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November 20 2002

Tool for urban living, or environmental disaster? Farah Farouque explores the legacy of our love for the car.

Australians, it is often said, have been wedded to the quarter-acre block. But that picture is incomplete, it seems, without a double garage.

The inexorable rise of car ownership in Australia - and in Victoria especially - continues. "We are well on our way to beating Los Angeles and other American cities," says Melbourne University lecturer in transport planning, Paul Mees.

Australian Bureau of Statistics data released this week shows that Victoria has 565 passenger cars per 1000 people.

This outstrips the 464 owned in New South Wales and almost equals the 567 owned in South Australia, the nation's most car-mad state.

When you add other forms of road transport, such as camper vans and trucks to the tally, there is one motor vehicle in Australia for every 1.9 people. Thirty years ago, there was one vehicle per 3.3 people.

So, why are Australians so hell-bent on their wheels?

Historian Graeme Davison, of Monash University, says a lot of car-bashing literature assumes people are "irrationally" influenced by factors such as design or sex appeal.

"People liken it to a religious appeal," he says.

"But this understates the perfectly ordinary, utilitarian desire for the car - it's an extraordinary tool for urban living."

After all, what form of modern technology can take you and your loved ones from A to B plus protect you from the rain? (There's downside, too, but more of that later).

Still, factors like sex appeal and the sense of liberation derived from car ownership cannot be discounted in the desire for wheels, says RACV road-testing specialist Ernest Litera.

"It's almost a fashion statement now," he says. "In a lot of households there are more cars now than there are drivers."

The Green household, of Heathmont, is typical of this emerging trend. Bill Green, 79, is the proud owner of two Alfa Romeos.

His wife Joan, 74, and son Barry, 44, own a Commodore each while grandson Greg Johnson runs a Toyota Celica. (Just for fun, Barry also owns a Harley-Davidson motorcycle).

Mr Green senior's romance with motor vehicles began more than half a century ago with a bright green Morris Minor.

"It was my first car, I still remember the smell of it," he says nostalgically. "It had a lovely smell of leather."

The Greens have two carports to house their inventory of vehicles. Four cars are parked in the front and there is a carport built out the back for the fifth vehicle.

Carports aside, cars have inscribed themselves on to the landscape of the cities and suburbs in myriad ways, says Professor Davison.

"The city has grown around the motor car," he says.

Professor Davison, who has just completed a book on Melbourne's relationship with cars, cites such phenomena as sprawling suburban shopping malls, windy streetscapes and drive-through fast food outlets as heavily influenced by the car. But don't get too revved up. The downside is that it is an environmental disaster, says Dr Mees.

"We are like a 1950s museum of American transport planning... and transport is the fastest growing source of greenhouse emissions," he says.



- The typical Victorian family - mum, dad, the kids and five cars
- Caravans enjoy a revival

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