low/no car families article

I am glad to see some ink about low and no car families (and a shout out to Bike Winter and Active Trans), but wish this article had captured more of the joy of such a choice, instead of emphasizing needing to be a "master of planning and patience."  In fact, I bike *b/c* I am impatient. It's a hard balance--I don't think we can tell people: "ditch your car and everything will be puppies and rainbows all the time." There is a learning , curve and I imagine you trade in some challenges for other ones.  Then again, being car-free in the Chicago area is not so unusual or such a big deal. 

City of Chicago: 25.7% of households have no vehicles and 43.7% have one. Which means only 30% of households have 2 or more cars. Cook County: 17.2% no vehicles; 40.1%: 1 vehicle, 43% 2 or more (source)
Also, I was surprised to be described as not being anti-car, when much of our conversation involved me talking about the myriad reasons my family does not own a car, and the work we do to encourage others to live low/no car. I need to brush up on my talking to reporters skills.

 

In the words of Michael Ronkin: "Why do we hesitate to be anti-car? The car, or more precisely all we have done to make driving easy, convenient and cheap, has paved over farmland, forests and wetlands, destroyed cities and communities and neighborhoods, killed millions of innocents, and made it close to impossible for most Americans to live the very active lifestyle we promote. It’s time to stop playing nice and pretending we can have it both ways. All the cities with very high rates of cycling are hell to drive or park in. There is no win-win situation here."

 

Here's a pic of washer/dryer bike move. . . it really was easier by bike than if we had had to hoist them into a truck. The trailer hitch was not happy though.

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Permalink Reply by Nançois on June 21, 2011 at 4:50am

Nice article, but I agree, Gin. From my frame of reference, it is no more difficult to live without a car than it is to live with one. I have lived in Chicago for 24 years, all of which have been car-free. The times I've rented cars, I've been amazed to discover what a hassle it is to park them, shovel them out, fill them up, and walk from your parking space to your destination. In my opinion, it is more about one's *choice* of hassles! :)

In recent years, the CTA bus and train tracker apps, the I-Go cars, and the burgeoning bike community have made car-free living way more fun, but I was riding the bus long before it was "fashionable"! Advantages are: lots of time to read, zone out, multi-task. Exercise built into your day by virtue of walking or biking to your destination. No need to find parking or deal with traffic. And it's way less expensive, particularly if your employer will deduct the monthly CTA pass from your paycheck--before taxes! Sure, my car-free life does have some impact on where I choose to live, visit or shop, but that's about the only "planning and patience" required.

Add: Oh I almost forgot to mention the Millennium Park Bike Station. The most fun part of biking to work ever!

Permalink Reply by Bicycle Poet on June 21, 2011 at 5:17am

Gin wrote:

>I was surprised to be described as not being anti-car

 

I'm not too surprised by this.  Dawn Trice (author of this article) may have wanted to keep your lifestyle choice more accessible and less radical in appearance, especially given that yours is the most radical when compared to the other families mentioned in the article.

 

The fact that Trice even used the term "anti-car" is, I think, actually a good thing.  It plants the phrase in her readers' minds without actually applying it to you or anyone.

 

John Lennon wrote in his book Skywriting by Word of Mouth that he tries to be for issues rather than against other issues.  It is a thin line, I realize, but the difference is what type of energy you're working from.  Anti-anything is resistance energy.  Pro-something else is building energy.  Both have their place and can be effective.  It's a matter of which one you think you will attract more people to your cause.

Permalink Reply by Becca on June 21, 2011 at 6:31am
I like the attention given to car-sharing services in this article.  I think IGo and similar services have totally changed living in the city without a car.  If you need to go buy a new TV, rent a car for the 2 hours it will take.  It makes things much simpler.  And you'll always have a marked parking spot to come back to!  Try finding that elsewhere in the city.
Permalink Reply by in it to win it 8.0 mi on June 21, 2011 at 7:14am

Yes, and you can rent the right vehicle for the job.  My wife bought a big*ss mirror for our dining room and I rented a cargo van at U-Haul for $20.00.  Whole errand took me 1 1/2 hours (that includes beer bribing my neighbor to help haul that sucker up 55 steps to our unit!).

I strapped my bike inside when I picked the van up and rode home when I dropped it off.  Painless!

Becca said:

I like the attention given to car-sharing services in this article.  I think IGo and similar services have totally changed living in the city without a car.  If you need to go buy a new TV, rent a car for the 2 hours it will take.  It makes things much simpler.  And you'll always have a marked parking spot to come back to!  Try finding that elsewhere in the city.
Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on June 21, 2011 at 7:41am

Exactly.  That's the beauty of not investing in a car - not worrying about all the daily costs, while having the flexibility to rent what you need only when you need it.

It's nice that she included your car-free viewpoint, even if she distorted it a bit to fit the generally car-centric slant of the article.

I've been trying to promote a more car-lite lifestyle here in Beverly, which is a challenge.  Today I saw a woman take her two little kids to Top Notch for lunch, pulling them in a trailer behind her bike.  And I'm seeing more bikes at the grocery store lately.  Yeah!  More people here are finding out about I-Go - better than buying more cars.

I'd like to get some "shop and dine by bike" promotions going, because many of our commercial areas are easily accessible by bike.  Perhaps gas prices and traffic jams might help to persuade a few more people.


in it to win it said:

Yes, and you can rent the right vehicle for the job.  My wife bought a big*ss mirror for our dining room and I rented a cargo van at U-Haul for $20.00.  Whole errand took me 1 1/2 hours (that includes beer bribing my neighbor to help haul that sucker up 55 steps to our unit!).

I strapped my bike inside when I picked the van up and rode home when I dropped it off.  Painless!

Becca said:

I like the attention given to car-sharing services in this article.  I think IGo and similar services have totally changed living in the city without a car.  If you need to go buy a new TV, rent a car for the 2 hours it will take.  It makes things much simpler.  And you'll always have a marked parking spot to come back to!  Try finding that elsewhere in the city.

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