Car free in
CARMAGEDDON
By Suza Francina
About seven years ago I gradually changed my trip
to work from a two-hour car commute to a refreshing ten-minute bicycle ride.
After a decade of driving the freeway, my soul had grown weary of
watching the sun rise and set from behind the steering wheel. Working closer to
home meant a cut in my income, giving up my new Mazda mini van and downsizing
to an older Toyota.
Around this same time I began reading a mountain
of books on sustainable cities and saving the Earth; pleas for sanity like "If
You Love this Planet," by Helen Caldicott, MD, "How Much Is Enough" by Alan
Durning, "The Geography of Nowhere"by James Howard Kunstler and "Asphalt
Nation-How the Automobile Took Over America and How We Can Take It Back," by
Jane Holtz Kay.
Amazingly, these books all said the same thing: "The
cumulative effect of 500 million cars worldwide is responsible for more social
and environmental damage than any other artifact on our planet."
I
learned that half of all daily trips in the United States lie within a
three-mile radius and a quarter of all trips are only a mile long or less; that
people live in a realm much smaller then they think, using vehicles too big for
the real scale of their daily travel. I began to note that cars often function
as glorified shopping carts and saw that we use two tons of steel to haul a one
pound loaf of bread.
Besides educating myself about the hidden cost
of the private car, what really made me question the driving life was the
observation that in spite of increased speed, people feel like they have less
time then ever before. Greater mobility has had the paradoxical effect of
lengthening how far people go rather than saving them time. Time-use studies
find little difference in average commuting times in the car-centered US
culture where we guzzle 40% of the world's gasoline, and in countries that are
virtually carless. People without cars walk, bicycle or take the bus to work a
half-hour or hour each way; Americans drive the same amount of time.
Lest I be misunderstood, let me clarify that I see nothing wrong with the car
per se-I like their comfort and convenience as much as the next person does.
Used wisely, cars have their place in a balanced transportation system. It's
just that there's too darned many of them and our small planet cannot possibly
cough up enough resources to provide every human being with their own
air-conditioned/CD/phone/fax/micro-wave equipped "carcoon."
I've
always been a part time cyclist but what I learned about cars and the
environment inspired me to take bicycling to a whole new level.
The
day came that I began to resent paying insurance on a vehicle I only pulled out
of the driveway two or three times a month.
Shortly thereafter I sold
my Toyota. For the past five years I've been conducting an experiment to see if
it's still possible, in a culture that practically makes car ownership a
mandatory condition of legitimate citizenship, to function AUTOFREE.
Cars define us and promise euphoria. Alas, cars are no longer our servants.
They are our masters.
I made a vow that, except for emergencies, I
would make all trips within a three-mile radius on foot or bicycle. I purchased
a collapsible shopping cart and a bicycle trailer big enough to hold a
fifty-pound bag of potbellied pigfood and four bags of groceries. I've learned
to ride wearing almost any outfit -a business suit or even a long skirt, rain
or shine. I have an electric bike to help me when my travels take me uphill.
Occasionally I ride the bus and use the airport shuttle. And, in a culture
where many families have two or three vehicles, it's not hard to catch a ride
or borrow or rent a car when a genuine need arises!