By Mayor Joseph A. Curtatone

(The opinions and views expressed in the commentaries of The Somerville Times belong solely to the authors of those commentaries and do not reflect the views or opinions of The Somerville Times, its staff or publishers)

For the past century we’ve been modifying cities to accommodate cars. Now, thanks to a collaboration between the City of Somerville and German automaker Audi, we may be on the verge of engineering cars to accommodate city living. The partnership will turn Somerville into proof-of-concept lab for cutting-edge automotive technology involving self-driving cars and intelligent traffic systems. Yes, that sounds a little sci-fi, but it’s actually just simple planning ahead to meet our shared goals.

As much as we talk about the new Orange Line station in Assembly or the coming Green Line extension, the reality is cars will be part of our city for the rest of all our lifetimes.  We need to plan smartly for that because cars gobble up more space than most of us realize.  Currently we have 52,500 registered vehicles in Somerville. Think about that. Our total landmass is 4.1 square miles and somehow we’re trying to squeeze in that many cars. On top of that, we have 100 linear miles of paved road inside our 4.1 square mile footprint. Parking lots pile on top of that. It seems impossible we could fit all of this car-related infrastructure inside such a small city, but we did it somehow.

Yet we’ve hit our saturation point. We don’t have the space for more roads, which means more cars will only increase congestion and the competition for parking spaces. Cars also compete with other uses for the limited space in our city. Everywhere we lay down asphalt is a place we lose the opportunity for desperately needed green space. The thousands of housing units we need to build are hemmed in by our road network and the amount of traffic they will generate. We have no choice but to innovate our way out of this situation.

What we need are smarter cars. People need their cars to get to work, to run big errands, and to travel places public transportation can’t take them. As important as they are when we need them, we only use our cars 5% of the time – even though 40% of urban space, on average, is dedicated to streets and parking. Smarter cars will enable us to restore some balance to our cities, moving more efficiently through areas that should be built around people.

Audi will undertake two major projects in Somerville, which is one of just four cities globally selected as partners by the automaker. The first will involve self-driving cars in Assembly Square. You’ve probably heard about the emergence of this technology, and we’ve seen the first stage of it in cars that can parallel park themselves. Cars soon will be able to get you where you’re going while work, talk with other passengers, or take a cat nap. However, before we get there, Audi plans to have cars that park themselves here in Somerville.

That’s right, imagine getting out of your car at your destination and then it goes off all by itself to park. Your car will be its own parking valet. How cool is that? It’s also a game changer in city planning. A 2011 UCLA study found 30% of downtown traffic in an average city is from cars driving around in search of parking. That whole process of creeping around looking for a space could be eliminated by cars that move directly to an open spot, allowing the rest of traffic to move more efficiently.Open garage spaces, or eventually open metered spaces on the street, could communicate with your vehicle to let it know where to park. Cutting down the time of hunting for a parking space in an area like Assembly Square also would remove hundreds of tons of carbon dioxide from our atmosphere.

Audi estimates a fully automated fleet of cars could improve the space utilization in a parking facility by over 60%. They can park closer together because no one needs to open a door to move them. The space for walkways and staircases would be minimized. You could use your phone to schedule when you need your car next, so that it could be placed in more densely packed overnight or all-day parking spots. The goal is to achieve these benefits by 2030, though in the short term, a garage using a mix of conventional and smart cars could save an estimated 26% more parking space.

The second initiative will involve the traffic patterns in Union Square. The idea is to have cars that communicate and work with traffic lights. If the cars on the road know when the lights will change, they can calculate the optimal speed needed to make it through the lights. Rows of cars stopped at a light also could move all at once when they get a green rather than the one-at-a-time method we use right now. That means cars will get through our intersections more efficiently, reducing traffic and carbon dioxide emissions.

The potential for Union Square alone is huge. With the incoming development in that area and Boynton Yards, we need to re-engineer the traffic patterns there. Audi estimates that along with smart parking, signal-aware cars could make traffic up to 50% more efficient while also allowing us to reclaim up to 20% of our road space for other uses.

I like to brag that Somerville is the smartest city you’ll find anywhere. We’ve got smart citizens and schools filled with smart kids. Soon we’re also going to have the smartest cars and traffic systems you’ll find anywhere. We’re kicking off an era where our cars fit into a people-centric lifestyle rather than people fitting into a car-centric lifestyle.