bikewolf
Originally uploaded by paynehollow.
Hey! I can't believe I haven't added this blog to my site before now. I've been visiting for months now.
The Minus Car Project is a blog devoted to reducing (obliterating?) our dependence on the personal automobile. I'm bringing him up specifically because he has an end of the year summary post that's worth checking out.
Among various stats he kept for the last year, the author kept record of how often he was transported in a car vs how often he biked (he's in the process of ending his own dependency upon the car). With the resultant numbers, he showed how much cold hard cash he saved last year by reducing his auto-dependency. Anyone have use for an extra $3000-ish a year?
Check it out.
11 comments:
No mistake that a car is the quickest way to an empty purse.
The arguments for on demand personal motor transportation are much like the arguments I hear from people (almost always men, almost) who want to buy a motorcycle. Why? Well, to save money on gas, of course! Yet crunching the numbers shows that if you rode the cycle every day rain, snow, freezing cold, etc. you still could not save enough gas to offset the expense of owning it.
That's the one fly in the ointment of living here on the far flung edges. I'd love to find a group discussing strategies for automotive-less living for remote country dwellers.
We could do it. We are in top shape and town is only 20 rural miles away (mountainous miles too). We can bike that far. And as far as heavy loads, we have draft animals and carts. The thing is, right now as the ball lies, it would be suicide. A friend of ours was nearly killed two years ago while biking on one of these mountain highways.
Maybe I'm just in the same fog I find others in when it comes to other supposed mechanical conveniences. But I'm looking for a way.
It's a good and honest question to ask, E. I agree with the folk at the now defunct biketopia.com who pointed out that the auto is self-nescessitating. Because everyone is driving one, we need more roads, which means that everything is more spread out, which means that we are more in need of cars.
Because everyone is driving one and at the speeds we drive, it is not safe to bike or walk along the roads which means we are more in need of cars.
Because of all the polluting emanating from all those tailpipes, it's not healthy for me to bike my way around sucking in all those fumes, which means we are more in need of cars.
It is a complex and complicated issue, but one that ought not be ignored or wished away because of its complexity.
The developments of both peak oil and global warming, it seems to me, may not completely end the private auto, but will greatly curtail it. Over the next 50 years (presuming we have that long, which is a big presumption), I think the suburbs will disappear. Increased public transportation, including light rail in and between most cities, biking, and people living closer to their jobs will be one part of the solution. The switch to hybrid vehicles, bio-diesel, and ethanol will be another part of the puzzle.
I think the 3rd part will be formed by people forming different kinds of communities, both rural and urban, where the community together owns one or two cars, but that's all. Even some "new order" Amish have gone this route: the individual families still use horse and buggy transportation, but one or more people get driver's licenses and the whole community buys a car for trips to hospital emergency rooms (or, to judge from what I see in Louisville, for trips into town to visit the zoo, which seems to have become a favorite Amish entertainment). If such communal ownership extended to tractors, etc., then not all farming communities would need to return to pre-industrial forms of farming--although Eleutheros' route (and the Amish) is still a good model.
Living auto-less is hard in the current U.S. set-up. We haven't managed it, yet, although Kate & I have long given up all but 1 vehicle (as have Dan and Donna) and neither of us use it any longer for commuting to work. Just as Dan bikes to work (and almost everywhere else!), Kate and I both take the bus to our different jobs.
Our next step needs to be using public transportation more often for outings with the whole family. We haven't tried to take the girls with us on the bus for trips to the grocery store or farmer's market--or even to the library. Nor have we tried to do this while biking (using our bikes mostly for exercise and recreation). But we need to do so.
That's cool, Michael. I didn't know you were tarcing to work.
concerning ethanol/bio-deisel: there are HUGE ethical/moral issues about burning food as fuel. Huge. we have to use lesslesslesslesslesslesslessless!!!
Contrary, you are certainly right about the ethical problems of using plant matter for fuel and certainly right about needing to use less. I just don't think that there is any "magic pill." There will be many different partial solutions and trade offs. Life is complex.
Dan, I take the bus often, but not consistently because the nighttime airport runs are not as reliable. So, sometimes I carpool and sometimes--especially in foul weather, I just take our car. If I can leave UPS (this year, please GOD!), I might be able to use TARC consistently, as Kate does.
As per Michael's observations, I grew up in a town which had excellent bus transportation, the same town I live outside of today. That, owing to my ancientness, was before the city sprawled. In the 60's and early 70's a bus ride from anywhere in the city to the downtown terminus was ten cents. From there to any other point was an additional two cents. Buses ran every half hour and there were buses that went to the nearby cities once every hour. There was even a bus that went to Jenkins, Kentucky, on a regular schedule and served several SW Virginia counties on the way.
On the street where I lived, many people didn't own a car.
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The community vehicle would work for our lifestyle, or even an entrepreneur running a vehicle for hire.
But the only real solution ever is going to ... less. Even the MinusCar blog struck me as primarily a way to replace the miles traveled in a car with miles traveled on a bike. So far so good. But it falls woefully short. What we will have to have soon or late is a lifestyle where we quit looking for alternative transportation and alternative fuels and just stay home. Quit moving about so much.
I like the idea. There is something terribly wasteful about our dependence on cars. I'm not sure that it can be readily alleviated because modern America was designed around the automobile. But it's worth striving for.
My wife and I were talking last night about church discipline and I developed a hypothesis. We don't go to church with our neighbors. We live in isolation, coming together on Sunday mornings. Consequently, we don't know what sort of lives we are living except on Sunday mornings. If a church member was a violent, whoring alcoholic Monday through Saturday, would the rest of the church community even know about it? Instead of worshipping with our immediate neighbors who know how we live, the car permits us to (if we wish) live separate secular and Christian lives. The car hinders sanctification.
Thanks, John. Size and distance I'd certainly think would be detriments to any sort of community - church community absolutely included.
Thanks Dan for the kind words. And what excellent discussion here.
Michael mentions family outings by bus. My favorite weekend afternoons are spent together with The Boys. We depart our home for the half-mile walk to the bus. From there we find something to do along or near a bus route. We walk to destinations, enjoying retaining walls, construction, whatever random things come our way. Getting there becomes part of the fun, the trip, the adventure. My The Boys will soon be 9 and 5 and I’m blessed with their participation.
I'm very interested in the discussions on community. Michael mentions formation of different kinds of communities which I'd suggest is the formation of actual community. Eleutheros, offers a disappointing summation of The MinusCar Project (of course, he's correct) and knows the value in not “moving about so much.” John comes in with a winning paragraph, and my favorite statement, “the car hinders sanctification.” Beautiful.
I agree the car hinders sanctification because it allows me to roll up the windows, put the car in gear, and drive away from the realities around me. It happened when I moved to the suburbs. It happened when I switched to the church up the road because of what the pastor said last Sunday. It happened when I drove 5 miles to visit friends and didn’t spend 5 minutes getting to know the people next door.
The Contrary One (I cannot refer to any human as a god or goddess) raised the important issue of how ethanol can conflict with growing crops for food. She's right, but one can also make ethanol from cellulose--recycling paper & cardboard (used sandwhich wraps, even) & add expired bottles of syrup, etc. In other words, there are ways to get ethanol which do not conflict with healthy crops for food.
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