The Chainlink

I just saw an article on yahoo that says generation y doesn't seem to care to much about buying new cars. This is some great news to hear after PARK(ing) day and the coming Car-free day.

My sister turns 18 in a month and she doesn't have license yet nor does she want to get one. I don't know about you guys but more and more lately I feel like i can see the light ahead in terms of transportation norms. As a birthday/xmas/grad gift I am putting together a dutch style looking city bike.

any thoughts on this article or stories of people you know who fit this category?

http://autos.yahoo.com/articles/autos_content_landing_pages/1523/ge...

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Proudly I can say I'm at the high end of that demographic at 30. But owning a car happened by accident twice and I had them for a total of 1 and a half years. Otherwise it's always been bikes and mass transit. One friend, my age has gone car free but won't make the bigger leap to biking yet. And it's becoming more and more common for friends to have bikes so we're doin awright. Now if only we could selectively wipe out motorists ;-)
I'm not so sure that this trend is as much as a "choice" as it is a product of the steadily-declining affluence of the USA and a very long recession that is slowly rusting into what big media desperately doesn't want anyone calling a depression.

I agree that fewer cars would be a good thing -but I don't give people that much credit more making that choice. 1 in 7 Americans are now living at or below poverty level. Perhaps they aren't getting cars like they used to because car ownership and all that it entails is slowly pricing itself out of the reach of many Americans. Forget buying a house -a car is quickly becoming out of reach as well.

America has squandered its wealth and now we are going into a period of paying for our choices of the last decade or so. Things are going to get worse before they ever get better -if they do.

Yes, a bike is a good method of transportation that doesn't tax the oil infrastructure very heavily. It's also much easier on a poverty-level budget than owning and maintaining a car -much less driving it. But I hesitate to say that people are choosing riding a bike or walking over driving just because they are making the "right choice" -perhaps it is the only choice available to many of them.
That's probably one of the reasons. Others might be: an increased awareness of the sustainability factor of riding your bike, the fact that on short distances riding your bike is often quicker, using your disposable income on other items, peer-pressure, etc.

In the end how we get there doesn't matter as much the fact that we get there.

James Baum said:
I'm not so sure that this trend is as much as a "choice" as it is a product of the steadily-declining affluence of the USA and a very long recession that is slowly rusting into what big media desperately doesn't want anyone calling a depression.
I agree that fewer cars would be a good thing -but I don't give people that much credit more making that choice. 1 in 7 Americans are now living at or below poverty level. Perhaps they aren't getting cars like they used to because car ownership and all that it entails is slowly pricing itself out of the reach of many Americans. Forget buying a house -a car is quickly becoming out of reach as well.
America has squandered its wealth and now we are going into a period of paying for our choices of the last decade or so. Things are going to get worse before they ever get better -if they do.

Yes, a bike is a good method of transportation that doesn't tax the oil infrastructure very heavily. It's also much easier on a poverty-level budget than owning and maintaining a car -much less driving it. But I hesitate to say that people are choosing riding a bike or walking over driving just because they are making the "right choice" -perhaps it is the only choice available to many of them.

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