Car supremacy: Deconstructing the ideology driving our modal hierarchy

Abstract

Cars have shaped modern life in profound ways, from restructuring our built environment to altering our notions of success. They have also had a variety of negative impacts—neighborhood destruction, resource wars, ill health, and environmental damage to name a few—which are largely normalized in our collective psyches. Existing theories of the rise of the automobile are focused on macro-forces such as a globalizing political economy; while important, these fail to explain how local transportation policy has been leveraged by members of the general public to perpetuate an unjust system of automobility. This article argues that our existing beliefs about who has a right to exist in our public rights of way are socially constructed through an ideology of car supremacy. This ideology is used by private citizens in public meetings to prevent our streets from being safe, accessible, and equitable for all road users. Using existing literature and a critical discourse analysis of empirical data gathered from local public meetings, this article defines the core convictions of the ideology of car supremacy—moto monoculture, auto impunity, and modal marginalization—and demonstrates how individuals enact it in public discourse through three rhetorical devices—static scarcity, blame inversion, and nefarious minority—to create a modal hierarchy that marginalizes non-car users. Moreover, this article suggests how urban planners and policy makers can cultivate civic engagement practices that curtail the harmful system of power perpetuated by the ideology of car supremacy.