City Vehicles
Showing, not telling, the mix of cars and trucks urbanists would like to see
The first piece I wrote about our visit to China over the summer was about minivans. The second was about e-scooters. This is the third one, and it’s about trucks.
There are a lot of things you notice as an American in China. Some of them, of course, are things the typical American won’t and probably shouldn’t like. But one of the things that’s (maybe surprisingly) striking about China is the impression of rough-and-tumble entrepreneurialism. Part of that is probably the big story about a country still developing, and still having a sense of collectively climbing the ladder together.
But some of it is something much simpler but also kind of wonky: the scale at which commerce is permitted or happens (which is not always a distinction without a difference). You see lots of stalls and vendors and food carts. Some of it is probably illegal, unsafe, etc. Most of it is probably fine. That kind of commerce allows all sorts of regular people with very little capital to get their foot in the door.
But what really strikes me is the vehicles. There are those minivans I wrote about. (Some of them are obviously owned by families, probably skewing towards those with more than one child; but a lot of them are owned by businesspeople, who apparently favor a nice minivan over a nice SUV.) There are full-size trucks. There are cars of all sizes. There are e-scooters and e-bikes and Vespa-style scooters. There are very small cars and all sorts of very small trucks. A lot of these vehicles are basically variations on motorcycles. I’m going to show you a bunch of them:
The kei truck/Vespa-type truck vehicles are kind of familiar, though rare in the United States. But have you ever seen a dump truck or a cement pouring truck with only tree wheels? A baby box truck? A subcompact car with three wheels…or a motorcycle with a car frame?
I’ve said this before, and I reiterate it from time to time, because it’s such an important point that rarely gets precisely articulated in the American discourse about cities, transportation, urbanism, and opportunity: there is nothing wrong with there being large vehicles on the market. The problem in America isn’t exactly that “cars are too big.” It’s something more subtle: the American vehicle market lacks vehicles scaled for cities and urban environments.
Every time you see a giant firetruck or ambulance or garbage truck or utility truck or SUV or lifted pickup truck in the city, you’re not seeing “bad” vehicles; you’re seeing a mismatch. You might personally not like suburbia, but suburbia exists, and these large vehicles are properly scaled for suburbia. But they are not properly scaled for denser cities with narrower streets and more people outside of cars.
Many people will say that these small vehicles—the janky three-wheel “cars” and the kei trucks in particular—are not safe. When people say that, they are imagining operating these vehicles at high speeds, amid a sea of much larger vehicles. They are imagining trying to pack their kids in them or commute with them. But that isn’t the context in which their owners, or we urbanists, think about them.
They’re only unsafe at certain speeds. Sure, you might not want to take them on the freeway. But that’s the point—a larger vehicle is “scaled” to faster, longer-distance travel. These smaller vehicles are “scaled” to an urban environment. They’re not something you’re likely going to do a lot of freeway driving with. I would bet a lot of them “live” exclusively in the city, facilitating things like package and food delivery, contractor/work calls, bringing goods to market or stocking small stores, etc. They inhabit a middle ground between a bicycle and what Americans think of as a car or truck. Perhaps we think of them as for “poor people.” But they are truly city vehicles. Which is not the same thing. And they unlock mobility and business opportunity for people who can’t afford or don’t want a large car, truck, or utility van.
When we talk about regulating the size or weight of cars, or about how fire departments reinforce wide, fast streets by demanding accommodation for large firetrucks, or anything else that gets said about cities and cars, what we’re really trying to say is, America needs the whole bottom half of the vehicle market that fits the size, scale, and speed of urban environments.
Europe and East Asia have this. They have the full range of vehicles, from bikes and e-bikes all the way to regular and full-size cars and trucks, with many steps in between. We’re missing that bottom half, which corresponds to the landscape of cities. We want more, not less. And, it should be emphasized, we have cities in America. What we need is all the things that go in them.
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Your comment about these vehicles not being scaled to freeways is an interesting thought, and I think at least in part contributes to the feeling they can't really work here in America - outside of a few cities that built their transit systems out post WW2, we don't really have an effective way to travel to the "suburbs" outside of those freeways. I live in the "city" but work in the "suburbs"; my commute by car is 20ish minutes. The only options for not driving is to take the bus, which is (according to Google Maps) a 2 hour bus ride to the nearest bus stop, plus an hour walk.
What is interesting about my city is we do have something of a micromobility car culture - golf carts! They're everywhere, at least in the city. You see them driving in neighborhoods a ton, and they're genuinely perfect for the city. The problem, of course, for me and many others is that you can't really get to anywhere outside the city in one. And since most people don't stick to just the core city, especially in midsize cities, it's hard to justify getting a golf cart when you know you'll also still need a car. I'd personally love to own one... But I can't justify the cost when I'm also paying for a car I need to get to work and to friends.
I love the line "unsafe at certain speeds". In America though, Nader wrote 'Unsafe at Any Speed', and the thinking about vehicles, getting around cities, and what 'is' a city has reflected that (as noted by other commenters here).
Your note about "America needs the whole bottom half of the vehicle market that fits the size, scale, and speed of urban environments" also applies of course to housing.