PATTERNS OF AUTOMOBILE DEPENDENCE IN CITIES: AN INTERNATIONAL OVERVIEW OF KEY PHYSICAL AND ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS WITH SOME IMPLICATIONS FOR URBAN POLICY. IN: THE AUTOMOBILE

The purpose of this paper is to provide an insight into some summary findings of a large comparative study of automobile dependence in cities whose ongoing goal is to at least partly remedy the lack of this comparative urban transportation data. This study examined a wide range of data for 1990 in 46 cities in the United States, Australia, Canada, Western Europe, and Asia, the Asian sample being divided into wealthy Asian cities and much less wealthy, developing Asian cities. This international comparison suggests that increasing automobile dependence and declining transit and nonmotorized mode use in cities are not inevitable. They appear to be responsive to public policy which seeks to minimize such trends through effective land use planning, transportation infrastructure and service delivery policies directed more towards non-auto modes and through economic policies which set higher charges for auto ownership and use.