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A Suburb That Thrives; Free of Cars
The Observer, 31st May 2009
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
VAUBAN, Germany - Residents of this upscale community are pioneers, going where few suburban mothers or commuting executives have ever gone before: they have given up their cars. Street parking, driveways and home garages are generally forbidden in this experimental new district on the outskirts of Freiburg, near the French and Swiss borders. Vauban's streets are completely "car-free" - except the main thoroughfare, where the tram to downtown Freiburg runs, and a few streets on one edge of the community. Car ownership is allowed, but there are only two places to park: large garages at the edge of the development, where a car-owner buys a space, for $40,000, along with a home. As a result, 70 percent of Vauban's families do not own cars, and 57 per- cent sold a car to move here.
"When I had a car I was always tense. I'm much happier this way," said Heidrun Walter, a media trainer and mother of two, as she walked verdant streets where the swish of bicycles and the chatter of wandering children drown out the occasional distant motor. Vauban, completed in 2006, is an ex- ample of a growing trend in Europe, the United States and elsewhere to separate suburban life from auto use, as a component of a movement called "smart planning." Automobiles are the linchpin of suburbs, where middle-class families from Chicago to Shanghai tend to make their homes. And that, experts say, is a huge impediment to current efforts to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from tailpipes, and thus to reduce glob- al warming. Passenger cars are responsible for 12 percent of greenhouse gas emissions in Europe and up to 50 percent in some car-intensive areas in the United States.
While there have been efforts in the past two decades to make cities denser, and better for walking, planners are now taking the concept to the suburbs and focusing specifically on environmental benefits like reducing emissions. Vauban, home to 5,500 residents within a rectangular 2.5 square kilo- meters, may be the most advanced experiment in low-car suburban life. But its precepts are being adopted around the world in attempts to make suburbs more compact and more accessible to public transportation. "All of our development since World War II has been centred on the car, and that will have to change," said David Goldberg, an official of Transportation for America, a fast-growing coalition of hundreds of groups in the United States who are promoting new communities that are less dependent on cars. Mr. Goldberg added: "How much you drive is as important as whether you have a hybrid."
But convincing people to give up their cars can be difficult. "People in the U.S. are incredibly suspicious of any idea where people are not going to own cars, or are going to own fewer," said David Ceaser, co-founder of Car- Free City USA, who said no car-free suburban project the size of Vauban had been successful in the United States. In Europe, some governments are thinking on a national scale. In 2000, Britain began a comprehensive effort to reform planning, to discourage car use by requiring that new development be accessible by public transit.
In Germany, a country that is home to Mercedes-Benz and the autobahn, life in a car-reduced place like Vauban has its own unusual contours. The town is long and relatively narrow, so that the tram into Freiburg is an easy walk from every home. Stores, restaurants, banks and schools are more interspersed among homes than they are in a typical suburb. Most residents have carts that they haul behind bi- cycles for shopping trips or children's play dates. For trips to stores like IKEA or the ski slopes, families buy cars together or use communal cars rented out by Vauban's car-sharing club. Ms. Walter had previously lived - with a private car - in Freiburg as well as the United States. "If you have one, you tend to use it," she said. "Some people move in here and move out rather quickly - they miss the car next door."
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