Pod Academy

The financial and ecological costs of driving, and the time we waste sitting in traffic jams, is leading many people to think about a more 'walkable' city.  The man who has thought and written most widely on this is city planner and architectural designer Jeff Speck, the author of ‘Walkable Cities - How Downtown Can Save America One Step at a Time.  Craig Barfoot interviewed him for Pod Academy. In rural, tribal societies with no technology, people move on average at three miles per hour because they are walking everywhere.  In most developed countries, if you add up the costs of driving a car, the time you spend earning that money and the time you spend in traffic, it has been estimated that we, too, move at about 3 miles per hour! Building new roads is no answer because the extra capacity is absorbed within 2 or 3 years by new car journeys.  A better solution might be to price driving at its true cost to society, and Jeff points to London’s congestion charge as one of the successes of this approach. But