Freedom of Movement… For Who?

The Katy Freeway in Katy, TX, one of the largest highways in the United States.

        In my hometown of Menomonee Falls, a large suburb bordering Milwaukee, Wisconsin, I experienced car dependency much like most other Americans. My high school, for example, was three miles away, which would theoretically be bikable if it were not for the three arterial roads I would have to cross to get there. The grocery store was a drive, the bar was a drive, and even the convenience store was a drive (what is convenient about a store that you still have to drive to?). 

For most Americans (55% of them, as we noted in the prior essay in this collection), this dire car dependency is a reality. And, while the primary source of stress involving car ownership is the endless driving, a much more dangerous reality exists below the surface: car ownership is a substantial financial drain. On average, the total cost of owning one car is $12,300 per year. This expense includes most of the expenses associated with car ownership, from most to least expensive: Purchase/interest, depreciation, insurance, gas, and repair. Ironically, while a jump in $20 per week of gas is enough to cause a political firestorm, as it did for Joe Biden in 2021/2022, that expense only accounts for, at most, 25% of annual vehicle ownership expenses. As the cost of automobile ownership outpaces inflation, car ownership is increasingly becoming unrealistic for many American families, particularly less wealthy families.

Similarly, private car ownership is deadly. Over 40,000 people die on the streets in America every year, and hundreds of thousands more are permanently injured from traffic violence. Traffic violence also is the leading cause of death for adolescents and young adults. And, unfortunately, this carnage only scratches the surface of health issues that car dependency causes. Pollution is one such external factor: automobiles are responsible for more than 50% of carbon monoxide emissions, 30% of CO2 emissions, and as much as 75% of PM10 pollution as well. Alone, pollution from automobiles is estimated to kill 58,000 people a year in the United States.

While, collectively, over 100,000 annual deaths are directly caused by automobiles alone, the number of deaths for which automobiles are a primary contributor is substantially higher. In fact, traffic violence and pollution are comparatively minor when considering the total harm that automobiles cause. The most substantial harm is in the built environment that car dependency enforces by both edict and force.

In the last essay, we discussed what the suburban built environment looks like: Large lots, evenly spaced and distributed houses, separation of uses (i.e. between residential and commercial), and large distances between amenities. While the detached, single-family homes are a significant feature of the suburban environment, American suburbia is established around one central, recurrent machine: The automobile. For this reason, many factors associated with a sedentary lifestyle–for which suburbia is the primary motivation–can be attributed to the automobile. These include heart diseases (22% of all US deaths), preventable cancers (10% of all US deaths), and stroke (5% of all US deaths). Combined with the 100,000 deaths per year already attributed directly to automobiles, car dependency is at least partially responsible for a whopping 40% of all deaths. As such, car dependency is far and away the largest contributor to chronic health issues and death in the United States.

Yet, as might be expected, everything I mentioned in this essay so far is racialized and sexualized, in fact even more so than in the first essay. For the rest of the essay, let us cover how each aspect of car dependency we have already discussed–the prevalence of automobiles, the cost of car ownership, and the health effects of car dependency–disproportionately affects non-white, non-cisgender male, and non-straight people. 

PREVALENCE OF CARS

There are approximately 850 cars for every thousand people in the United States, meaning that an average family of four would have more than three cars. This unprecedented access to a vehicle that provides virtually unlimited opportunities for exploration has been, for several decades, one of the principal motivations for car ownership in the United States. As a result, many car brands exploit this concept of “freedom” in their advertisements and slogans. In fact, here are a few examples of slogans by US subsidiaries of car companies: “Let’s Go Places” (Toyota), “Domestic, Not Domesticated” (Dodge), “Guts. Glory. Ram.” (RAM), and “The Power of Dreams” (Honda). Collectively, these 

Yet automobile access is not equally distributed amongst races. In fact, while only 6% of white US households own zero cars, over 17% of black and 13% of indigenous households have no access to a car. Similarly, white households have by far the highest rates of car ownership as well, with 2.0 vehicles per household, while black households have only 1.2. This happens despite the fact that black households tend to be larger than white ones. 

This remarkable disparity in automobile access is due in part to the fact that black families are much more likely to live in cities, whereas white families are much more likely to live in suburbs. When there are sufficient alternative transportation options–notably heavy rail (subways and metros), regional rail, buses, bike lanes and safe sidewalks–a lack of car ownership is actually a significant benefit for a society at large. Yet America famously lacks alternative transportation options, especially for black families, so a lack of car access affects every aspect of life–from employment and education to food and recreation–for black Americans. And this lack of alternative transportation results from the economic cost of America’s cigarette-like addiction to automobiles.

THE COST OF CAR DEPENDENCY

The median income for white households in the United States is $81,060, whereas for black households it is only $53,860 and for Hispanic households only $65,540. When the cost of car ownership is approximately $12,300 per year, as noted earlier, the drain that car ownership places on black and Hispanic families’ finances is disproportionately higher than it is for white families. Black and Hispanic Americans also pay up to twice as much for car insurance as white Americans do. As a result, such households suffer substantially more from the financial ruin of car ownership than white families do. Coupled with higher rental rates and a lack of access to homeownership for a majority of Hispanic and black families, the tragedy of suburbia spells financial death for even the average nonwhite household in the United States.

For women and non-straight people, the same reality is the case. As women earn approximately 75 cents on the dollar relative to their male counterparts, the cost of car ownership also affects them much more. Similarly, housing inequalities against women also disproportionately destroys financial stability for households run by women. Queer households earn 90 cents on the dollar relative to their straight counterparts, so they are even more disproportionately affected by car ownership than straight women.

And yet, unfortunately there are little alternatives for your average black or queer household. Over 77% of all federal transportation infrastructure investment is towards highways, air or sea travel, leaving only 22% for alternative transportation modes such as rail, buses and other options. As a result, the United States has one of the least developed intercity rail networks, urban rail infrastructure, intercity bus infrastructure, or high speed rail development of any developed country in the world. Similarly, despite being the second largest OECD member, it has only the 11th highest number of passenger-kilometers traveled by rail. As this is primarily the result of infrastructure, we must wonder: What might the financial situation look like for black, queer and non-male Americans had we invested in alternative transportation infrastructure alongside highway infrastructure?

THE DEATH TOLL

Unfortunately, the financial cost is the less harmful aspect of the total cost that harms black, queer and non-male Americans. As we mentioned earlier, by far the most harmful consequence of car dependency is the death associated with it, either from traffic violence or health effects. Just like the financial consequences, death and health issues due to car dependency disproportionately affect nonwhite residents. While black Americans make up only 13% of the US population, they account for 17% of automobile deaths. In 96.6% of US counties, black Americans die at the highest rates from automobile-related pollution. 

Similarly, black and Hispanic Americans experience among the highest obesity rates, highest cancer incidence and death rates, while suffering from the lowest life expectancies of any racial or ethnic group in the United States. Coupled with inequities in healthcare as well as access to healthy and safe food and drinking water, car dependency issues a three-tiered punch to nonwhite, non-male, non-straight individuals and households across the United States: While contributing the least to car dependency and suffering all the disadvantages that come with the lack of car ownership, they experience disproportionate financial ruin from car ownership and disproportionate death from car dependency.

And that is why car dependency is such a dangerous positive feedback loop: Not only does it negatively benefit the entire country (white and nonwhite, straight and queer, male and non-male, etc.), but it cunningly affects all Americans excluded from the traditional standard of suburbia disproportionately. As much as we see how the death and destruction of car-dependent suburbia affects nonwhite or cisgender straight males so much more, we also notice that this car dependency does not benefit anyone. That necessarily makes us wonder: why must it exist in the first place?