No, not that! Anything but that! Oh, hang on; if you’re an environmentalist, that’s a good thing, right? Less carbon in the atmos. Less congestion. (Bonus! The remaining drivers can zip about faster!) But the majority party isn’t against cars per se, are they? They just want smaller, cleaner cars. And OK, yes, lots of busses and trains and people riding them (presumably), which would, ideally, mean less cars. But we can’t really have less cars ’cause then Detroit would go out of business and working class people would get the shaft (again). I know! Maybe we could have less smaller, cleaner cars—as long as all of them were built in Detroit. By union workers. But what about the people who work for the transplants? Um . . .
We could ditch secret ballots for union elections to help the workers at those other companies (that seem to know how to build the kind of comfortable, reliable, affordable vehicles Americans want) not get shafted. Of course, even then we’d have to do something to stop people from buying too many cars.
Oh! Oh! We could raise the price of gas! And insurance! And inspections! And registry fees! And I dunno, slap on a new carbon tax or something.
If this doesn’t strike you as journalism, well, I was inspired by my very first employer, CNN, whose iReport is friggin’ genius. Instead of [real] journalists going to all the bother to find people who support their non-scientific (not to say propagandistic) thesis, they find you! Et voila!
Everyone’s trying to cut their budget this year, from the White House to big corporations to ordinary citizens. For many Americans, this means making big changes and going without things to which they’ve become accustomed. For some, the economic downturn means saying goodbye to that icon of American prosperity: their car.
The WHITE HOUSE? The White House is cutting their budget? What didn’t I understand about the $787B stimulus package? Never mind, we’re a car site. We’re a car site. Must remember: we’re a car site.
So, what experts has CNN lined-up for their conclusion that Americans are abandoning their cars? None! Didn’t I already tell you that? But we do get two iWitnesses.
“Stores are only a mile away. I have legs. I can walk; I can ride my bike,” said [college student Kyle] Aevermann. iReport.com: ‘Bye bye car’
Another person doing a lot of walking is Hilary Ohm. She’s cut her driving down as much as possible since losing her job in October. She no longer drives to work, of course, and since she lives in the small town of Colville, Washington, she’s able to walk to go shopping and meet up with friends.
“I have found that walking into town every day is a great way to get exercise, meet people and get to know my community better,” said Ohm, who carries a backpack to town with her so that she can do the grocery shopping.
I suppose women with kids can carry a sprog in one of those belly thingies and backpack on their back for groceries (or the other way around). And if it’s cold, they can wear a hat.
Commuting? We can all do that by mass transportation. Or car sharing. Or something. And all those stores that depend on vehicular traffic can put out a flipping sidewalk, already. Don’t forget: cars are a luxury. Read the headline: “Thrift-conscious say goodbye to cars, cell phones, other luxuries.” See? It’s not about poverty, it’s about thrift.
As for reporting, we can just email it in. Obviously.
‘Bout sums it up.
The college kids in the study don’t give up cars. They don’t have them in the first place.
I’ll take my Obama welfare payout, er tax refund, now. Thanx.
Extrapolating a trend from two individuals – especially without any supporting data – is poor journalism.
Realistically, though, during tough times, if you lose your job, or are trying to get through college with minimal expenses, it does make sense to look how much you drive, or whether you can even afford a car in the first place.
I’d rather have the people take positive steps to address their situation – as Hilary Ohm has done – than wail and whine about how unfair the world is.
But the majority party isn’t against cars per se, are they? They just want smaller, cleaner cars.
Correction: the majority party wants YOU to have a smaller, cleaner car. They are happy driving their 300’s and Yukons, and flying in private envoys.
Also, everyone wants cleaner cars. To claim that Republicans are pro-pollution is silly.
I’m not givin up nothin………..
I don’t care if gas hits $20 a gallon…I’ll still be driving. Sure I’ll budget a little better and make fewer trips but I’m NEVER going back to mass transit with the exception of parking my cars at the Park&Ride and then taking the LIRR into and out of Manhattan.
Fewer cars, not “less cars”.
/GrammarNazi
They’ll take the steering wheel from my cold dead hands [I don’t care if it’s on an ION or a Chrysler Sebring or a Corvette ]……. I’m with you, Flashpoint.
Wouldn’t that be two iTwitnesses ?
I too would only give up my cars if I lived in Manhattan, Tokyo, or Hong Kong. Those are the only places I can think of where the costs of having a car outweigh the benefits.
Giving it up in any other place on earth is a pain in the ass inconvenience at best, sheer madness at worst.
I can tell you without a doubt that more and more people are living without a car
For those in major metropolitan areas with good mass transit, it seems like it couldn’t make more sense – whether for financial or environmental reasons.
Let’s face it though, nearly all of the people that we have been buying from are doing it for the fast cash for cars.
geeber-Extrapolating a trend from two individuals – especially without any supporting data – is poor journalism.
These days you can leave out the “poor” bit-this is just journalism.
Which is RFs point, I presume.
I have noticed that on every individual issue, I do mean that literally, that I have some expertise, have researched or have deeper personal interest in I find that the MSM is consistently off base.
They do not even have to be PC sensitive issues. There is some variation, sometimes they are dead wrong, IMHO, other times painfully simplistic in a way that confuses/misinforms the public, or very obviously are being very selective on the data/info they present.
But I truely cannot think of any area in which the MSM has presented anything, in an area I understand that was clearly, lucidly correct.
Read a few articles on any subject and you realize they just cut & paste the same stuff from AP and Reuters.
IF the MSM is united on anything-I look for the truth elsewhere.
Regards,
Bunter
Yeah, actually if you want some decent long-form TV journalism, News Hour is where it’s at. According to their story, mass transit is what’s REALLY hurting: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june09/transit_03-09.html
The Onion has a report indicating that 98 Percent Of U.S. Commuters Favor Public Transportation For Others…
http://www.theonion.com/content/news/report_98_percent_of_u_s_commuters
Bunter1
Agreed. I know quite a bit about animal behaviour and cars (quite a bit more about animals actually)and the reporting I see on those two topics alone is almost universally wrong in a fundamental, “you didn’t ask one single expert did you?” kind of way.
One truly petty example: the shocking, TERRIFYING, revelation that coyotes were spotted in Central Park. The same not-dangerous-at-all coyotes that have been living in Central, Inwood and Prospect parks (not to mention the airports and Randall’s island) for decades probably, with frequent and documented sightings on the brooklyn/queens – manhattan bridges. Hundreds of still breathing witnesses and a large community of experts all shrugged their collective shoulders. This all took days to sink in.
It’s kind of disgusting how little work obviously goes into the average MSM story. Frankly its only because of that underacheivement that sites like TTAC have gotten my attention. (I love you TTAC, but the NYT Auto Section could’ve and should’ve stolen your lunch money and run away laughing…too late now)
Try living in a Metro area like Dallas/Ft.Worth without a car. It’s simply not possible. The mass transit system here (If you can call it a system. I call it a clusterfuck) is absolutely worthless, and everything is so spread out that walking almost anywhere is just not much of a possibility. Sure, there’s housing close to the major business centers in both Dallas and Fort Worth, as well as the cities around and in between, but that’s so expensive that the average person can’t afford to live there. Most of us regular middle class guys are living in the ‘burbs and making the drive, and it sucks. In an area like this, where sprawl is king, there is no other way.
Screw public transit. I did it for years in Sacramento and hated every minute of it.
The buses pollute, they’re noisy, they block other traffic. Worse is light rail. For lack of a better phrase, fuck light rail. It’s expensive, disruptive to established streets and neighborhoods and, again, extremely expensive.
I want my car. I’d rather sit in traffic than be packed in like sardines between a fat state worker and a homeless person, all at a huge cost to the taxpayer.
I compromise.
I live in Chicago, and _IF_ I can get a ride to the Metra, I can be at work in 21 minutes (12 minute train ride, 3 minutes walk, 6 minutes drive to the train station).
If I _can’t_ get a ride to the train from the wife, it’s 30 minutes to go just over 1 mile (no I’m not walking when it’s raining or 20 below zero) to the train by 2 CTA busses. If I’m lucky!
If the total bus transportation time is increased by say even 10 minutes, I will have to wait 20-30 min for my next train.
Considering it takes 35 minutes driving, TOPS……..I don’t take the bus unless I have to.
In any case, I did try to drive myself to the train station a few times but ended up driving home and then taking the bus.
The neighborhood surrounding the station is all permit parking (Ravenswood for those of you in the Chicago area) and the 70 or so car slots that cost $1.50 or $2 for the day in the Sears lot are full by 7am sharp.
Public transportation is a joke. Considering my train ride is $2 (discounted by pre-paid 10 ride card) and the cta is another $2.25….8.50 round trip, the $6 parking + 30 minutes driving seems a lot more attractive.
Lighten up on the whole making fun of walking and riding bikes meme.
With the stop n go nonsense going on in my city, I commute 26 miles round trip daily by bike – it’s only about 5 minutes more each way with a heck of a lot less stress. Plus, I don’t look like a couch potato.
Oh, and I own an older M3 for the weekends. Cars and bikes can co-exist. They have to going forward.
snakeboat
Biking is a great option for those who can. There are two problems for many folks:
1. So many American cities are designed without bicycles in mind. It’s flat out dangerous from my house to downtown Sacramento (and yes, I purchased as nearby as possible). No way I’d do it. It’s kind of like adding public transit … If the city wasn’t designed around it, you’re going to tear up a lot of stuff to shoe-horn it in. In the case of bicycling, the strategy seems to be to add a few bike “lanes” (otherwise known as the “shoulder”) and tell people to watch out. Which they don’t, partially because they can’t. And that goes for bikers and drivers alike.
2. Weather/clothing. I wear a monkey suit most days. Gross inconvenience.
Forget this junk journalism.
Re: the number of cars and relationship to US culture, the real story is:
1) families cutting down on the number of cars they own
2) transitioning to smaller vehicles with reduced environmental impact
3) luxury/near-luxury cars may no longer be seen as a preferred form of status display
These are real trends that must occupy every manufacturer’s long-term planning. 10MM vehicles/year with growth tied to population growth is the plausible baseline for new vehicle sales in US. Not all manufacturers can survive in this new world.
I have noticed that on every individual issue, I do mean that literally, that I have some expertise, have researched or have deeper personal interest in I find that the MSM is consistently off base.
There’s two causes:
1. The “forced objectivity” principle that requires journalists to consider two (and usually just two) viewpoints, even if one is the result of blatant falsehood or drug-induced hallucination. Think about how many times you read “Of course, so-and-so disagrees…”. This gives fringe opinions far more weight than they deserve.
2. Deadlines. The copy-to-edit-to-press is much, much shorter than it used to be. Technology has increased the appetite for “News Now!” and the pressure to deliver sometimes trumps accuracy. It also results in a greater percentage of prepackaged content (press releases, effectively).
Combine the two and you get a kind of intellectual dishonesty where a lie can be around the world three times before the truth can get it’s boots on. Blogs aren’t much better, but at least people don’t grant them the implied trust that hey do print and TV.
So many American cities are designed without bicycles in mind.
That’s the important point: poor urban planning. Transit doesn’t solve this problem, and trying to apply mass transit as a band-aid to badly planned communities just doesn’t work.**
Have a look at communities designed before the car: commercial, residential and industrial are mixed, density is high and commuting distances are short. When the car arrived en masse, so did horribly designed sururban spaces that cut people off from one another, and from the resources that they needed to live. But hey, the land was cheap, municipalities made serious property tax revenue, companies could minimize logistics costs and we could all live the rancher lifestyle.
Sad, really, because at the expense of having normal human communities, all suburbanism really did was download the cost of logistics onto people.
** the Left is particularly stupid about mass transit. The need for mass transit is a symptom of the problem: poor planning and ghettoization. It is not a solution, and throwing money at it instead of the real issue of urban renewal is one where the left is shamefully clueless.
BobJava :
March 10th, 2009 at 4:10 pm
Screw public transit. I did it for years in Sacramento and hated every minute of it.
The buses pollute, they’re noisy, they block other traffic. Worse is light rail. For lack of a better phrase, fuck light rail. It’s expensive, disruptive to established streets and neighborhoods and, again, extremely expensive.
There are two reasons for the problem:
1) Too much money is spent on cars, thus the public transit system doesn’t have a scale benefit.
2) No competition. Now everyone is talking about the problems GM faces. Imagine a GM without a competitor for … ever. That’s your local friendly transit system.
The bus pass price increased 150% over the last 10 years. During the same period, the price of a Camry V6 is decreased by 5%, while its horsepower increased by 50%.
“Biking is a great option for those who can.”
Around here (Oakland,CA) you have to ride a completely valueless piece of junk AND chain it up like PeeWee’s Big Adventure to avoid theft. My motorcycle was broken down and I had to wait a couple weeks for parts so I could fix it. During that time I rode my bike to work and within a week, my bike was stolen. About half a dozen of my co-workers have also had their bikes stolen within the last year. Nothing like putting in a solid day at work, then coming out to find that you’ll be walking home because someone’s stolen your wheels.
wsn
I’d argue too much is spent on public transit. As you point out, the costs are sky-high. Especially rail. But even bus transit has wage pressures, just like every other government and quasi-government entity.
Just so the bus driver can fly by you at the stop, arrive 15 minutes late, or, my favorite, fly by with the “out of service” sign.
For rail, it’s hard to imagine real competition. The infrastructure and coordination is just too expensive. Bus competition … Yeah, maybe. But aside from key commuter times, the buses aren’t anywhere near capacity. Why cities can’t provide more buses during key times is beyond me (*cough* drivers’ unions).
For the value of your taxpayer dollar, it’s much cheaper to expand the roads for cars or subsidize carpooling. Something crazy like that.
”
Try living in a Metro area like Dallas/Ft.Worth without a car. It’s simply not possible. ”
Let a lone a smaller city like where I live. Oh, there’s a bus “system” I guess, but I live in the inner suburbs and its still impossible to live without a car. You can’t even really get groceries without one.
You could try biking–if you have a death wish and want it stolen.
The only thing the bus is good for is barhopping on the weekends (I don’t have to worry about having one too many, then).
In order for Americans to live without their cars American cities would have to be drastically redesigned. Suburbia is really just a terrible concept.
Here in Zurich it’s completely feasible to live without a car – in fact, if you live in the city itself it’s less of a hassle than owning one. But the USA (and Canada for that matter) is not Switzerland.
The reason there were only two iWitnesses was that expense accounts reporters need to pay for fuel have been cut back. They really needed to interview at least four people to get a large enough database to provide reliable statistical evidence for such a seismic shift in future American driving habits.
Then of course, the end of the automobile to a considerable degree comports with the vision of liberal left leaning CNN.
Question I as a reporter would have asked Kyle Aevermann. How does not having a car affect his luck with women? I assume the human mating game still involves getting the girl away from other competing males, a process much easier if you own your own transportation. I also assume the price of admission is a safe looking car, no rust or major dents, with bonus points for an attractive interior with leather.
I have never met anyone who voluntarily gave up their car. I’ve met people who drove less or bought a smaller car when gasoline prices approached $4 per gallon, but automotive freedom of movement it a big part of the American way of life.
@mtypex – tax-paying American? Born here or legal immigrant? With a job? Own a computer? You must be rich! NO REFUND FOR YOU!
@geeber – not poor journalism – typical journalism.
@BobJava – Sacremento? Hell, try Providence. I ride my bike exclusively when I am in the city and not hauling groceries or my child. The streets are old and narrow. It’s fargin’ cold! The drivers are, well, New Englanders and some guy in a Boxster keeps buzzing my arse when I ride down Blackstone Blvd! That you, RF?
And if this Oban-economy doesn’t turn around I won’t go carless. Hell, I’ll be living in it. …thinking I should have kept the Outback and not gotten the Spec. B.
Interesting comparison of energy use per passenger mile.
http://ideas.4brad.com/green-u-s-transit-whopping-myth
Bottom line is public transportation using massive busses and trains isn’t very efficient unless they are full of passengers. Driving a motorcycle is more energy efficient than riding the bus or light rail.
RF: “I suppose women with kids can carry a sprog in one of those belly thingies and backpack on their back for groceries (or the other way around). And if it’s cold, they can wear a hat.”
I’ve seen people doing that. I routinely see people walking. And I don’t think it’s for the fun of it. Pedestrian accomodations are zilch and we suffer from sprawl as badly as anyone. But if you’ve got a low-wage job a few miles away, you suck it up and do it, I suppose.
Also, year-round cycling is up. I can’t recall the source. And up here (Minnesota), year-round cycling is an interesting proposition. Cycling seems to be more of an upscale thing. I know I’ve seen a surprising number of cyclists this winter (my bike gets hung up in the garage when ice forms).
After the government takes over the detroit auto makers they can get to work on domestic tariffs on transplants, effectively picking winners for us to buy from. Won’t take much, just a couple of laws rammed through that selectively punish successful transplants. They punish successful people now with higher taxes so there is plenty of precedence for hitting “foreign” auto makers. Just use your imagination for a bit. How about making Toyota pay the VEBA bill for the UAW, I mean they could make the case it’s Toyota’s success that caused the big 3 to under so they should pay for the retirees, right?
Make a civic or corolla cost 40K and the domestics less than half that (with tax dollars making up the losses) and it’s only a matter of time and economics. Top it off with massive fleet sales and government vehicle purchases year after year and there you go, a US slave auto industry.
Forget what we want, need or desire. That is for those living in a free country, not here.
After loosing everything in my divorce I gave up cars for 3 years and biked instead. I was lucky that I worked at a place that had lockers and showers. Plus they had installed a bike lockup in the building’s garage. It was so nice not having to worry about insurance, registration, fuel, tickets, etc. I had a 45 minute commute each way, with some hills, and I discovered that that my biking only took 5 minutes more than others who would sit in traffic in cars.
It certainly helped me recover financially and physically. By eliminating the option of just driving somewhere it forced me to shop carefully. I managed to drop 50 pounds without paying for a gym membership.
I have a car now, used, and paid cash for it. But if it dies and my budget it tight, I am not worried at all.
And for those who think that they live too far to commute on a bike. Think again. Once you get in to riding shape and find the best routes, which will take a couple of months, you will be surprised at how far you can commute in a reasonable amount of time.
People have no problem spending 45 minutes in a car, then 45 minutes at a gym after work. You could spend that time biking home and pocket the savings. Take that savings and buy yourself a dumb bell set for at home upper body workouts. That is all you will need. No more $50 a month for the gym, and hundreds of dollars a month in savings for commuting.
I would rent a car for out of town trips.
My point is, most people won’t die if they give up their cars.
Interesting timing. I’ve been considering an article that has a bit of a different slant on it.
Folks are getting rid of their financed cars and keeping their cash cars.
A lot of these folks aren’t even in financial distress. They’re just tired of making a monthly payment on a vehicle that is little more than an expensive toy.
I happen to be a BIG supporter of anything that eliminates consumer debt. Our society would be far healthier if we stopped buying what we simply can’t afford.
To get there though, will take a healthy level of knowledge amongst the populace. We’re not there yet.
I’d rather live in my car than live without one.
Buses, trains, subways…all easy pickings for terrorists.
I’ll stick with my car and bicycles.
Some Americans are giving up their cars because our standard of living is dropping.
What percentage of the GDP is now government spending at the state, local, and federal level? Isn’t it approaching 40%?
As mentioned in the article about the 71 Cadillac, having a spouse go to work put off our day of reckoning. Then a decade of debt put it off another ten years.
Now the bill is due – all of our consumer products, most of our energy, and increasingly our technology is all imported. Our government’s solution? Make energy more expensive!
We are becoming more like the rest of the world because the rest of the world now owns us.
I lived in Shanghai and Hang Zhou China for years. Those cities were built with bicycling in mind. Bicycling is a very good travel option but only if you live within 2 -3 miles of your job and only if you live in a climate that doesn’t try to kill you.
Many a Chinaman had to ride those bikes in FREEZING RAIN and slippery roads – which contributes to their high levels of car accidents.
guyincognito :
March 10th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
I’d rather live in my car than live without one.
When Maybachs and motor homes have decent sized showers…
The best idea I have seen is the park and ride to take people downtown for work. Other than that our public transit is a complete joke. The rise of suburbia has killed any hopes of a decent public transit system. I will have to walk two or three miles to the closet bus stops and the only place it would take me is downtown and after that walk a couple more miles to get to my final destination. I am not lazy, I just don’t want to walk a mini marathon just to save a buck.
I lived in Hong Kong for a few years. I took a bus to a boat then a subway to the office. Walked over a massive highway to the front door of my office tower. Did a lot of walking to each transportation mode. 1’10” door to door each way, about 22 dollars a day in various fees. But I really didn’t miss a car, never even thought about it. If I could get a telecommuting job I would sell one car and save on insurance, gas and service.
1. Consider that one’s purpose in life may be higher than owning and operating cars. Even cars that simulate amusement park rides.
2. Cars are a fundamentally very inefficient way of getting around.
3. Because of (2), car-dependent societies are bleeding wealth that could be better invested elsewhere.
4. There is enormous collateral damage due to (2) and an over-subscription to the importance of (1).
5. If the average driver spent more than the 2-3% they currently spend on transit as compared to their private cars, all of us would be far better off, and we’d be able to get around quite handily. You can’t build a transit system if people won’t pay for it, and people can’t use it if it’s not built. For what’s been spent on transit compared to what’s been spent on cars, it’s pretty good bang for buck. And that’s because transit is inherently far more efficient. These are “Truths About Transit”.
6. If the average driver more often used an alternative way to get around that involves exercise, health could improve.
Despite huge benefits from the concept, many aspects of the private car have been driven far to excess and milked by some selfish, shortsighted people. The flip side is that the same aspects constitute a waste system for everyone else. Like driving a huge pickup two blocks to the corner store. So when car, um, fans, talk about the need to pry their cold dead hands…, it sounds like a habituation issue. Duping people into the current model of automotive ownership and operation, and shaping our culture and infrastructure around that, is an amazingly successful but destructive marketing coup.
There is no reason not to have secure bicycle storage, plus a serious crackdown on motorists who endanger cyclists. If motorists won’t respect cyclists, then they should be made afraid to go anywhere near them. Like in Europe.
Dialing back car dependency somewhat would be a refreshing sign that mankind is capable of making better choices. That doesn’t mean there’s not a need for some people to be really interested in cars and know a lot about them.
Cars allow us to be very productive in our personal lives. Via latest US stats. 80% of automobile trips from home are not work related. Bad weather, late night, multiple stops, trunk full of groceries, kid to dentist, pick up cleaning, lawn fertilizer, Ikea particle board wardrobe (200lbs.!) no problem. Try that with your Schwinn or Birkenstocks. For the “basic” life try Afghanistan.
I will probably always own a vehicle, because I love to drive. However, if I could find a way to use mass transit to travel to and from the office (or better yet, telecommute) I’d do it in a heartbeat. But I’d probably still own a vehicle for leisure and road trips.
The reason why I’d gladly give up my daily commute to mass transit? Easy. I hardly consider being in bumper-to-bumper traffic – even for five miles or so each way – to be “driving.” Actually, since it’s done at such a low speed I call my commute “steering.”
I’ll give up paying taxes and supporting charity before I give up my car(s).
Ok, maybe I’ll slim down to 3…but the wife would be on the street corner long before that happened.
I hate to tell you this, but I also gave up my car earlier in the year. Light rail is up and running now in Phoenix and has been since late December. I voluntarily went carfree for a month, and liked it so much I decided to continue. Check back with me in June when it’s 100 degrees and see how I’m doing.
If I could bike to work and if there were stores closer to my house I’d give up the car but keep the van since we need the extra seats for the kids. But the reality is the USA has been built with cars/trucks in mind for transportation since the advent of the car.
Most of Europe was developed around everything being within walking distance of a person’s home and hasn’t deviated too much from that over the years. Our government needs to realize that we cannot model ourselves after the larger older European cities because the USA was not developed the same way – our transportation needs are vastly different because of sprawl.
What Todd Roth said. I for one, am still going to by buy a 2009 TL SH-AWD. Anybody who has a problem with that can kiss my ass!
Additionally, if people want to get around, “Greener,” I suggest everybody starts buying motorcycles. Hell, my Kawasaki Concours 14 hauls lots of stuff, handles on rails, goes as fast as you have the balls for, and still gets 45 mpg @ 70 mph. All the while having a smaller carbon footprint than other supposed “green,” cars.
A college student?! The unemployed?!
Those are not people cutting back to save money, they simply don’t have any money.
However, I do have a job and I will not replace the leased car I just returned to the dealer. It’s bicycle weather now.
There you go TTAC. You have a better source than CNN with no effort.
I’ve got short enough distances that I would gladly return to bicycling everywhere but there just aren’t any safe routes into and out of where we live. No shoulders, no sidewalks, etc.
During the periods of my life when I have parked my car to bicycle I have been healthier and happier for it. Life is MUCH cheaper with a bicycle.
We at my house are fully committed to removing fossil fuel consuming transportation for commuter purposes. We’ll either go pedal power or EV.
We’ll use one of our four gasoline powered vehicles for trips out of town, big trips to the store, or for bad weather use.
What our town needs is a bicycle only trail right through the middle of town north to south – no cars allowed. I would consider sharing it with NEVs though.
Would be an easy ride east or west to connect with the two main drags where the shopping and restaurants are.
Add good bike racks or fenced bike parking at businesses and life would be good in this small TN town. The local gov’t is proposing using some of the fed stimulus money to start a local bus service. Of course NEXT year the taxpayers will be funding the $400K bus service… No thanks. Make more long term, permanent choices. Bike paths, trolleys (real trolleys with rails that last 100 years). Really this small town is too small to need buses. A trolley that runs the existing track from the ends of the county might be worthwhile.
@ Steven
“A lot of these folks aren’t even in financial distress. They’re just tired of making a monthly payment on a vehicle that is little more than an expensive toy.”
And it hit me like a lightning bolt. 350Z now up for sale and I have bought a BIONX electric mountain bike for the commute…25mph with a 50 mile range.
http://www.greenspeed.us/bionx_montague_swiss_bike.htm
I can ride 30 mins at 25mph with ped-assist easypeasy and arrive at work not having even broken a sweat. It is awesome and remember I live in Switzerland which isn’t known for its flat plains…. I drive once a week now to do a shopping and errands run…
Or if you already have a bike:
http://www.ev-power.com.au/-Electric-Bicycle-Retrofit-Kits-.html
Once upon a time I rode a motorcycle year round. I have no problem with that except I’m hauling one or two kids around town these days. When I am back to kid free in a few years I’d eagerly bike or motorcycle again.
Right tool for the job ya know? For my needs a 300HP two ton vehicle for hauling a single person ain’t the right tool for the job. A bike/scooter/small motorcycle is fine for these short trips.
I figure America will mostly keep doing exactly what we’ve been doing for the past 75 years until we absolutely economically or environmentally can’t do it anymore b/c we as a society are looking for the easiest answers. Make a car payment for much of your adult life. Pay taxes to build lots of roads. Put gasoline into the gas tank. Turn the key, put it into drive, and push the accelerator pedal. All the creature comforts, etc.
On the other hand I am working my way through a NatGeo movie about the trains in India this week. I recently also watched a show about China. The sheer number of humans living in those places dreaming about living like us promises to someday make life here very expensive as we compete for everything. Don’t know if that will be soon or not but once they build a middle class that consumes like we do – life will be very expensive for all of us.
I figure we’ll all start quickly understanding more about how and why Europe functions the way it does. We’ll have choices. Keep living like we do and spend a HUGE amount of cash on our cars and fuel to burn in them or we’ll start looking for ways to live closer to the places we go each day so that we drive shorter distances or not at all. Or get the gasoline out of our cars and go EV. Nope, no hydrogen fuel cells in our short term future no matter what GM wants to make us believe.
FWIW I don’t mind the suburban lifestyle. We hope to build further out of town than we are now (giving us a 20 min commute) but we recognize that there will be “opportunity costs” to do so. Smaller cheaper wheels will be required. Carpooling. Fewer vehicle replacements. Fewer trips to town.