The Environmental Impact of Automobiles on Sustainable Urban Transportation

자동차가 환경적으로 지속가능한 도시교통에 미치는 영향

As of July 1997, the registered number of automobiles exceeded 10 million and Korean auto industry produced 2,850,000 cars. Many environmentalists warn that the passenger cars are not sustainable urban transportation system in large cities. The cars produce about 80% of air pollutants, and consume 30% of petroleum imported. For the past 30 years the administration increased the road system, but the length of road per car is decreased from 813m in 1965 to 9m in 1995. The cost of traffic congestion was estimated to be \14.7 trillion in 1996, and is feared to increase without changing the present transportation system. The undesirable impact of cars include the casualties from traffic accidents, insurance loss, and separation of human relatioships. To construct sustainable urban transportation system, three principles should be followed. The first principle is to make the urban streets walkable for the people. The second principle is to encourage bicycling. Roads and traffic systems should be designed to let bicylces travel safely. The third principle is to supply more buses and construct integrated transportation system based on buses. The subway system is too expensive to construct and without the support of a well-organized bus system it may not work efficiently. The Brazilian city of Curitiba has constructed a very efficient bus system only with 1/80 of the estimated cost of subway system. The car-oriented transportation system does not seem to be an envrironmentally sustainable transportation system in most of the Korean cities.