Joel Makower says it's time to rethink the hallowed place of the car in American and other societies.  I couldn't agree more.  His recent post on this topic had me jumping up and down at my desk, saying "yes, yes, yes."

"Consider: It's become dogma in the United States and other developed and developing countries that "Cars give us freedom." Entire generations of Americans have been reared on that assumption. Detroit was built on it.

But cars are a burden: You have to purchase them, maintain them, fuel them, park them, and insure them. If you live in a city and lack a garage, the challenges and costs multiply. They're expensive and a hassle, and they sit idle 95 percent of the time. When you actually use them, there's the challenge of getting around on ever-congested streets and highways. Not exactly "freedom."

What gives us freedom isn't cars, but mobility, the ability to go where and when you want in the way that's most appropriate and affordable for your needs and style. That's true at every point on the economic spectrum. Indeed, in emerging economies, mobility is a prerequisite to sustainability. When people can move freely from hither to yon, they're better able to have a job, trade goods, seek an education, obtain health care, perhaps even explore other places to broaden their horizons."

I gave up my Jeep Cherokee when I moved to Manhattan several years ago.  I hadn't planned to get rid of it before the move, but quickly found it was more of a burden than a boon once I'd settled in.  That was in 2001.  I haven't had a car since and haven't missed it one bit. 

For vast portions of the US, cars will probably remain the only viable mode of transport, possibly forever.  In the mind-boggling expanses of the West, where population density is very low, public forms of transit have a kind of bridge-to-nowhere quality.  But in--and in between-- the nation's cities, towns, suburbs and exurbs, cars aren't necessarily the most logical transportation choice.