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NEW YORK – America is a drive-through country.
There are an estimated 200,000 drive-throughs across the country. Americans visit drive-thru lanes about 6 billion times a year. At leading chains like McDonald’s, drive-through restaurants account for 70% or more of sales.
Drive-throughs promise hungry drivers ease, convenience and a juicy burger. But in every state, long lines of cars pour onto US streets awaiting orders from chains like Chick-fil-A, McDonald’s, Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. And city officials, urban planners and critics say the model is failing modern cities.
Traffic magnets and congestion, thoroughfares discourage walking, using public transport and visiting neighboring businesses. They also result in accidents involving pedestrians, cyclists and other automobiles, and conflict with the environmental and quality of life goals of many communities.
Numerous cities and regions want the spread to stop: Atlanta lawmakers will vote this summer on whether to ban new thoroughfares in the popular Beltline area. Minneapolis; Fair Haven, New Jersey; Creve Coeur, Missouri; Orchard Park, New York and other cities have banned new thoroughfares in recent years. Some Southern California cities, such as Long Beach in 2019, have enacted temporary moratoria blocking new development. Restrictions were also being considered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Mesa, Arizona.
Driveways “do not support the life, vitality, and amenities that suggest people want to live, work, or play in a neighborhood,” said David Dixon, Urban Places Fellow at design and planning firm Stantec. “Drive-through belonged to a much more autocentric world.”
country of transit
According to the Smithsonian, drive-thurs first appeared in California in the 1950s. An early Jack in the Box was a hit with children, who could order their food through a clown’s head.
The eat-in-car model spread to America’s streets in the decades that followed, as freeways were built, suburbs expanded, and new fast-food chains like McDonald’s and Wendy’s emerged.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, the drive-thru became a lifeline for chains as restaurants closed their indoor seating areas. According to Technomic, a restaurant industry consultancy, drive-thru sales hit $133 billion in 2022, a 30% increase from pre-pandemic levels in 2019.
Shake Shack and Sweetgreen opened their first drive-thru stores during the pandemic, while Taco Bell, Chipotle and other chains opened stores serving only drive-thru customers.
Businesses have switched to drive-thru models because they are more profitable: smaller than sit-down restaurants, require fewer staff, and require less maintenance.
They make the most sense in areas where cars rely, and there are many thoroughfares that are far removed from pedestrian or bicycle traffic. But thoroughfares are often in “the worst spot” in terms of road safety, said Eric Dumbaugh, a professor in Florida Atlantic University’s Department of Urban and Regional Planning who studies road safety.
They are often intentionally placed on higher-speed arterial roads—busy roads where cars from a particular region travel at high speeds—to attract motorists’ attention.
This means drivers have less time to brake when a pedestrian or cyclist is in an intersection or on the sidewalk, increasing the likelihood of an accident. Motorists moving on arterial roads also usually concentrate on the road and the cars surrounding it and pay less attention to pedestrians.
Driveways can also be a focus for rear-end collisions and T-bone crashes when cars turn left out of the driveway.
Companies “don’t consider security considerations in their design decisions,” Dumbaugh said. And local governments paid lip service to pedestrian safety but still allowed its use on arterial roads, he said.
More lanes, more traffic jams
Businesses say they are transforming their drive-thru routes, adding more car lanes and technology like AI to speed up orders and reduce potential problems.
Starbucks told CNN that it is aware of the communities in which its stores are located and is “instituting the right type of store for the needs of that community.” Starbucks is testing different store models in different areas, such as convenience stores, curbside car pickup, and drive-thrus.
But chains that try to counteract congestion by expanding more lanes only encourage the number of cars. Accidents are so common that personal injury attorneys across the country are advertising specifically for people injured on thoroughfares. Experts say pedestrian safety can be improved by tightly controlling access along major thoroughfares and locating thoroughfares away from them.
Drive-in buses also don’t support neighboring businesses, Stantec’s Dixon said, as people usually just grab their food and drive.
A better and safer fast-food model in these areas is restaurants and bars with seating that contributes to pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods, or on the first floor of multi-story buildings.
Cities fight back
Atlanta City Councilman Jason Dozier proposed a bill this year to block new thoroughfares around the Atlanta Beltline, a pedestrian walkway along a 22-mile rail corridor. The Atlanta City Council is expected to vote on the bill in August.
Dozier’s bill was in response to the fatal pedestrian deaths in the area.
Since 2015, 14 pedestrians have died and 47 have been seriously injured in car accidents in the Beltline area, he said. More than half of these deaths occurred in the past two years.
“It’s a very scary time for pedestrians in the city,” Dozier said. “We need to make sure we can shape communities around pedestrian safety.”
In Salt Lake City’s Sugar House neighborhood, the Planning Commission proposed a ban on new drive-through projects in business districts after residents complained that drive-throughs were blocking sidewalks, bike lanes and lanes on streets.
“It puts the focus on the vehicle. It goes against Sugar House’s master plan to promote a walkable, mixed-use downtown,” said Levi Thatcher, Chair of the Sugar House Transportation Committee.
Charlotte has struggled with congested streets in recent years from cars pouring onto the street from Chick-fil-A’s and other fast-food thoroughfares during rush hours.
“Our love of waffle fries is fueling even greater traffic problems on Charlotte’s busy streets,” according to a 2019 WCNC television report.
Charlotte has a long-term plan to become a less car-centric city through investment in rail and other public transportation. Building drive-thru restaurants in increasingly dense areas is at odds with those goals, said Keba Samuel, chair of the Charlotte Planning Commission.
“The more drive-through models you build, the more you focus on the car – as opposed to something that offers more mobility options,” she said. “It doesn’t make sense to make these multi-billion dollar investments in light rail and still encourage a car-centric environment. That is contradictory.”
However, the Charlotte City Council recently approved new Chick-fil-A and Bojangles drive-throughs near public transit stops.
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