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The Radical
Socio-Technological
Change of the Car
- Jakub H
Socio-Technological
Change of the Car
- Jakub H
The socio-technological change brought on by the mass production and adoption of the automobile had great impacts on Canadian society. This can be seen quite prominently within the North Shore.
The North Shore may be a spread out suburban area within Vancouver now, but it wasn’t always that way.
Before the widespread adoption of the car, the North Shore was mostly an industrial and rural area of Vancouver with a few streetcar suburbs in what is today Lonsdale and West Vancouver. With Canadian culture becoming evermore car centric, more and more people started buying cars, and by the 1950’s people had shaped their lives around the automobile.
The sociotechnological change brought on by the mass production and adoption of the automobile had great impacts on Canadian society. This can be seen quite prominently within the North Shore.
Before the widespread adoption of the car, the North Shore was mostly an industrial and rural area of Vancouver with a few streetcar suburbs in what is today Lonsdale and West Vancouver. With Canadian culture becoming evermore car centric, more and more people started buying cars, and by the 1950’s people had shaped their lives around the automobile.
The sociotechnological change brought on by the mass production and adoption of the automobile had great impacts on Canadian society. This can be seen quite prominently within the North Shore.
The incumbent companies that ran the private transportation systems enjoyed great social, political, and economic power. The regimes of these incumbents were built up from a variety of factors all of which push back, if you try to change just one. This lead to the incumbents enforcing a lack of change that could only be dispersed through great social change. Along with this, the incumbent companies were bringing on their own downfall. These companies put profits ahead of everything, including the things that would net them greater profits over the longer term such as service and quality. They also tended to undertake aggressive strategies against small threats, which decreased their public opinion as they would be seen as abusive monopolists.
North American streetcar companies would often bribe local governments to grant them exclusive rights to whole districts of cities. They would then use the monopolies they had over these areas to overprice while not solving the problems which would affect the consumers such as overcrowding and lateness. This lead to an undemocratic and uncompetitive business environment which had the effect of causing little to no advancement in streetcar technology. Railways were quite the same and strived to amass total monopolies within the regions they served. Railway companies would use their extra supplies, not to better themselves, but to crush their competition.
What this lead to was a fragile environment of large monopolistic companies which people were not keen on keeping due to their aggressive tendencies.
North American streetcar companies would often bribe local governments to grant them exclusive rights to whole districts of cities. They would then use the monopolies they had over these areas to overprice while not solving the problems which would affect the consumers such as overcrowding and lateness. This lead to an undemocratic and uncompetitive business environment which had the effect of causing little to no advancement in streetcar technology. Railways were quite the same and strived to amass total monopolies within the regions they served. Railway companies would use their extra supplies, not to better themselves, but to crush their competition.
What this lead to was a fragile environment of large monopolistic companies which people were not keen on keeping due to their aggressive tendencies.
During the time in the 19th century that railways were becoming monopolistic behemoths, cars were becoming evermore popular, especially with the rich. The cars were mainly used by the rich as toys due to them being far too impractical for conventional use. Due to the impracticality of owning a car in the 1890’s, it was mainly a show of mechanical skill and masculinity. With this and the rich having great political influence, many of the laws that would’ve been passed in a truly democratic domain, such as a 20 kilometre per hour speed limit in cities, were shut down. This all changed with the Ford model T.
This Ford was made using a brand new method of production, the assembly line. Using the assembly line was cheap compared to handcrafting the cars. The extreme ease with which cars could be manufactured, made them affordable for middle class Canadians who had not been able to afford the cars before then. With the general public opinion of the incumbents being mainly negative, people were quick to adopt the new technology. A testament to the public’s early anticipation for the car was that the astonishing 90,000 people attended the 1913 Toronto Motor Show despite the difficulties of car travel at the time (don’t worry, I have a source). Regardless of the great enthusiasm around the car, population centres such as cities were still built around walkable centres and rail. Inter-city transit was also dominated by rail with there being no highways and country roads usually just being dirt paths made for horse and cart, if there were roads at all. The technologically novel automobile therefore overcame two great obstacles; the incumbents, and the unsuitable existing infrastructure.
This Ford was made using a brand new method of production, the assembly line. Using the assembly line was cheap compared to handcrafting the cars. The extreme ease with which cars could be manufactured, made them affordable for middle class Canadians who had not been able to afford the cars before then. With the general public opinion of the incumbents being mainly negative, people were quick to adopt the new technology. A testament to the public’s early anticipation for the car was that the astonishing 90,000 people attended the 1913 Toronto Motor Show despite the difficulties of car travel at the time (don’t worry, I have a source). Regardless of the great enthusiasm around the car, population centres such as cities were still built around walkable centres and rail. Inter-city transit was also dominated by rail with there being no highways and country roads usually just being dirt paths made for horse and cart, if there were roads at all. The technologically novel automobile therefore overcame two great obstacles; the incumbents, and the unsuitable existing infrastructure.
“North Vancouver’s first streetcar, decorated wth flags, is pictured, on Lonsdale Avenue just north of Esplanade in 1906. As seen in this photograph, this streetcar had an open side. The Syndicate Block and other buildings on the west side of the street are in the background.”
- North Vancouver's Lonsdale Neighbourhood by Shervin Shahriari
During the time in the 19th century that railways were becoming monopolistic behemoths, cars were becoming evermore popular, especially with the rich. The cars were mainly used by the rich as toys due to them being far too impractical for conventional use. Due to the impracticality of owning a car in the 1890’s, it was mainly a show of mechanical skill and masculinity. With this and the rich having great political influence, many of the laws that would’ve been passed in a truly democratic domain, such as a 20 kilometre per hour speed limit in cities, were shut down. This all changed with the Ford model T.
This Ford was made using a brand new method of production, the assembly line. Using the assembly line was cheap compared to handcrafting the cars. The extreme ease with which cars could be manufactured, made them affordable for middle class Canadians who had not been able to afford the cars before then. With the general public opinion of the incumbents being mainly negative, people were quick to adopt the new technology. A testament to the public’s early anticipation for the car was that the astonishing 90,000 people attended the 1913 Toronto Motor Show despite the difficulties of car travel at the time (don’t worry, I have a source). Regardless of the great enthusiasm around the car, population centres such as cities were still built around walkable centres and rail. Inter-city transit was also dominated by rail with there being no highways and country roads usually just being dirt paths made for horse and cart, if there were roads at all. The technologically novel automobile therefore overcame two great obstacles; the incumbents, and the unsuitable existing infrastructure.
This Ford was made using a brand new method of production, the assembly line. Using the assembly line was cheap compared to handcrafting the cars. The extreme ease with which cars could be manufactured, made them affordable for middle class Canadians who had not been able to afford the cars before then. With the general public opinion of the incumbents being mainly negative, people were quick to adopt the new technology. A testament to the public’s early anticipation for the car was that the astonishing 90,000 people attended the 1913 Toronto Motor Show despite the difficulties of car travel at the time (don’t worry, I have a source). Regardless of the great enthusiasm around the car, population centres such as cities were still built around walkable centres and rail. Inter-city transit was also dominated by rail with there being no highways and country roads usually just being dirt paths made for horse and cart, if there were roads at all. The technologically novel automobile therefore overcame two great obstacles; the incumbents, and the unsuitable existing infrastructure.
The rock cut between Lytton and Lillooet on the Cariboo Road in the 1920s.
Before the technological shift caused by adoption of the assembly line in the automobile industry and the subsequent widespread adoption of the automobile in North America, most of the North Shore was a rural area with industry along the water in Lonsdale and some more remote industrial sites such as the quarry where Quarry Rock is now. As Vancouver developed, ever more of the population moved to the North Shore due to the amount of jobs that could be found there. With this, streetcar lines sprung up. There were three streetcar lines going from the port at Lonsdale Quay to various streetcar suburbs in the 1940’s. These lines allowed residence to commute from farther away into the busting harbour area. Around this time was when the growing trend of car ownership really started to show repercussions within Vancouver. The Lions Gate Bridge is a great example of infrastructure built primarily for cars. The bridge was originally built as a two-lane bridge, fit to handle approximately one million vehicles a year. With the new bridge, car owners who worked downtown could now live in West Vancouver and drive to work. The new suburbs in West Vancouver also stopped being transit oriented and started to better represent the suburbs of today.
The creation of highways was also caused by the private companies that had previously owned toll roads not wanting losses. Before the 1940’s, toll roads were common across the USA and Canada, especially in rural areas. With the car companies pushing for bigger, faster and more expensive roads such as highways in the 1950’s and ‘60’s, the companies didn’t want to bear the costs. Through methods such as lobbying, the companies successfully ‘convinced’ the Canadian government to create public highways payed for by revenue from taxes on things such as fuel as well as taxes.
These highways not only connected cities, but also connected cities to their new suburbs. The ease with which one could get from suburb to centre using a car led to many citizens, particularly upper income white families moving to them. This phenomenon experienced in the USA and Canada in the 1950’s and ‘60’s was given the name ‘white flight’. With much of the population living car dependant lives in the suburbs, city centres then had to be demolished to make way for the parking in order to accommodate the cars. With this, cities became noisy places with the mass of new cars creating much noise and pollution. Unfortunately, the degeneration of the city centres and the creation of vast suburbs in North America was not stopped and only in the past 20 years with the emergence of climate change and neo-environmentalism has a large amount of the populous realized the downsides of mass car ownership and car dependence.
The new accessibility and usability of the automobile made cars more desirable to own. With this, cars benefitted from a positive feedback loop where more people using them led to more car centric infrastructure which led to more people using them. This feedback loop set in motion a process of change that would define North American cities for the next century. With more people driving cars and the majority of the public thoroughly convinced that cars were the future, cities, districts, provinces, states, and the whole nation started building highways. The Americans were quick to adopt highways with the Aid Highway Act of 1944 funding highway improvements and establishing major new ground by authorizing and designating the construction of 40,000 miles of a "National System of Interstate Highways" although road construction had been used by the governments of both Canada and the United States to combat unemployment and develop the car infrastructure from as early as 1929. During the Great Depression, the Canadian government dedicated 19 million dollars to highway construction in order to “traverse the Dominion without entering United States territory.” Although many parts of the highways built using that money later became part of the Trans-Canada highway. An interesting trend with the earliest highways is that they were built in the image of the highways shown in exhibits like those held by Ford. This shows that the people planning these highways really did think that highways were the future and to some extent, they were right.
McLeod, Jaclyn. “The First and Second Narrows Crossings of Burrard Inlet.” Vancouvertraces, vancouvertraces.weebly.com/the-first-and-second-narrows-crossings.html. Accessed 1 May 2022.
Berry, David. “Trans-Canada Highway.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/trans-canada-highway. Accessed 1 May 2022.
Karaoysal, Korhan. “A REACTION TO THE CONSTRUCTED IDENTITIES OF CONSUMERISM AND MASS PRODUCTION: CAR CUSTOMIZATION AS a MEDIUM FOR SELF EXPRESSION.” Sabancı University, research.sabanciuniv.edu/26847/1/KorhanKaraoysal_442280.pdf. Accessed 1 May 2022.
Norton, Peter. “Https://Www.Researchgate.Net/Profile/Peter-Norton-2/Publication/236825193_Street_Rivals_Jaywalking_and_the_Invention_of_the_Motor_Age_Street/Links/5667007508ae34c89a021654/Street-Rivals-Jaywalking-and-the-Invention-of-the-Motor-Age-Street.Pdf?Origin=publication_detail.” Technology and Culture, www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter-Norton-2/publication/236825193_Street_Rivals_Jaywalking_and_the_Invention_of_the_Motor_Age_Street/links/5667007508ae34c89a021654/Street-Rivals-Jaywalking-and-the-Invention-of-the-Motor-Age-Street.pdf?origin=publication_detail. Accessed 1 May 2022.
“Frontier to Freeway.” British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and Highways, https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/driving-and-transportation/reports-and-reference/reports-and-studies/frontier_to_freeway.pdf. Accessed 1 May 2022.
“The District of North Vancouver Official Community Plan.” District of North Vancouver, https://fraseropolis.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/district-of-north-vancouver-plan.pdf. Accessed 1 May 2022.
Roberts, Cameron PhD, Meadowcroft, James PhD, Layzell, David PhD. “The Rise of the Automobile: Lessons from Historical Canadian Transportation Transitions” https://transitionaccelerator.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Lessons-on-Canadian-Transportation-Transitions-November-201120-1.pdf. Accessed 1 May 2022.
The creation of highways was also caused by the private companies that had previously owned toll roads not wanting losses. Before the 1940’s, toll roads were common across the USA and Canada, especially in rural areas. With the car companies pushing for bigger, faster and more expensive roads such as highways in the 1950’s and ‘60’s, the companies didn’t want to bear the costs. Through methods such as lobbying, the companies successfully ‘convinced’ the Canadian government to create public highways payed for by revenue from taxes on things such as fuel as well as taxes.
These highways not only connected cities, but also connected cities to their new suburbs. The ease with which one could get from suburb to centre using a car led to many citizens, particularly upper income white families moving to them. This phenomenon experienced in the USA and Canada in the 1950’s and ‘60’s was given the name ‘white flight’. With much of the population living car dependant lives in the suburbs, city centres then had to be demolished to make way for the parking in order to accommodate the cars. With this, cities became noisy places with the mass of new cars creating much noise and pollution. Unfortunately, the degeneration of the city centres and the creation of vast suburbs in North America was not stopped and only in the past 20 years with the emergence of climate change and neo-environmentalism has a large amount of the populous realized the downsides of mass car ownership and car dependence.
Today, many cities are starting to be planned based on more urbanist and sustainable principles such as transit development, density, walkability, and bikeability. Although we are just at the forefront of this new way of planning, studies show a persistent growth in public transit and bike use in North America. With a greater need for environmental awareness and a greater societal push against cars, we may be on the forefront of a new era of transit oriented development with North American cities showing progress towards becoming walkable and dense. “In the District of North Vancouver, the share of trips by single-occupancy drivers fell from 65.5 to 62.5 per cent. Although the numbers are small, the number of trips made by bicycle doubled from 0.7 per cent to 1.5 per cent.” -North Shore News This data shows that, although the car is still the most used form of transportation, the alternatives are becoming evermore apparent in our modern world. It takes many small steps to create change and we are at the forefront of this new shift in a more positive and sustainable shift.
McLeod, Jaclyn. “The First and Second Narrows Crossings of Burrard Inlet.” Vancouvertraces, vancouvertraces.weebly.com/the-first-and-second-narrows-crossings.html. Accessed 1 May 2022.
Berry, David. “Trans-Canada Highway.” The Canadian Encyclopedia, www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/trans-canada-highway. Accessed 1 May 2022.
Karaoysal, Korhan. “A REACTION TO THE CONSTRUCTED IDENTITIES OF CONSUMERISM AND MASS PRODUCTION: CAR CUSTOMIZATION AS a MEDIUM FOR SELF EXPRESSION.” Sabancı University, research.sabanciuniv.edu/26847/1/KorhanKaraoysal_442280.pdf. Accessed 1 May 2022.
Norton, Peter. “Https://Www.Researchgate.Net/Profile/Peter-Norton-2/Publication/236825193_Street_Rivals_Jaywalking_and_the_Invention_of_the_Motor_Age_Street/Links/5667007508ae34c89a021654/Street-Rivals-Jaywalking-and-the-Invention-of-the-Motor-Age-Street.Pdf?Origin=publication_detail.” Technology and Culture, www.researchgate.net/profile/Peter-Norton-2/publication/236825193_Street_Rivals_Jaywalking_and_the_Invention_of_the_Motor_Age_Street/links/5667007508ae34c89a021654/Street-Rivals-Jaywalking-and-the-Invention-of-the-Motor-Age-Street.pdf?origin=publication_detail. Accessed 1 May 2022.
“Frontier to Freeway.” British Columbia Ministry of Transportation and Highways, https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/driving-and-transportation/reports-and-reference/reports-and-studies/frontier_to_freeway.pdf. Accessed 1 May 2022.
“The District of North Vancouver Official Community Plan.” District of North Vancouver, https://fraseropolis.files.wordpress.com/2016/09/district-of-north-vancouver-plan.pdf. Accessed 1 May 2022.
Roberts, Cameron PhD, Meadowcroft, James PhD, Layzell, David PhD. “The Rise of the Automobile: Lessons from Historical Canadian Transportation Transitions” https://transitionaccelerator.ca/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Lessons-on-Canadian-Transportation-Transitions-November-201120-1.pdf. Accessed 1 May 2022.