Energy and Equity – Ivan Illich

The car demands of those without a car that they behave according to the rules of its existence.

– Wolfgang Sachs

Energy and Equity– Ivan Illich

Past a certainthreshold of energyconsumption, thetransportation industry dictates theconfiguration of social space.

Beyond a criticalspeed, no one cansave time withoutforcing another to loseit.

Unchecked speed isexpensive, and progressively fewercan afford it.

Beyond a certainspeed, motorizedvehicles createremoteness whichthey alone can shrink.

[The bicycle] creates only those demandswhich it can also satisfy. Every increase inmotorized speed creates new demands onspace and time. The use of the bicycle is

self-limiting. – Illich, Energy & Equity

Ecology as Politics– Andre Gorz

Unlike the vacuum

cleaner, the radio, or

the bicycle, which

retain their use value

when everyone has

one, the car, like a

villa by the sea, is

only desirable and

useful insofar as the

masses don’t have one.

It is absurd to describe aplan that would massivelyredistribute resources fromdrivers, who have a higheraverage income, to transitriders, many of whom whohave very low incomes, asregressive.

"Equity" cannot be definedas everyone having achance to engage inbehavior that hasinherently inequitableimpacts.

– Amy Traub, Drum

Major Institute

We seek an environment in which mobility and community are no longer in conflict, in which they actually enhance and serve one another.

– George Bliss