Can we change our cities?

Came across a book by the architect Moshe Safdie and became aware that cities are changing once again.  The book was titled The City After the Automobile and presents an idea of his for a massive car share program that would help maximize the use cars while minimizing the amount of infrastructure needed to support cars, mainly in reducing parking lot size.

It is an intriguing idea but one that may evolve into something real.  But for now, promoting car sharing ventures will have to do.  Vancouver provides a relatively good model of this with three options available to consumer - Car2Go, Modo and Zip Cars.  However, Modo is the only one that provides cars outside of the City of Vancouver, with cars conveniently placed along the different skytrain routes.  I personally have a Modo membership and fully appreciate this placement of vehicles as I live close to a skytrain station and can access the type of vehicle I need - passesnger car, van, minivan, sports car or hybrid.

Zip and Car2Go are limited by being only found within the city proper and even at that, not throughout the city.  Hopefully it will expand to other municipalities within Metro Vancouver, especially Surrey, as it is the fastest growing city in the region and will eventually become more populous than Vancouver.  It however faces the challenge of probably being the least transit friendly city as there is a vast agricultural strip that makes designing routes around the city difficult.

But that's a story for another day.