Walking, cycling and taking the bus are acts of resistance to challenging car culture while honouring the values of social change for labour, women’s rights and economic and environmental justice.
Cities were bustling in the early 20th century with pedestrians, cyclists, street cars, horses and buggies. However, as the 20th century moved along, the automobile industry, thanks to Edward Bernays, who learned the dark arts of propaganda in his time under former U.S. president Woodrow Wilson and crafted it into a new form of business communications. This business communication called public relations, is defined by the Public Relations Society of America as “a strategic communications process that builds mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their publics.” Bernays used public relations to turn around the automobile industry, convincing people to buy cars as “symbols of male vitality,” by selling bigger and faster vehicles yearly.
Urbanism analyst Andy Boenau articulates this well, suggesting that Bernays’ “artful manipulation positioned automobile ownership as a conduit for self-expression and societal advancement. Anyone who’s anyone would have their own car.” This is public relations at its finest — twisting words to sell unnecessary products into goods people want.
The automotive public relations machine began influencing traffic rules. Pedestrians would get severely hurt or killed as automobiles would flood the streets in the 1910s and 1920s, causing the industry high levels of frustration across the U. S. The automotive industry counteracted and controlled the narrative by offering free stories to journals covering stories about “accidents,” to creating the derogatory term “jaywalker,” referring to pedestrians crossing the street in an unsafe manner.
After the Second World War, the car culture dominated urban planning. North American city planners fell intoxicated by the ways of automobile-centric planning, selling a bill of false goods that bigger was better. More significant highways and more lanes created headaches on many levels as investments in alternative transportation were ignored. Many cities became segregated, ranging from Atlanta, Houston and New Orleans in the U.S. to even here in Winnipeg, with the Rooster Town Métis community displaced in favour of suburban development.
Expansive cities are expensive cities. We see it here in Winnipeg as we debate the merits of investing in things we really should (waste treatment plants) versus what we ought not (Chief Peguis and Kenaston Boulevard expansion). The quality of our city declines through the impacts of climate change (higher risks of flash floods as the sprawled-out land, developed with more concrete, cannot absorb water fast enough).
Nearly half of Winnipeg’s emissions come from transportation, with a majority from private automobiles. Sprawling urban centers create further challenges for our democracies as when cities spread out, citizens create their norms and ideas in isolated pockets, which Yale University suggests, “fail to be properly integrated into broader society, and fail to be properly recognized by our elected officials.” When ideas get pigeonholed, engagement declines, as seen in voter apathy in our civic elections, including in our inner city communities.
Despite the influence of the automobile industry’s PR machine, we can choose to be defiant. We can choose how to get around by cycling, walking and public transit. By using active transportation, we are more likely to support local small businesses by repairing our bicycles and spending more money. By supporting public transit, we are showing support for labour unions, such as with public transit unions having a proud history within the labour movement. By using all three forms of alternative transportation, we are taking climate action, improving our health and creating a more democratic and equitable society. Ultimately, by biking, walking and taking the bus, as we’ve historically been encouraged to do by the local ad campaign Transit Tom, we are rising against car culture that has done irreparable harm toward our cities.
Adam Johnston hosts Not Necessarily The Automobile on Thursdays at 11:30 a.m. on UMFM 101.5. He can be reached at notnecessarilytheautomobile@gmail.com
