Abstract
As urban settlement increases in size, there is a tendency for average journey lengths to increase, and consequently the necessity for faster means of transportation. Slowly we have been caught within a technological spiral. The solutions to urban problems have always been couched in terms of technological solutions, despite the fact that our present urban problems are not necessarity technological ones. As Schaeffer and Sclar write, “It is not surprising that new technology has no effective answer to the urban transportation problem, for the old technology did not create it” (Schaeffer & Sclar, 1975). Our present equation is ‘congestion equals too many cars, not travelling fast enough’. If this were true, we could say that we were getting closer to the solution of our urban transportation problems every time we increase the speed of travel modes and decrease the travelling time. But this is not the problem. The whole history of improvement in transportation technology has shown that, by increasing speed and decreasing travelling time, we have invariably reduced the number for whom this benefits. Speed allows people to travel farther not faster, thus compounding the problems of increasing sprawl, segregation and environmental deterioration.