benajah

So I had to start driving again six months ago when my infant daughter started daycare, because of needing to be able to pick her up and just because of schedule as my work commute is about twenty miles. My truck just broke down and I managed to find a bike and bus and train route that gets me to the train station close to her daycare in reasonable time where I can grab my wifes car from the parking lot, pick her up, then get back to the station and pick my wife up.
It's not exactly car free but at least I managed to find a way to avoid having to be tethered to my gas guzzling ford f150 on a daily basis. I guess sometimes you have to be forced into finding creative solutions.

Dahon.Steve

I used to do this years ago when I was a multi-mode commuter. This Brompton folding bike was built specifically for this type of commuting. In China, people use two bikes, riding to the rail station and locking it there. Once they reach their destination by train, they have another bike locked at that station where they complete the trip.

Robert Foster

They might have to use more than two bikes. It seems as if bike theft is pretty high in China so a locked bike may or may not be there when someone gets back for it. To their credit they have put together a task force to curb some of the 4 million bikes that are stolen every year.

https://www.china.org.cn/english/China/201124.htm

If I were still commuting I think a folder would be a good idea as well. Where I go it goes.

benajah

Ive never actually ridden a folder. I know a lot of people who are very happy with theirs though.

wahoonc

Looks like to me you found an equitable solution. Unfortunately in the US mass transit is a poor to non available option, and with the car centric sprawl being able to get about with minimal car use is a huge challenge but is great when you figure out a way to do it.

Aaron

Roody

Yep, it is about being creative and flexible, rather than always falling back on that old stand-by, the automobile. Good job, benajah!

B. Carfree

It all sounds like a multi-level video game. Nice job on the ingenuity. I wonder what will be thrown at you for the next level?

benajah

I have to be honest, I used to bad mouth it but having a kid and a demanding career and living out in the suburbs I see why so many people end up the huge SUV crowd. In the SF Bay Area for a even decent public school education you have to live out in the suburbs where you just don't have a three mile bike commute or a subway tunnel right out the door.
For me, a bike commute is 2 hours each way after factoring in changing clothes, traffic, etc and tacking that onto a 10 or 11 hour workday doesn't leave a lot of time to be a dad.
You have to be a two income family because it is just too expensive, and to top it off, most places where the economy is in good shape are much the same, Which right now seems to be just DC and SF.
My dad is a baby boomer, Vietnam vet draftee, working class guy, growing up we owned our home and always had plenty money on just his salary and when we were visiting for Christmas he straight up told me he thinks my generation has it harder and actually feels sorry for my kids generation. We are just never going to have it as good as they did.

twobadfish

Most Americans couldn't imagine life without driving everywhere.

Congrats on finding a cool solution.

benajah

Thanks. I hate driving, truly hate it.

Platy

By 2050 the age distribution of the US population should be back to something that looks a lot more normal. This should let people who are now in their 20s and 30s look forward to a reasonably comfortable retirement. It's going to be a demographic train wreck for the next couple of decades, though.

Boomer retirements are going to be a lot more frugal than most people expect. Going car free is part of my own retirement solution but unfortunately I don't think many other Boomers are ready to do that.

wahoonc

This a good example of what is wrong in America today, we have built a society around the automobile and now the time is coming to pay the piper. I am wonder what is going to happen when the baby boomers start hitting into their 70's and can no longer get a license? They are in the process of tightening up the laws to make testing mandatory in many states when you reach a certain age, personally I think EVERYBODY should be tested on a regular basis. So what happens when Ma and Pa that live in NW Suburbia can no longer drive and the nearest store is 15 miles away?

With the loss of wealth in the US many of the Baby Boomers that had planned to retire and move somewhere comfortable, probably aren't going to be able to. So now they are stuck in a car centric hell.

Aaron

Platy

In the year 2025 ... young people afraid to ride their bikes into the far suburban Boomer infested ghettos ... scary old folks cruising slowly around the neighborhood in their banged up antique hi-riders, knocking over garbage cans and playing oldies rock tunes at max volume ... pooling their gas money and remaining peripheral vision to drive around running errands ... McMansions going for about a dollar but no one can afford the taxes and maintenance ... medicare basically reduced to a choice between hospice and medicinal marijuana ... mom and dad out in the backyard growing their medicines ... Social Security now basically a big bag of munchies left on the doorstep every week ... no riots as long as the Internet stays up...Just kidding, of course.

Roody

No figures to back this up, but my observation is that more boomers are carfree than Generation X folks.

benajah

I wouldn't doubt that one bit, from a logical perspective. Like I was saying before, it is really hard to be car free when you have kids and are being agressive in your career, things like that. I am gen X, (b. 1976) and I know nobody my age who is other than folks who live right in the middle of San Francisco or NY, NY.
Life mellows a bit later on when the kids grow up, you are more established in your career, maybe not as tight a routine schedule, where it is easier to be car free.

gerv 

Luckily, it will all be over in 2012... so this is science fiction.. right?

Dahon.Steve

The reasons Americans can't save today is because they are spending it on transportation. Motorized transport. If you're on the edge of survival, not having a car can be the difference between having food on the table or not.

In my case, there was plenty of money for vacations, clothing, food etc once the car was taken away by the junker.

benajah

It can work both ways I suppose. In many cases the car is a necessary expense, when the cost of living close to the jobs is too much, and there is a lack of public transport, you simply sometimes don't have a choice. You have to live where you can afford to, and travel to the jobs, and there is not always a sufficient system to make it work without a car. It is an intrinsic problem with the way we have built up our transportation infrastructure.
Funny thing is, back in the early 20th century, nearly every city of any size had a good robust trolley or streetcar system, but the car companies bought out the systems to make room for car culture.

rustybrown

Aye, I disagree, my 94-year-old grandfather is driving, with license, around Chicago. Even with yearly check ups, he can still send paperwork in to reapply.

We're working on it. The DMV is not helping the situation, though. They have a more "hands off" approach. There's plenty of family support to revoke his license.

zoltani

^ Maybe he's a little old to be called a boomer? Semantics. My grandmother just got her license renewed at 90, just had to do an eye exam. She passed, but she's always complaining about her cataracts, so I wonder how well she can really see.

My wife's granfather is 94 and lives alone in the middle of Lyon, France and he can walk out his door and go to the market, grocery store, doctor, and have just about anything he needs. I'd venture to guess that he rarely leaves his little 10-block radius world. If he lived in the burbs in the US he would not be able to live alone, plain and simple.

I disagree that only people in SF or NYC are car free and in their mid 30s. Sure there are not a lot, but they're out there, how many of us on this forum are under 30? Wasn't there a poll sometime back?

Robert Foster

What does his housing cost to live in Lyon? In Paris if you can't afford to buy and have to rent you have to make 4 times your rent a month just to rent. At least that is what they have been telling us on a home buying realestate program my wife watches almost every night.

zoltani

He bought his flat a long time ago....I'm sure he owns it outright now, but probably pays some HOA fees of some kind. Also remember he happened to have retired during the glory days of french retirement, plus he was a teacher, and they have great pensions typically.

They don't have the same kind of credit report system as the USA so you usually have to show up with your last 3 months of bills from your old place. Oh, and have a cosigner, even if you are 30+ your mommy and daddy will have to cosign for you. You can imagine what a PITA that is. Not sure about making 4 times your rent, wasn't the case for us. Maybe that changes if you don't have a cosigner.

BTW after living at home for the past two months I can say that I absolutely hate HGTV and everything house hunter/virgin owner/whatever show, what a load of ****. Unfortunately my mom loves that crap.

Robert Foster

Never been found of HGTV myself though I used to love Ground force where they came in and redid peoples yards. Still they have a program about foreign real-estate and I have noticed that buying a home in much of Europe is a PITA if you can even afford to do so. Prices are as high as or higher than NYC and most times people make far less per capita than we do. The difference was the people moving tonight were moving from Canada to France because the husband had taken a position in Paris. The downtown prices were outrageous and there was simply no way convenience could make up the difference between living in Paris and moving out to one of the Suburbs. At least they have light rail for commuting into town. But they did say that if you decided to rent you would have to prove you made 4 times more than the rent. At $1700 a month that would be $6800 a month wages. That’s more than 81K a year. Way above the average French wages. I guess I could look it up but I am not interested in moving to France.

Roody

That's 20 % of your income for rent, which is a little less than they used to reccommend in The US. The classic here was that you should spend about 25 % of your income on housing. That was increased to 30 or even 35 % in the years leading up to the housing bubble--one of many causes of that bubble, probably. I wonder if Americans will go back to 25 % or even lower as one lesson learned in the last couple years?