. Other buildings have been converted to hotels to shelter the visiting hordes. Housing prices rose so much that many Venetians were forced to move to Mestre on the mainland, leading at least in part to the dramatic decline in population. Even in winter, however, Venice does not seem like a dead city: it feels like the bustling, good-humored small city that it is.
Most large industry in Venice has relocated to nearby Mestre. Smaller industries, however, still continue to thrive. Murano, an island just north of the two main islands of Venice, has been a leading producer of fine glassware since 1291. Dozens of small glass factories still operate here, so it is evident that small industries with moderate freight requirements can survive despite the problematic freight system.
A reference design is a benchmark, used as a point of departure. Normally, a reference design is not actually built, although it should in principle be employable in some real situation. The reference design for carfree cities could be built without appreciable modification in several Dutch polders and other flat, sparsely-settled tracts. Local conditions will usually dictate substantial deviations.
A very few cars are still permitted to enter the downtown area, but it is effectively carfree. Trams provide a convenient alternative. Most difficulties that beset Venice are intrinsic to its location in the middle of a shallow lagoon or related to its unique place in history. When building new carfree cities or converting existing cities to the carfree model, we will usually be able to design around constraints of this kind. Venice serves us best when we regard it simply as evidence of the high quality of life that is possible in medieval cities: four-story buildings, crooked narrow streets, and relatively high density are in themselves no barrier to a high quality of life, so long as cars are not permitted to terrorize the streets. I would argue, in fact, that it is precisely these qualities of Venice that make it so successful, and many aspects of the "reference design" for carfree cities are indeed based on the Venetian model.
To be sure, other models are also feasible: all that is necessary for the basic carfree design to work is to achieve a sufficiently high population density to support excellent public transport. This can be achieved in many different ways. At one end of the scale are the towering Modernist skyscrapers of Hong Kong and Manhattan. At the other end are low-rise, high-density urban areas like Burano (a small island near Venice) and the old lilong neighborhoods of Shanghai. (Most of the lilong areas have been demolished in favor of high-rise buildings, but when I was in Shanghai, the locals spoke longingly of the warm social environment that had characterized the narrow streets of these carfree areas.)
Further evidence of the workability of carfree cities can be seen in Europe, where many cities have made parts of downtown carfree. In a few cases, such as Freiburg, most of downtown has been made largely or entirely carfree. These areas have been popular with residents and tourists alike, and the initial opposition of merchants has generally changed to strong support within a year or two: most merchants saw their business improve once the cars were gone.
Some cities in the USA have also experimented with carfree areas, although usually on a more modest scale. Some of these experiments have been deemed unsuccessful and reversed, but it appears that most of the unsuccessful trials were in fact "transit malls," which is really another name for an outdoor bus station. Removing cars in order to replace them with diesel buses does little to improve the street in question.
Finally, we must keep firmly in mind that carfree cities demand excellent public transport. Some existing examples of top-quality public transport will be cited later. The only barriers to achieving first-class service for all transit users are political: no technical problems remain to be solved, so long as the necessary population density is achieved. All that is lacking is the will to make the needed service improvements.
The USA is nearing the end of an experiment begun a century ago, an experiment also conducted in lesser degrees by the rest of the world. The experimental hypothesis is simply stated: private automobiles offer everyone the best possible urban transport.
The conduct of this experiment required the demolition of streets, houses, stores, and factories and their reconstruction in new locations. It scattered populations across the countryside, devastated city centers, damaged social systems, and battered the planetary ecosystem. Rich, detailed, human-scale neighborhoods were replaced by hideous, gigantic areas scaled to the needs of cars.
The few good urban environments that still exist in the USA were built before the needs of cars subsumed centuries of urban planning craft. These areas are almost invariably the most beautiful parts of the city (usually also the oldest parts of town), and typically see the heaviest use. In fact, the desire for housing in these deeply-satisfying areas overwhelms the supply and drives up real estate prices. This pattern can also be seen in Europe.
The experiment was supported by the most costly civil works program in history: the construction of the US Interstate highway system. Without fast highways connecting the center city to rural areas, the exodus to the suburbs could never have proceeded so far or so fast.
Even if sufficient resources can be found to sustain the experiment indefinitely, there remain many reasons to remove cars from our cities: cars are wasting our time, wrecking our lives, and destroying our societies. In the 20th century, cars have done more to damage our cities than wars, terrible as they have been. No city except Venice has been immune to the ravages of cars. Urban automobile usage amounts to an undeclared war between drivers and everybody else. Just as in a real war, there is a lot of "collateral damage." We see it around us every day in the form of the awful environments built since the needs of cars and their drivers came to dominate every aspect of urban planning.
These ugly environments seem inseparable from auto-centric development. They have had a devastating effect on the civic functions of the public realm. These dreadful environments discourage people from spending time in public places and broadcast the message: this mess is so awful, nobody cares what you do here. It leads to isolation, cynicism, hopelessness, and antisocial behavior.
See Donald Appleyard’s work for a thorough examination of the effects of cars on communities. While many problems with cars are of a technical nature and therefore susceptible to engineering solutions, the most serious problems are intrinsic and cannot be solved by any application of technology. I regard the damage that cars do to social systems as the most serious problem they cause in cities. No technical improvement to cars can restore the vital function of streets as the host for community: as long as anything as dangerous and intrusive as cars and trucks rule our streets, civic life will vanish from the street.
For more on life in contemporary US cities, see Jackson, Kay, and Kunstler. See also this book’s foreword. At a deep level, Americans are finally beginning to understand that something is missing in their lives. The sudden emergence of suburban sprawl as a topic of national discussion indicates that many have realized that something was lost when sprawling suburbs replaced walkable, human-scale cities. This discussion is perhaps less evident in Europe, which was slower to adopt widespread car usage and where cars were never permitted to do as much harm to cities. (We shall see later that Le Corbusier proposed to demolish most of Paris in order to build highways and tower blocks. Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed.)
As evidence of the seriousness of our design errors, I offer the passion we now exhibit for the preservation and restoration of old urban neighborhoods. Today in the industrialized nations, almost any proposal that would damage these artifacts of civility is instantly shouted down.
We have recently seen a spate of books proposing solutions to the urban transport crisis and the problem of suburban sprawl. While this marks the dawning of awareness that automobile usage in cities causes many intractable problems, the solutions so far proposed are only palliatives. This book proposes a solution that is at once radical and reactionary: radical because it proposes major changes to our cities, and reactionary because many of these changes are actually a reversion to urban patterns still widely applied just a century ago.
Solution
"Traffic management" is not really a solution to anything. Only when kids can play ball in the street without worrying about cars has a sufficient improvement been achieved. While some traffic management schemes do improve conditions for some people, most strategies carry less-obvious drawbacks that make life worse for others. While speed bumps do slow cars down for a moment, the net result is a small decrease in average speed coupled with a significant increase in noise and exhaust emissions, a situation arguably worse than before the bumps were installed.
A woonerf is a residential street to which cars are only admitted on the condition that they proceed at dead slow. Street furniture creates a winding path that effectively enforces this condition; high speeds are impossible, and most streets are dead ends.
The Dutch woonerf really does improve the quality of life for residents, based as it is on the presumption that cars are admitted so long as they proceed at a walking pace and do not disrupt other activities. However, the woonerf approach is not extensible beyond local neighborhoods because cars require reasonably high-speed streets in order to provide quick transport. The woonerf solution may also simply displace traffic from one street to another, such as happened in Berkeley, California, where some residential areas were turned into a maze of dead-end streets. Traffic that had used the local streets was simply displaced to the main arteries.
A real solution to the problem of the urban automobile can only be achieved by moving cars entirely out of the city. Only by this means can we restore true peace in our streets and provide a safe environment where people are invited to linger, without fear of traffic.
If we replace auto-centric urban transport with rail-based systems, we can retain and even improve our current levels of mobility at a cost both we and the environment can bear. A carfree city designed around rail transport would greatly reduce the resources currently consumed by urban transport while providing a fast, comfortable alternative to cars.
In order to make effective use of rail systems, carfree cities will require a considerably denser pattern of living than the suburbs, but denser, carfree living can help restore community to our neighborhoods. The design for carfree cities provides a way to establish nearby parks and open space, regain peace and quiet in our homes and offices, and begin the reconstruction of social systems damaged when the automobile drove life off the street. The required density increases are by no means extreme: densities that are still common in European city centers are entirely sufficient. Even sprawling Los Angeles has a few neighborhoods that are more densely populated than the districts proposed for carfree cities.
The changes I propose are far-reaching indeed: the complete removal of cars and trucks from city streets is as sweeping a change as I can imagine. While many compromises with this radical approach are possible and probably quite workable, I think that we should adopt a policy of completely removing motorized traffic from city streets. Only in this way do we obtain the full benefits of carfree cities. However, Part III does consider design compromises that permit some level of continued urban car usage while still yielding streets that are entirely carfree.
The reference design proposes a return to traditional forms of city building, because these forms have shown their worth through the ages and because people still seem to value these areas the most. However, many architects (and a few others) continue to believe that Modernism is mankind’s salvation. Modernism could be accommodated in its own district, as Léon Krier has proposed. The rest of us would be free to live elsewhere, in districts based on older, more comfortable patterns, such as those identified by Christopher Alexander.
One element of the reference design in particular has aroused considerable opposition: my proposal to adopt Alexander’s pattern limiting building heights to four stories is strongly opposed by some, including a few people whose views I otherwise largely accept. While tall buildings are not essential to a successful city, there is no reason why a district could not be reserved for skyscrapers. In fact, the division of carfree cities into districts makes it easy to provide locations to accommodate a wide range of preferences.
The message of this book is simple: Get the cars out of the cities. The rest is simply a proposal for how to achieve this. Other methods besides those I propose would probably also work, although some might require technically-advanced transport systems whose practicality has yet to be demonstrated. Any promising method should be tested.
The more carfree areas that are developed in the coming decade, the better. Some efforts will doubtless work better than others, but even the attempts that do not achieve complete success will provide interesting environments and useful lessons. I believe that nothing will sell the idea of carfree cities better than the experience of carfree areas, and Venice is certainly the best advertisement for carfree cities that I have ever seen.
Carfree cities can offer rich human experience, great beauty, and true peace. They can greatly reduce the damage we are doing to the biosphere. They permit the construction of beautiful districts in the manner of European city centers, with parks but a short walk away. Carfree cities are a practical alternative, available now. They can be built using existing technology at a price we can afford. They offer a real future for our children.
Organization of the Book
The book is divided into three Parts, each beginning with an enumeration of its chapters and summaries of their contents. Part I considers cities in general and transport in particular. Part II presents the reference design for carfree cities as well as some variations on the reference design. Part III examines ways of implementing carfree cities in the real world.
Table of Contents
Front Matter
Foreword by James Howard Kunstler
Preface
Introduction
Part I: On Cities
Yardsticks for Cities
Cities & Transport
Wicked Cars
Better Public Transport
Sustainable Cities
Part II: Carfree Cities
Design Parameters
City Topology
City Districts
City Blocks
Buildings
Passenger Transport
Freight Delivery
Part III: Going Carfree
Support for Carfree Cities
Planning Carfree Cities
Some Modest Proposals
Afterword
Appendixes
Resources at Carfree.com
The Bicycle City
The Auto-Centric Carfree City
Imagine life in a city free from the noise, stench, and danger of cars, trucks, and buses. Imagine that all basic needs, from groceries to child care, lie within a five-minute walk of every doorstep. Imagine that no commute takes more than 35 minutes from door to door, and that service is provided by a fast, cheap, safe, comfortable public transport system. This is the future that J.H. Crawford envisions in Carfree Cities.
YARDSTICKS FOR CITIES
Throughout this book, we will be discussing urban form. In order to make meaningful comparisons of various urban forms, we will need some measuring tools to assist us in comparing cities and their success at meeting human needs. Transport systems exert a large influence on urban form and the quality of urban life, and urban form in turn exercises considerable influence on transport systems. Because the relationship between transport systems and quality of life is so important, many of the measures assess the performance of transport systems or the resources they consume.
The first part of this chapter defines a number of measures that indicate how well a city performs its function as the host for civilization. The second part applies these measures to two extreme urban forms: auto-centric Los Angeles and carfree Venice.
Fine public amenities, Zermatt, Switzerland, 1998 Quality-of-Life Measures
Quality of life, as distinct from standard of living, cannot be measured directly, but several numerical measures are useful:
Frequency of days with poor air quality
Infant mortality rate
Poverty index
Unemployment rate
Literacy rate
Incarceration rate
Incidence of mental illness
Near the Torre dell’Orologio, Venice, 1997
This street in Venice is built at human scale. By the standards given here, it is nearly perfect. It lacks a bench, for which there is clearly no room. Public drinking water and toilets are available in Venice.
Except for air pollution, the range of variation on these measures will be relatively small among cities in rich nations.
To these statistical measures of quality of life, we must add one quality that is difficult to quantify: the prevalence of neighborhoods built on a human scale to serve human needs. Such neighborhoods are usually characterized by the following attributes:
Priority for pedestrians
Buildings no higher than six stories
Buildings oriented towards the street
Active street life created by mixed uses
Small signs without internal illumination
Public amenities such as drinking fountains & benches
Nearby, attractive parks
Strip mall, Los Angeles, 1999
This public area was scaled for cars, not people. The paved area is at least ten times larger than what would be required for foot traffic alone. Nobody cares what this place looks like, so it looks awful.
Transport Measures
A transport system is an integral part of a city and affects many spheres of life. Four points of comparison are especially important: travel time, area of land consumed, direct costs, and externalized costs.
Travel Time
The total time each person spends on travel is affected by both the distances to be traveled and the average speed of the trips. The following characteristics reduce the total distance that must be covered:
Compact development, so no part of the city is far away
Basic shopping within walking distance
Work, school, and health care close to home
The following attributes of any transport system, whether public or private, reduce the door-to-door travel time for a given trip:
Short walking distance to transport
No wait for service
No need to transfer from one vehicle to another
Direct routing without intermediate stops
High acceleration
High speed
Suburban sprawl is typified by the US pattern of postwar development. Single-family houses are built on large lots. Nonresidential functions are located in specialized districts, far from home.
Car drivers usually escape walking, waiting, and transferring, but in many urban areas these savings are overbalanced by the effects of suburban sprawl, which forces people to:
Drive to all shopping
Drive an hour or more to routine destinations
Search for parking
Wait in traffic
The Central Artery project in Boston will bury 257 lane-kilometers of highway costing $10.6 billion and will provide capacity for 190,000 cars each day, so the capital cost per daily car is $55,000.
http://www.bigdig.com Land Consumed by Transport
Transport systems must be measured against the area of land they occupy. A road lane and a railroad track are each roughly 4 meters wide. About 2000 cars/hr can pass over one traffic lane. At typical occupancy rates, this is just 2500 people/hr. Trains, on the other hand, can carry 50,000 passengers/hr over a single track. Cars are therefore up to 20 times more land intensive than trains for the same capacity, before any allowance is made for car parking. While railroads can be built underground, roads are too wide for routine tunneling.
The American Automobile Association estimates the direct costs of a mid-sized car at $4504/year.
from “Transportation Cost Analysis”
Victoria Transport Policy Institute
http://www.vtpi.org/tcasum.htm Direct Costs
The direct costs of passenger transport are easily measured. Transport is a large item in most family budgets, and this is especially true of families in sprawling suburbs, many of whom must own and operate several cars in order to meet their transport needs. Travel costs include mileage-based costs, per-trip costs, and periodic costs. The following table gives examples of costs paid by car and urban rail travelers:
Most urban rail systems charge a flat rate per trip, but some systems charge fares based on distance. Of course, if a passenger buys a season ticket, his entire cost is periodic and unaffected by usage.
Car Urban rail
Cost per unit distance Gasoline Nil
Cost per trip Parking Flat-rate
Cost per year Insurance Nil
Proposals have been made to charge for insurance on a per-mile rather than a per-year basis, in order to discourage driving and charge drivers for their actual risk exposure. Passengers usually pay at least some of the direct costs, but governments often subsidize much of the remainder. (In the USA, virtually every passenger transport mode is subsidized, directly or indirectly.) Most car drivers underestimate the out-of-pocket cost of driving and are unaware of the large subsidy they receive. Drivers tend to equate their costs of driving to the cost of gasoline consumed plus parking and tolls, but the driver actually pays much more than this: depreciation and maintenance are large costs that are not paid at the time of travel, so drivers are not particularly aware of them. The system is arranged in such a way that, once you have a car, the cost of driving additional distance seems fairly low, which tends to encourage more driving.
Externalized costs are the monetary and nonmaterial costs imposed on society at large by the consumer of a product or service.
Externalized Costs
While many externalized costs are difficult to measure, they are at least as important as direct costs. Every transport system externalizes costs to its neighbors and to the global ecosystem. For example, car drivers externalize the following costs:
Death & injury to bystanders
Intimidation of pedestrians & bicyclists
Diminished freedom for children
Road maintenance costs in excess of road taxes
Reduced availability of public transport
Noise & vibration
Air pollution & climate change
Loss of beauty to visual clutter
Deterioration of human-scale public spaces
Richard Risemberg was kind enough to share his local knowledge of Los Angeles. He and his son Jack took the photographs of Los Angeles, which are far from the worst examples that might be chosen: this is simply what Los Angeles looks like.
The Yardsticks Applied
The next ten pages contrast various facets of life in auto-centric Los Angeles and carfree Venice, using our yardsticks. First a few words by way of introduction.
Each page contrasts one aspect of life in both cities, taking first Los Angeles and then Venice. For each city, the influence of transport on that aspect of life is taken up first, followed by the consequences for quality of life in that city.
Some reviewers held such a comparison to be unfair, and while this criticism may be accurate, it misses the point. The comparison merely highlights the extreme deterioration of public spaces characteristic of auto-centric cities and shows that repulsive public areas are not intrinsic to modern life.
The miniaturized arches can be seen on page 157
The ugliness of Los Angeles stems quite directly from its auto-centric patterns. Other factors less germane to the subject of this book, such as the globalization of the world economy and the rise of multinational corporations, surely also affect Los Angeles. It is worth noting, however, that both McDonalds and international package express companies found ways to adapt their normal methods of operation to the unique requirements of Venice.
Indeed, the Fenice opera house, one of the jewels of Venice, was devastated by fire a few years ago, but the building will be completely restored. All of the necessary skills and materials are still available.
Even though Venice is centuries old, nothing in Venice could not be replicated today: there are no technical barriers to the construction of new cities just like Venice. Doubtless, some aspects of Venetian construction would be seen as prohibitively expensive today, but the large majority of buildings in Venice are actually quite ordinary and require nothing more difficult or expensive than a modest amount of stone-cutting of a type still commonly seen in new and reconstructed buildings throughout southern Europe.
This chapter concludes with a tabular comparison of Los Angeles, Venice, and the carfree city as proposed in Part II.
Strip mall, Los Angeles, 1999
No place to play Where Do the Children Play?
In Los Angeles, speeding cars make the streets too dangerous for young children, so they must play in fenced-in back yards and depend entirely on adults for all transport. Two small children who do not live next door can only play together if a parent drives one child to the other’s home. Older children may be allowed to bicycle, but the constant danger from cars and trucks makes this a nail-biting event for parents. Few children get themselves to school because traffic makes it too dangerous to walk or bike, so children are driven instead.
The constant travel within the confines of a car delays the exposure of children to the adult world and retards their social development. Only later do they discover the larger world and its expectations regarding public behavior. Children don’t get as much exercise as they need, one cause of obesity among American children.
Campo Santa Maria Formosa, Venice
Carnival, 1997 Venice has relatively few gardens and parks, but the complete absence of cars makes it safe for children to play anywhere, even in the middle of the street. The entire city serves as their playground, and, as children grow, they can explore steadily more of it. Two children who want to play together can safely walk to each other's homes, even from a very young age. Younger children walk to school, and older children sometimes take the ferry.
Because all but the very youngest children can go to school on their own, without adult help, children begin very early to learn how to get along in the real world. If children on the street become obnoxious, a passing adult may correct their behavior, so children begin to absorb social norms from a young age. By the time they reach their teens, children have learned how to behave in public.
The Beverly Center, Los Angeles, 1999
The first five stories are mostly parking garage Street Life
In Los Angeles, almost anybody with enough money to own and operate a car drives nearly everywhere, and since parking garages are often integrated into the buildings they serve, drivers headed for many destinations never even set foot on the street. In most places and at most times there are relatively few people on the streets except for drivers sealed up in air-conditioned cars. Most of the people who spend much time on the streets are poor and even homeless.
The constant heavy traffic makes the streets noisy, smelly, and abidingly ugly. It is unpleasant and even difficult to socialize on the street, and few people do. What passes for street life takes place inside large, privately-owned shopping centers that have little incentive to permit or encourage activities that are not directly profit-making. Unlike city streets, malls close at night.
Street musician, Venice, 1997
Better acoustics than some concert halls In Venice, cars never intrude upon the streets except for a small area near the parking garage at the entrance to the city. Rich and poor alike use the streets at every hour of the day and night. Long trips begin and end with a walk between the door and the nearest ferry landing. Water taxis are for hire at stiff rates, but even their passengers usually begin their trips with a walk down the street.
The streets echo to human sounds: footsteps, voices, whistling porters, singing gondoliers. The stink, roar, and danger of car and truck traffic never inhibit street life. People dawdle without worrying about onrushing traffic. All day long, people are present on the street, which serves as a stage for an endless stream of interesting and sometimes amusing episodes. Restaurants put tables outdoors, from which their patrons watch and participate in the play of life.
Another strip mall, Los Angeles, 1999 Public Spaces
Los Angeles has as many public spaces as any other city, but few of them are arranged for anything but the convenience of cars and the imperatives they impose on commerce. The stores are set back from the street in order to provide parking in front, and huge signs pass terse messages to fleeting drivers. Traffic signs and signals further erode the quality of the area, and drooping overhead communication and power cables complete the picture. The organizational principles are fast automobile movement and convenient parking.
Beauty and the needs of pedestrians are given little thought, and the long strips of low buildings bordering wide streets fail to create a sense of enclosure. Comfortable places where people gather to enjoy city life scarcely exist. Attractive public squares can hardly be found. Graffiti and litter abound in an environment about which no one cares.
Campo Santa Maria Formosa, Venice, 1997 In Venice, public squares large and small are scattered throughout the city. These squares were arranged for the sole convenience of pedestrians, many of whom are intimately familiar with the area, so few signs are required. In Venice, the church acted as a major organizational force, and each parish has its own church, usually fronting on a square that once served as a water catchment and storage area, furnished with a well from which people drew their water.
While drawing water is no longer an activity that regulates daily life, the wellheads remain gathering places, and people cluster around them to enjoy the vibrant street life. Building facades almost entirely delineate these squares, giving them an interesting and comfortable sense of enclosure. A few squares, including the great Piazza San Marco, border on the lagoon, with its arresting water views.
Yet another strip mall, Los Angeles, 1999 Major Streets
In the photograph of Los Angeles, every person in the scene sits isolated in a car: of the 10 or 12 people present, not one is actually visible. These few people almost fully occupy the large amount of space and make the street look congested. In order to offer their customers “free” parking, the stores have dedicated large areas of land to parking. The resultant low-density land usage gives rise to the power poles; underground service would have cost too much. The overriding concern is to minimize capital and operating costs.
The street is no place to stop to look around or to chat with neighbors. Should a motorist stop for any reason, drivers would begin honking their horns almost immediately. Giant signs and power lines blot the scene. No thought has been given to the provision of any amenity except parking. The street fails to serve as a social space.
The steps of Rialto Bridge, Venice, 1997 In Venice, people sometimes nearly fill a street, but real congestion is rare. In this photograph of one of the busiest spots in Venice, many more people are present than in the photograph of Los Angeles. There is room enough for everyone, even though the way is partially blocked by a few people sitting on the steps. The businesses face directly onto the sidewalk and have no need to shout in order to advertise their wares. As in most of Europe, the high density made it practical to put power lines underground.
None of the people are isolated in steel cages, so everyone is actively present on the street. Many stores have no signs at all. Restaurants put their menu cards out on small stands, and the tables in the street are sufficient to announce the nature of the business to passersby. The street is attractive and serves as an active social area.
Traffic jam, Los Angeles, 1999 Passenger Transport
In Los Angeles, driving is the nearly universal way to get anywhere. This has led to terrible congestion on the streets and highways. The once-famous Red Cars (trams) operated over a vast network, but most public transport is now provided by bus. Faced with intractable air pollution, the city has resurrected some rail service and is building a metro of modest extent. Handicapped access is provided mainly by buses equipped with cumbersome wheelchair lifts, although the new metro system provides elevator access.
Air pollution remains a serious issue as traffic continues to worsen. People waste large amounts of time stuck in traffic. Those without a car must endure dreadful bus service in order to get anywhere. Those who drive spend a large proportion of their disposable income for relatively low-speed transport, which is, of course, faster than the bus.
Ferryboats, Venice, 1997 In Venice, walking is the most common way to get around, and congestion is rarely an issue. At a reasonably brisk pace, one can cross the city in an hour. Pleasant, if slow, public transport is provided by ferryboats, but evening service is infrequent, and it is often faster to walk. (The gondola is little used as a serious means of transport today.) Those arriving by car must park in a large garage at the end of the causeway. A small area near the garage is the only part of the city in which cars, trucks, buses, or trains can be found.
The atmosphere aboard the ferries is pleasant, and passengers enjoy excellent views of the city. Arched bridges, necessary to allow boats to pass beneath, abound in Venice. These bridges all have steps, making this one of the world’s least accessible cities for those confined to wheelchairs. Lifts are now being added to the most heavily traveled bridges.
Trucks, Los Angeles, 1999 Freight Delivery
In Los Angeles, freight is usually delivered by truck. Almost all merchandise arriving from overseas is containerized and delivered by ship, with final local delivery of the container by truck. Some bulk cargoes, such as crude oil, are also delivered by ship. There are no inland waterways, so delivery by water is only possible along the harborfront. Rail is seldom used for local freight delivery, although some larger shippers do have rail access. However, many of the containers arriving by ship are transshipped to trains for through delivery to the hinterlands.
The use of trucks to deliver so much freight aggravates the already-severe road congestion. Most big trucks are diesel-powered and emit clouds of stinking exhaust, and all trucks exacerbate global warming because they burn fossil fuels and waste energy.
Freight handling, Rialto bridge, Venice, 1997 In Venice, virtually all freight is transported by boat, except for a small area near the train station that has direct rail and road service. The narrow waterways and low bridges restrict the size of freight scows, so their capacity is quite limited. Freight must be transshipped between rail or road and the delivery boats, a time-consuming and expensive task. Final deliveries, except to destinations along a canal, must be made by hand cart. The steps on the bridges make this a chore for the very fit, and it is doubtless a bit dangerous as well.
Despite these problems, freight gets delivered in Venice, and even the overnight express companies have managed to cope. Street and water traffic never interfere with one another, and congestion on the water rarely becomes an issue. While the diesel-powered boats do emit some pollutants, they are reasonably quiet and rarely intrusive.
City Hall, Los Angeles, 1999 Civic Buildings
The photograph shows one of the most important civic buildings in the Los Angeles region: the Los Angeles City Hall. This facility was clearly designed with the needs of cars and their drivers foremost in mind. The obvious expectation is that most visitors and employees will arrive by private car. This necessitates the huge parking facilities that swallow up the entire foreground. In the background, the city hall itself can just be seen.
The problem of car parking is insoluble. While multistory parking garages do reduce the amount of land required, they are never attractive structures. As long as the car remains the primary means of access, the design of beautiful public buildings in attractive surroundings will remain an impossible task. Despite its importance, this building could quite easily be mistaken for an ordinary office building.
Doge’s Palace, Venice, 1997 In Venice, the Doge’s Palace is clearly the most important civic building. No one arrives by car, so there is, of course, no car parking at all. One facade faces the Riva degli Schiavone, a busy waterfront where a variety of boats moor. This is as close to a parking lot as exists anywhere in the vicinity.
The moored and moving boats, rather than detracting from the appearance and habitability of the area, actually make it more interesting. While the monumental architecture of the Doge’s Palace is best appreciated from other vantage points, even here on the back side, one sees the attention paid to making the building beautiful. The principal facade of the Doge’s Palace faces the Piazza San Marco where it and the adjoining cathedral form the grandest architectural feature of the piazza, and thus of all Venice. The importance of this building is unmistakable from any prospect.
Oriental Mission Church, Los Angeles, 1999 Churches
In Los Angeles, churchgoers pile into the car and drive to church. There is no procession of people in their Sunday best through the streets. As with all public buildings in auto-centric cities, a vast parking lot must be provided, and, as usual, the most convenient and space-saving location is between the buildings and the street.
Most of what is visible from the street is parking lot. In this instance, a few token trees were added to shield the expanse of sizzling asphalt and the mass of parked cars, but the entire arrangement inspires awe only by the breadth and depth of its ugliness. Only the cross marks this site as different from any other. The building itself is in no way remarkable (this one was probably converted from a failed store). The fence and the gate imply that only some people are welcome, and this church provides no amenities whatever to passersby.
Church on the Záttere, Venice, 1997 In Venice, those going to church begin to meet each other in the streets during their walk to church. The social function thus begins well before their arrival at the church itself. Since everyone walks to church, there is no need to make any provision for parking. The street is narrow enough that the cost of stone paving was reasonable.
This church faces directly onto the street. The rich architectural details are seen from close up and intended to be appreciated by passersby as a sign that this building is important enough to be worthy of decoration. (By Venetian standards, this church is only barely worthy of note.) Great care was lavished on the design and execution of the lovely stone paving. This particular church is generous enough to provide a pleasant amenity to the general public: a sunny place to sit and watch the world go past.
Nine cars and nine garages, Los Angeles, 1999 Housing
In Los Angeles, housing is designed with the assumption that all transport outside of the immediate neighborhood is by car. The extreme reliance on automobile transport means that most adults need a car, which explains why there is never enough parking, despite the city’s requirement that developers provide parking spaces for all apartments.
A large percentage of almost every building site must be devoted to parking and access roads, leaving little room for public spaces. The ground floor may be dedicated entirely to garages, as here, so there is often no human presence at ground level, which makes the area hostile, forbidding, and even frightening. Few architectural elements can be more difficult to make beautiful than garage doors, and most housing is overwhelmed by these faceless artifacts of automobility, which foil every effort to design attractive buildings.
Housing, Venice, 1997 All residential buildings in Venice were designed with the assumption that everyone would arrive either on foot or by boat. No provision need be made for parking lots or garages. Most buildings that front on a canal are provided with landing stages for boats, although almost everybody makes all local trips on foot.
Absent the need for car parking, open space is invariably devoted to human uses. It is true that open space is scarce in the older parts of Venice, and much of this takes the form of private gardens. Parks are few and small, but the high quality of public spaces and the omnipresent water views offer a delightful alternative. The surroundings are never threatening. In the absence of the need for garages, the design of attractive buildings is a relatively straightforward matter, even here, where the style here has been kept rather simple.
Bulk food store, Los Angeles, 1999 Shopping
In Los Angeles, most retail sales are made by large enterprises housed in huge, featureless buildings from which a large staff serves a vast geographic area. Only inexpensive automobile transport made these enterprises economically feasible, and the traffic they generate exacerbates highway congestion. These businesses generally construct a new building to their own specification, complete with huge parking lot.
Because customers and store employees come from a wide geographic area, they seldom know or even recognize each other and rarely have any social contact outside the store. Should a customer burst into tears, no one would know why. The store is owned by a distant corporation and managed from afar. The business knows its customers only by their demographic profiles but does its best to accommodate them, for its livelihood depends upon it.
The people who work and shop in these stores know each other, sometimes quite well. Both customers and staff usually live within the same neighborhood, so sometimes they meet on the street. They know the local gossip and the recent misfortunes. A customer who is recently bereaved can expect to be greeted with compassion when entering the store for the first time since the death. The proprietor is present during opening hours. He has learned the special needs and desires of all his customers and does his best to accommodate them, for his livelihood depends upon it.
Crawford argues unapologetically that the car is a technology that has run wild, and that the time has come to reclaim city streets for human activities. He proposes a city planned to maximize the quality of life for individuals and communities, and gives practical suggestions for implementing this basic design in both new and existing cities. Crawford believes that sustainable development can only be achieved by ending car use within cities.
In the face of passive acceptance of declining quality of life, Carfree Cities is a beacon of hope and sanity that offers a practical solution to the danger, pollution, and breakdown of social systems caused by autocentric development. By rejecting the assumption that continued car use in cities is inevitable, Crawford takes us a step closer to the tantalizing possibility of a return to the pattern of lively, attractive streets that we had enjoyed for thousands of years, until the advent of automobiles.
INTRODUCTION
See especially Cities and the Wealth of Nations Mankind first settled in cities about 7000 years ago, and cities have served as the cradle of civilization ever since.
I believe that the future of cities is assured. Culture is hosted by cities because only cities can support great libraries, symphony orchestras, extensive theater districts, major-league sports teams, and vast museums. Cities also provide the principal setting for economic activity. Jane Jacobs believes that the wealth of nations is generated mainly by innovators located in urban areas with the broad infrastructure base needed to support the establishment of new enterprises. Innovators need a vast range of goods and services close at hand, plus, of course, good transport and communications. Only cities can provide such depth of resources.
Cities ought to be places where great buildings and lively outdoor spaces are found, which was usual until modern times. The European capitals still provide many wonderful examples of good urban spaces. Piazza San Marco is perhaps the greatest of them all, peaceful yet vibrant. Most Italian cities have gorgeous squares, a few of which have been protected from cars. New York, Boston, and San Francisco still have great districts, as did most US cities until cars and suburban sprawl bled their hearts dry.
Auto-centric cities are those based on transport by private automobile. Infrequent buses offer indifferent public transport. Car ownership is nearly essential, even for the poor. Los Angeles is the archetype.
When thinking about cities, we must remember that suburbs are an urban, not rural, form. This reality clashes with the suburban leitmotif: fleeing the city to live in the countryside. However, few US suburbs still offer even the illusion of country life, and they depend on central cities for work, health care, and culture. The "national automobile slum" is thus the worst of both worlds: vast areas of forest and farmland are turned into low-density residential neighborhoods organized around automobile transport. Inhabitants of these auto-centric areas must drive great distances through repulsive surroundings to reach virtually every activity.
Rural areas supplied the people, food, and resources to fuel the urban engine that produced the bulk of our technical advances. Although some of these advances turned out to have a dark side, there can be little doubt that technology has generally improved our lives, and we have our cities to thank for this.
Predictions abound that virtual reality will reduce the need for physical presence and thereby the need for cities. While virtual reality will provide an alternative to face-to-face meetings for some task-focused groups, I believe that most people will find it an unsatisfactory substitute for personal contact. I am no technical reprobate: I have computers in my home, make extensive use the Internet, and enjoy playing computer games. But for me, no form of virtual reality will ever replace a pleasant evening stroll among the neighbors. I believe this is true for most people.
For as long as people continue to want to meet in person, the future of cities is assured.
This small square is built to a human scale. The stone pavers are about the length of a human foot. The windows are smaller than the human form, and the door is, of course, somewhat larger. In the narrow streets just beyond, you can touch both walls with outstretched hands.
Cities & Community
City streets are the host for community, and community is central to the maintenance of a civilized society, which depends on a certain level of shared experiences and expectations. It is in the streets that the chance encounters essential to the sustenance of community occur. One indicator of the importance of this function is the degree to which its disappearance is now recognized and lamented in the USA. As classic "main street" towns have disappeared, the social space they once provided has been replaced mainly by shopping malls, a tepid substitute indeed. Not all social encounters on the streets of a well-functioning city are pleasant, but the friction that sometimes arises does serve an important function: it helps people to learn how to tolerate and get along with one another.
In the New World, quite a few social groups have been so marginalized that they no longer have a true place in society. At the same time, some of the richest members of society have in essence completely withdrawn from public life. They live in gated communities, to which the poor are only invited to wash the floors, clean the pools, and tend the gardens. Some rich people only venture into the outer world when isolated in their cars, and then often to travel to members-only venues.
In late 1999, many activists gathered in Seattle to protest secret negotiations being conducted by the World Trade Organization. Police mishandled the demonstrators, almost all of whom were practicing nonviolence. The confrontation has become known in some quarters as the "Battle of Seattle."
A carfree place for kids to hang out. But it’s not bus-free: a small, slow electric bus can be seen in the background. Kids play safely in the streets here. The French Revolution showed how dangerous it is for a privileged aristocracy to isolate itself from the population. No one who could say "let them eat cake" could possibly have had any understanding of what life was like for nearly all her subjects. I fear that a divide is arising in modern Western societies as the degree of segregation and alienation rises. As the "Battle of Seattle" showed in 1999, leaders must maintain some sort of common ground with the rank-and-file or risk unexpected and unpleasant confrontations with those who feel that they have been disenfranchised.
The splendid isolation in which most leaders live surely does not increase their sensitivity to the plight of their constituents. Most leaders are surrounded entirely by people like themselves: rich, powerful, well-educated, and assured of a place at the table. This is true not only among national leaders but also at much lower levels of government. Almost all leaders travel by car and rarely rub elbows with those who elected them. The restoration of streets as public spaces used by everyone will help to assure that citizens from every part of society maintain at least a modicum of contact with one another and to promote conditions under which civilized societies can flourish.
Cities & Transport
Transport is vital to cities: no city can function without its passenger and freight transport systems. As large cities based on car and truck transport approach gridlock, it has become apparent to almost everyone that a better solution is needed. So far, however, only half-hearted solutions have been proposed. While many of these proposals might somewhat improve the livability of our cities, most of them cause adverse effects, some of which are roughly as serious as the problems they are intended to cure. We must examine the prevailing assumption that continued automobile use is inescapable, and that examination is a major theme of this book.
The amount of space that an urban transport system absorbs has a critical effect on urban form. Cars are the most space-intensive form of urban transport ever devised and have forced cities to expand into rural areas. In many cities, attempts to accommodate cars required the construction of urban highways that severely damaged the neighborhoods through which they were driven. Other means would have provided better transport at far lower costs.
Rapid improvements in urban and intercity rail systems during the period 1850–1935 offered mankind the best transport that had ever been seen, but in the USA, cars began as early as 1915 to erode the quality of public spaces and to impede public transport vehicles operating on the streets. So began a long downward spiral in the quality of life in US cities.
The delivery of freight in cities has been problematic since Roman times. The chapter on freight delivery proposes a means to deliver freight in our cities simply by extending the use of standardized shipping containers. Such containers are now routinely moved by the thousand around the globe aboard ships, barges, trains, and trucks. The means I propose merely extend existing, proven technology, much of it fully automated.
The automobile industry has become such a large segment of the world economy that many fear any change that might threaten the continued production of tens of millions of cars each year. Any large decline in urban car usage will certainly cause major economic dislocations, so the change to carfree cities will require careful economic planning and implementation in phases (which is, in any case, almost essential). The auto industry will continue to sell millions of cars a year to those living in rural areas, for whom it is difficult to imagine any other practical means of transport.
Carfree Urban Areas
San Marco, Venice, 1997 Some will scoff at the viability of life in carfree cities, but remember that every city was carfree until about 100 years ago. Venice clearly demonstrates that carfree cities can at the very least continue to function in modern times. It is risky, however, to use Venice as the sole proof of the feasibility of carfree cities. Many regard Venice as a dying city and note the dramatic decline in population since 1945, from about 200,000 to around 75,000 in just 50 years. Venice is, in fact, a victim of its own success.
The combination of the delightful carfree environment, together with a large helping of the world’s art and architectural treasures, has made Venice one of the world’s most popular tourist destinations. Rich people bought up many houses in Venice, and many of these buildings are vacant for most of the year. Other buildings have been converted to hotels to shelter the visiting hordes. Housing prices rose so much that many Venetians were forced to move to Mestre on the mainland, leading at least in part to the dramatic decline in population. Even in winter, however, Venice does not seem like a dead city: it feels like the bustling, good-humored small city that it is.
Most large industry in Venice has relocated to nearby Mestre. Smaller industries, however, still continue to thrive. Murano, an island just north of the two main islands of Venice, has been a leading producer of fine glassware since 1291. Dozens of small glass factories still operate here, so it is evident that small industries with moderate freight requirements can survive despite the problematic freight system.
A reference design is a benchmark, used as a point of departure. Normally, a reference design is not actually built, although it should in principle be employable in some real situation. The reference design for carfree cities could be built without appreciable modification in several Dutch polders and other flat, sparsely-settled tracts. Local conditions will usually dictate substantial deviations.
A very few cars are still permitted to enter the downtown area, but it is effectively carfree. Trams provide a convenient alternative. Most difficulties that beset Venice are intrinsic to its location in the middle of a shallow lagoon or related to its unique place in history. When building new carfree cities or converting existing cities to the carfree model, we will usually be able to design around constraints of this kind. Venice serves us best when we regard it simply as evidence of the high quality of life that is possible in medieval cities: four-story buildings, crooked narrow streets, and relatively high density are in themselves no barrier to a high quality of life, so long as cars are not permitted to terrorize the streets. I would argue, in fact, that it is precisely these qualities of Venice that make it so successful, and many aspects of the "reference design" for carfree cities are indeed based on the Venetian model.
To be sure, other models are also feasible: all that is necessary for the basic carfree design to work is to achieve a sufficiently high population density to support excellent public transport. This can be achieved in many different ways. At one end of the scale are the towering Modernist skyscrapers of Hong Kong and Manhattan. At the other end are low-rise, high-density urban areas like Burano (a small island near Venice) and the old lilong neighborhoods of Shanghai. (Most of the lilong areas have been demolished in favor of high-rise buildings, but when I was in Shanghai, the locals spoke longingly of the warm social environment that had characterized the narrow streets of these carfree areas.)
Further evidence of the workability of carfree cities can be seen in Europe, where many cities have made parts of downtown carfree. In a few cases, such as Freiburg, most of downtown has been made largely or entirely carfree. These areas have been popular with residents and tourists alike, and the initial opposition of merchants has generally changed to strong support within a year or two: most merchants saw their business improve once the cars were gone.
Some cities in the USA have also experimented with carfree areas, although usually on a more modest scale. Some of these experiments have been deemed unsuccessful and reversed, but it appears that most of the unsuccessful trials were in fact "transit malls," which is really another name for an outdoor bus station. Removing cars in order to replace them with diesel buses does little to improve the street in question.
Finally, we must keep firmly in mind that carfree cities demand excellent public transport. Some existing examples of top-quality public transport will be cited later. The only barriers to achieving first-class service for all transit users are political: no technical problems remain to be solved, so long as the necessary population density is achieved. All that is lacking is the will to make the needed service improvements.
The USA is nearing the end of an experiment begun a century ago, an experiment also conducted in lesser degrees by the rest of the world. The experimental hypothesis is simply stated: private automobiles offer everyone the best possible urban transport.
The conduct of this experiment required the demolition of streets, houses, stores, and factories and their reconstruction in new locations. It scattered populations across the countryside, devastated city centers, damaged social systems, and battered the planetary ecosystem. Rich, detailed, human-scale neighborhoods were replaced by hideous, gigantic areas scaled to the needs of cars.
The few good urban environments that still exist in the USA were built before the needs of cars subsumed centuries of urban planning craft. These areas are almost invariably the most beautiful parts of the city (usually also the oldest parts of town), and typically see the heaviest use. In fact, the desire for housing in these deeply-satisfying areas overwhelms the supply and drives up real estate prices. This pattern can also be seen in Europe.
The experiment was supported by the most costly civil works program in history: the construction of the US Interstate highway system. Without fast highways connecting the center city to rural areas, the exodus to the suburbs could never have proceeded so far or so fast.
Even if sufficient resources can be found to sustain the experiment indefinitely, there remain many reasons to remove cars from our cities: cars are wasting our time, wrecking our lives, and destroying our societies. In the 20th century, cars have done more to damage our cities than wars, terrible as they have been. No city except Venice has been immune to the ravages of cars. Urban automobile usage amounts to an undeclared war between drivers and everybody else. Just as in a real war, there is a lot of "collateral damage." We see it around us every day in the form of the awful environments built since the needs of cars and their drivers came to dominate every aspect of urban planning.
These ugly environments seem inseparable from auto-centric development. They have had a devastating effect on the civic functions of the public realm. These dreadful environments discourage people from spending time in public places and broadcast the message: this mess is so awful, nobody cares what you do here. It leads to isolation, cynicism, hopelessness, and antisocial behavior.
See Donald Appleyard’s work for a thorough examination of the effects of cars on communities. While many problems with cars are of a technical nature and therefore susceptible to engineering solutions, the most serious problems are intrinsic and cannot be solved by any application of technology. I regard the damage that cars do to social systems as the most serious problem they cause in cities. No technical improvement to cars can restore the vital function of streets as the host for community: as long as anything as dangerous and intrusive as cars and trucks rule our streets, civic life will vanish from the street.
For more on life in contemporary US cities, see Jackson, Kay, and Kunstler. See also this book’s foreword. At a deep level, Americans are finally beginning to understand that something is missing in their lives. The sudden emergence of suburban sprawl as a topic of national discussion indicates that many have realized that something was lost when sprawling suburbs replaced walkable, human-scale cities. This discussion is perhaps less evident in Europe, which was slower to adopt widespread car usage and where cars were never permitted to do as much harm to cities. (We shall see later that Le Corbusier proposed to demolish most of Paris in order to build highways and tower blocks. Fortunately, wiser heads prevailed.)
As evidence of the seriousness of our design errors, I offer the passion we now exhibit for the preservation and restoration of old urban neighborhoods. Today in the industrialized nations, almost any proposal that would damage these artifacts of civility is instantly shouted down.
We have recently seen a spate of books proposing solutions to the urban transport crisis and the problem of suburban sprawl. While this marks the dawning of awareness that automobile usage in cities causes many intractable problems, the solutions so far proposed are only palliatives. This book proposes a solution that is at once radical and reactionary: radical because it proposes major changes to our cities, and reactionary because many of these changes are actually a reversion to urban patterns still widely applied just a century ago.
Solution
"Traffic management" is not really a solution to anything. Only when kids can play ball in the street without worrying about cars has a sufficient improvement been achieved. While some traffic management schemes do improve conditions for some people, most strategies carry less-obvious drawbacks that make life worse for others. While speed bumps do slow cars down for a moment, the net result is a small decrease in average speed coupled with a significant increase in noise and exhaust emissions, a situation arguably worse than before the bumps were installed.
A woonerf is a residential street to which cars are only admitted on the condition that they proceed at dead slow. Street furniture creates a winding path that effectively enforces this condition; high speeds are impossible, and most streets are dead ends.
The Dutch woonerf really does improve the quality of life for residents, based as it is on the presumption that cars are admitted so long as they proceed at a walking pace and do not disrupt other activities. However, the woonerf approach is not extensible beyond local neighborhoods because cars require reasonably high-speed streets in order to provide quick transport. The woonerf solution may also simply displace traffic from one street to another, such as happened in Berkeley, California, where some residential areas were turned into a maze of dead-end streets. Traffic that had used the local streets was simply displaced to the main arteries.
A real solution to the problem of the urban automobile can only be achieved by moving cars entirely out of the city. Only by this means can we restore true peace in our streets and provide a safe environment where people are invited to linger, without fear of traffic.
If we replace auto-centric urban transport with rail-based systems, we can retain and even improve our current levels of mobility at a cost both we and the environment can bear. A carfree city designed around rail transport would greatly reduce the resources currently consumed by urban transport while providing a fast, comfortable alternative to cars.
In order to make effective use of rail systems, carfree cities will require a considerably denser pattern of living than the suburbs, but denser, carfree living can help restore community to our neighborhoods. The design for carfree cities provides a way to establish nearby parks and open space, regain peace and quiet in our homes and offices, and begin the reconstruction of social systems damaged when the automobile drove life off the street. The required density increases are by no means extreme: densities that are still common in European city centers are entirely sufficient. Even sprawling Los Angeles has a few neighborhoods that are more densely populated than the districts proposed for carfree cities.
The changes I propose are far-reaching indeed: the complete removal of cars and trucks from city streets is as sweeping a change as I can imagine. While many compromises with this radical approach are possible and probably quite workable, I think that we should adopt a policy of completely removing motorized traffic from city streets. Only in this way do we obtain the full benefits of carfree cities. However, Part III does consider design compromises that permit some level of continued urban car usage while still yielding streets that are entirely carfree.
The reference design proposes a return to traditional forms of city building, because these forms have shown their worth through the ages and because people still seem to value these areas the most. However, many architects (and a few others) continue to believe that Modernism is mankind’s salvation. Modernism could be accommodated in its own district, as Léon Krier has proposed. The rest of us would be free to live elsewhere, in districts based on older, more comfortable patterns, such as those identified by Christopher Alexander.
One element of the reference design in particular has aroused considerable opposition: my proposal to adopt Alexander’s pattern limiting building heights to four stories is strongly opposed by some, including a few people whose views I otherwise largely accept. While tall buildings are not essential to a successful city, there is no reason why a district could not be reserved for skyscrapers. In fact, the division of carfree cities into districts makes it easy to provide locations to accommodate a wide range of preferences.
The message of this book is simple: Get the cars out of the cities. The rest is simply a proposal for how to achieve this. Other methods besides those I propose would probably also work, although some might require technically-advanced transport systems whose practicality has yet to be demonstrated. Any promising method should be tested.
The more carfree areas that are developed in the coming decade, the better. Some efforts will doubtless work better than others, but even the attempts that do not achieve complete success will provide interesting environments and useful lessons. I believe that nothing will sell the idea of carfree cities better than the experience of carfree areas, and Venice is certainly the best advertisement for carfree cities that I have ever seen.
Carfree cities can offer rich human experience, great beauty, and true peace. They can greatly reduce the damage we are doing to the biosphere. They permit the construction of beautiful districts in the manner of European city centers, with parks but a short walk away. Carfree cities are a practical alternative, available now. They can be built using existing technology at a price we can afford. They offer a real future for our children.
Organization of the Book
The book is divided into three Parts, each beginning with an enumeration of its chapters and summaries of their contents. Part I considers cities in general and transport in particular. Part II presents the reference design for carfree cities as well as some variations on the reference design. Part III examines ways of implementing carfree cities in the real world.
Table of Contents
Front Matter
Foreword by James Howard Kunstler
Preface
Introduction
Part I: On Cities
Yardsticks for Cities
Cities & Transport
Wicked Cars
Better Public Transport
Sustainable Cities
Part II: Carfree Cities
Design Parameters
City Topology
City Districts
City Blocks
Buildings
Passenger Transport
Freight Delivery
Part III: Going Carfree
Support for Carfree Cities
Planning Carfree Cities
Some Modest Proposals
Afterword
Appendixes
Resources at Carfree.com
The Bicycle City
The Auto-Centric Carfree City
Sales of ships for scrap being ‘suffocated’
A key safety valve for regulating the world’s supply of ships has stopped working in recent weeks, after credit and other problems brought the sale of ships for scrapping to a near halt.
The problems are centred in India, the heart of the world ship-demolition industry, and have prevented owners from selling the thousands of ageing vessels worldwide that are no longer worth keeping afloat, following a collapse in the rates earned by many vessel types.
There had been hopes that large-scale scrapping might limit the effects of oversupply in key shipping markets, brought about by the manic ordering of key ship types in recent years – particularly dry bulk carriers and container ships.
“The Indian market is basically closed at the moment,” one industry participant said.
The central problem, according to people involved, is that many shipbreakers’ banks are no longer willing to issue letters of credit – documents assuring the seller’s bank that the agreed price for the vessel will be paid.
The banks fear that falling scrap values mean their customers will be unwilling to pay the seller the guaranteed sum and the vessel will not cover the guaranteed amount if it is seized as security.
Some Indian banks also appear to have refused to honour letters of credit over fears about the value of the ships pledged as security.
Vessels were fetching record prices of up to $740 a tonne as recently as September, while the present market price has collapsed to $300.
Michael Bodouroglou, chief executive of Nasdaq-listed Paragon Bulk Shipping, based in Athens, said: “This credit situation is really suffocating the industry in a number of ways on the scrap side of it. It’s unbelievable what’s going on.”
The seizing up of the market means that owners will either try to keep operating older ships or will store away the many obsolete vessels that were kept going in boom conditions.
According to figures from Clarksons, the shipbrokers, there are still more than 250 ocean-going dry bulk ships built in 1975 or earlier and more than 350 built in 1984 alone.
There are also large numbers of excess, ageing container ships, while large numbers of oil tankers need to be phased out before a ban on single-hull vessels in most parts of the world from 2010.
Mr Bodouroglou said scrapping was a healthy thing that always happened in a downturn: “It eases the strain of the oversupply of ships placed on the market.”
However, one shipbroker said prices for scrap had now fallen so far that mothballed shipbreaking yards in China could start reopening to take advantage of the low prices. Such yards are usually regarded as easier to deal with than Indian shipbreakers, whose facilities normally consist of no more than a plot of beach.
Quentin Soanes, managing director of London-based Braemar Seascope Shipbrokers, said a surge of such scrapping was likely to be accompanied by significant cancellations of orders for new ships. Both would reduce concerns about future oversupply.
“All the issues that will help the recovery are probably coming faster than people expect,” Mr Soanes said.
By Robert Wright in London
Financial Times (UK).
October 26 2008
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
The problems are centred in India, the heart of the world ship-demolition industry, and have prevented owners from selling the thousands of ageing vessels worldwide that are no longer worth keeping afloat, following a collapse in the rates earned by many vessel types.
There had been hopes that large-scale scrapping might limit the effects of oversupply in key shipping markets, brought about by the manic ordering of key ship types in recent years – particularly dry bulk carriers and container ships.
“The Indian market is basically closed at the moment,” one industry participant said.
The central problem, according to people involved, is that many shipbreakers’ banks are no longer willing to issue letters of credit – documents assuring the seller’s bank that the agreed price for the vessel will be paid.
The banks fear that falling scrap values mean their customers will be unwilling to pay the seller the guaranteed sum and the vessel will not cover the guaranteed amount if it is seized as security.
Some Indian banks also appear to have refused to honour letters of credit over fears about the value of the ships pledged as security.
Vessels were fetching record prices of up to $740 a tonne as recently as September, while the present market price has collapsed to $300.
Michael Bodouroglou, chief executive of Nasdaq-listed Paragon Bulk Shipping, based in Athens, said: “This credit situation is really suffocating the industry in a number of ways on the scrap side of it. It’s unbelievable what’s going on.”
The seizing up of the market means that owners will either try to keep operating older ships or will store away the many obsolete vessels that were kept going in boom conditions.
According to figures from Clarksons, the shipbrokers, there are still more than 250 ocean-going dry bulk ships built in 1975 or earlier and more than 350 built in 1984 alone.
There are also large numbers of excess, ageing container ships, while large numbers of oil tankers need to be phased out before a ban on single-hull vessels in most parts of the world from 2010.
Mr Bodouroglou said scrapping was a healthy thing that always happened in a downturn: “It eases the strain of the oversupply of ships placed on the market.”
However, one shipbroker said prices for scrap had now fallen so far that mothballed shipbreaking yards in China could start reopening to take advantage of the low prices. Such yards are usually regarded as easier to deal with than Indian shipbreakers, whose facilities normally consist of no more than a plot of beach.
Quentin Soanes, managing director of London-based Braemar Seascope Shipbrokers, said a surge of such scrapping was likely to be accompanied by significant cancellations of orders for new ships. Both would reduce concerns about future oversupply.
“All the issues that will help the recovery are probably coming faster than people expect,” Mr Soanes said.
By Robert Wright in London
Financial Times (UK).
October 26 2008
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Where are the Indian workers suffering from radioactive radiation?
Radioactive Contamination Scandal in India & France
France's Nuclear Safety Authority has alerted the Indian authorities about the radioactive buttons. It said, the lift buttons contained traces of radioactive Cobalt 60. Radiological safety division of India's Atomic Energy Regulatory Board is investigating the concerns raised by France's Nuclear Safety Authority. The original complain was from Otis firm, a French subsidiary of the US company. The factory belonging to Mafelec company, which delivers the buttons to Otis noticed in early October. Nuclear Safety Authority classed the incident at a factory of the Mafelec firm in the east-central town of Chimilin at level two on the seven-level International Nuclear Event Scale. It said that of 30 workers exposed, 20 had been exposed to doses of between one mSv (milli-Sievert) and three mSv. The maximum permitted dose for workers in the non-nuclear sector is one mSv.
The Hazardous Waste (Management, Handling and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2008 is a declaration to the hazardous waste traders that the Indian Government offers no resistance to transboundary movement of hazardous and radioactive materials. It does not matter if it comes without prior decontamination in the country of export in manifest contempt of Supreme Court's directions in its order dated 14 October, 2003 in Writ Petition (Civil) 657 of 1995.
Atomic Energy (Safe Disposal of Radioactive Wastes) Rules, 1987 deals with the radioactive waste. There framers of both the Rules were oblivious to a situation where hazardous waste (recyclable metal scrap, according to Environment Ministry) and the products made out of it would be contaminated with radioactive materials.
Hazardous Waste Rules lays down the procedure for import of hazardous waste and how it would facilitate the same by providing administrative mechanism to ensure that even Port and Customs authorities ensure compliance when hazardous waste is imported by paying lip service seeking "safe handling". After creating the loophole it says, Custom authorities would take samples as per Customs Act 1962 prior to clearing the assignments. Technical Review Committee of MoEF as noted in the Rules should now show its sense of purpose by finding out where did the radioactive materials come from in the lift buttons made of scrap steel.
The case illustrates how even the new Rules remain full of loopholes. One would have been surprised, had it not been so because the Ministry defines hazardous waste as recyclable metal...and then asks agencies Customs and Atomic Energy Regulatory Board to probe the consequences of the flawed Rules. The Hazardous Waste Rules do not apply to radioactive waste as covered under the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 (33 of 1962)and rules made thereunder. Consequently, Atomic Energy (Safe Disposal of Radioactive Wastes) Rules, 1987 apply to it.
But neither the Hazardous Waste Rules nor the Safe Disposal of Radioactive Wastes Rules seem to have foreseen a situation where metal scrap products are found to be contaminated with radioactive materials although while providing the definition, the Radioactive waste Rules, it says, “radioactive waste” means any waste material containing radionuclides in quantities or concentrations as prescribed by the competent authority by notification in the official gazette".
Safe Disposal of Radioactive Wastes Rules also provides for a “Radiological Safety Officer” who can advise the employer regarding the safe handling and disposal of radioactive wastes and on the steps necessary to ensure that the operational limits are not exceeded; to instruct the radiation workers engaged in waste disposal on the hazards of radiation and on suitable safety measures and work practices aimed at minimising exposures to radiation and contamination, and to ensure that adequate radiation surveillance is provided for all radiation workers and the environment.
Neither Environment Ministry, Labour Ministry nor the Atomic Energy Ministry provides for Radiological Safety Officer in the scarp metal yards. Radiological Safety Officer has to carry out such tests on conditioned radioactive wastes, as specified by the competent authority;to ensure that all buildings, laboratories and plants wherein radioactive wastes will be or are likely to be handled/produced, conditioned or stored or discharged from, are designed to provide adequate safety for safe handling and disposal of radioactive waste. He has to help investigate and initiate prompt and suitable remedial measures in respect of any situation that could lead to radiation hazards; and ...to ensure that the provisions of the Radiation Protection Rules, 1971 are followed properly.
In France, the 20 workers who suffered the radioactive radiation has been found and are being treated (if there is a treatment), our Environment Ministry, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) and Labour Ministry must now trace the Indian workers who suffered due to radiation while working with the metal scrap (from the scrap yard, re-rolling mills to the lift steel button manufacturing) that was contaminated with radioactive material. The failure of the Ministries concerned is too stark to remain unnoticed. There is an urgent need to rewrite the present Rules that is more concerned about human health than hazardous waste trade. Likes of R K Vaish who drafted the Rules must be made accountable. The issue must be dealt with at a much higher level than is case now. There is no quick fix solution.
In such a situation, is buying radioactive monitors as has been suggested by the AERB sufficient?
France's Nuclear Safety Authority has alerted the Indian authorities about the radioactive buttons. It said, the lift buttons contained traces of radioactive Cobalt 60. Radiological safety division of India's Atomic Energy Regulatory Board is investigating the concerns raised by France's Nuclear Safety Authority. The original complain was from Otis firm, a French subsidiary of the US company. The factory belonging to Mafelec company, which delivers the buttons to Otis noticed in early October. Nuclear Safety Authority classed the incident at a factory of the Mafelec firm in the east-central town of Chimilin at level two on the seven-level International Nuclear Event Scale. It said that of 30 workers exposed, 20 had been exposed to doses of between one mSv (milli-Sievert) and three mSv. The maximum permitted dose for workers in the non-nuclear sector is one mSv.
The Hazardous Waste (Management, Handling and Transboundary Movement) Rules, 2008 is a declaration to the hazardous waste traders that the Indian Government offers no resistance to transboundary movement of hazardous and radioactive materials. It does not matter if it comes without prior decontamination in the country of export in manifest contempt of Supreme Court's directions in its order dated 14 October, 2003 in Writ Petition (Civil) 657 of 1995.
Atomic Energy (Safe Disposal of Radioactive Wastes) Rules, 1987 deals with the radioactive waste. There framers of both the Rules were oblivious to a situation where hazardous waste (recyclable metal scrap, according to Environment Ministry) and the products made out of it would be contaminated with radioactive materials.
Hazardous Waste Rules lays down the procedure for import of hazardous waste and how it would facilitate the same by providing administrative mechanism to ensure that even Port and Customs authorities ensure compliance when hazardous waste is imported by paying lip service seeking "safe handling". After creating the loophole it says, Custom authorities would take samples as per Customs Act 1962 prior to clearing the assignments. Technical Review Committee of MoEF as noted in the Rules should now show its sense of purpose by finding out where did the radioactive materials come from in the lift buttons made of scrap steel.
The case illustrates how even the new Rules remain full of loopholes. One would have been surprised, had it not been so because the Ministry defines hazardous waste as recyclable metal...and then asks agencies Customs and Atomic Energy Regulatory Board to probe the consequences of the flawed Rules. The Hazardous Waste Rules do not apply to radioactive waste as covered under the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 (33 of 1962)and rules made thereunder. Consequently, Atomic Energy (Safe Disposal of Radioactive Wastes) Rules, 1987 apply to it.
But neither the Hazardous Waste Rules nor the Safe Disposal of Radioactive Wastes Rules seem to have foreseen a situation where metal scrap products are found to be contaminated with radioactive materials although while providing the definition, the Radioactive waste Rules, it says, “radioactive waste” means any waste material containing radionuclides in quantities or concentrations as prescribed by the competent authority by notification in the official gazette".
Safe Disposal of Radioactive Wastes Rules also provides for a “Radiological Safety Officer” who can advise the employer regarding the safe handling and disposal of radioactive wastes and on the steps necessary to ensure that the operational limits are not exceeded; to instruct the radiation workers engaged in waste disposal on the hazards of radiation and on suitable safety measures and work practices aimed at minimising exposures to radiation and contamination, and to ensure that adequate radiation surveillance is provided for all radiation workers and the environment.
Neither Environment Ministry, Labour Ministry nor the Atomic Energy Ministry provides for Radiological Safety Officer in the scarp metal yards. Radiological Safety Officer has to carry out such tests on conditioned radioactive wastes, as specified by the competent authority;to ensure that all buildings, laboratories and plants wherein radioactive wastes will be or are likely to be handled/produced, conditioned or stored or discharged from, are designed to provide adequate safety for safe handling and disposal of radioactive waste. He has to help investigate and initiate prompt and suitable remedial measures in respect of any situation that could lead to radiation hazards; and ...to ensure that the provisions of the Radiation Protection Rules, 1971 are followed properly.
In France, the 20 workers who suffered the radioactive radiation has been found and are being treated (if there is a treatment), our Environment Ministry, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB) and Labour Ministry must now trace the Indian workers who suffered due to radiation while working with the metal scrap (from the scrap yard, re-rolling mills to the lift steel button manufacturing) that was contaminated with radioactive material. The failure of the Ministries concerned is too stark to remain unnoticed. There is an urgent need to rewrite the present Rules that is more concerned about human health than hazardous waste trade. Likes of R K Vaish who drafted the Rules must be made accountable. The issue must be dealt with at a much higher level than is case now. There is no quick fix solution.
In such a situation, is buying radioactive monitors as has been suggested by the AERB sufficient?