cycleobsidian

I wish I could write like this guy.

https://rabble.ca/news/2010/03/war-car-update

While the article is about Toronto, it could work anywhere.

(For Torontonians: If you make it to the end of the article, you can see he got overly optimistic about light rail lines, but other than that, he's got things pegged pretty good.)

cyclocello

The writing may be too liberal for some, but that doesn't stop the fact all of it is true. The car is a real enemy!

Roody

I agree, but I try to frame the argument a little differently when I'm talking to people who actually drive cars. I don't want motorists--the vast majority of the country--to think I see them as the enemy. If anything, they are victims of the car economy even more than we are.

Artkansas 

Many cars are losing their lives,



or being gravely injured,



or displaced to eke out an existence far from familiar garages and parking lots.



War is not the answer. Can't we all just get along?

gerv 

I thought the article was good tongue-in-cheek. But I guess motorists might not see it that way...

cycleobsidian

Yes, it was good tongue-in-cheek. His analogies with real war was spot on.

cycleobsidian

I would never distribute this article at work, for example. My coworkers think I am strange enough sometimes.... but a car free forum....perfect place I think!

Oh, and Artkansas, great pics!

Ridefreemc

"Tens of billions of dollars must be spent each year to convince civilians they are getting precisely what they are giving up: their liberty."

That statement says a lot.

Hipster_Killa

If you live in an urban area I can see how you can go without driving a car. But due to urban sprawl and the architecture of the suburbs, its pretty much impossible to operate without a car. Even if you take the metra to work your still driving to the train station because its simply too far from your house. I don't see how anyone believes removing highways and eliminating cars is the answer. Much like the car was the savior of the horse in the early 1900's, bicycles and hydrogen cars can be the savior of supercars and hobby car racers today. Many cities in America and pretty much the whole nation were designed around the automobile whether anyone likes it or not, that is simply the reality. Thats why its so hard to get a few bike lanes put in here and there in cities like chicago because the city was never designed to accommodate the amount of people and cars it holds today, let alone be able to make special arrangements for cyclists. But so long as people keep making claims like "cars are the enemy" and people are "victims of the car" your just going to be branded a coffee sipping hippie and the only place your cause will make it to will be your blog.

Hipster_Killa

yeah so how would you look if those same cars hit you while you were on your bike?

twobadfish

I know this is going to fall on deaf ears, but trying to get around on a bike with an infant is not only dangerous, but pretty much impractical - especially in the winter. It's also pretty tough to raise a family without a car - between getting your kids gear to soccer practice (and the kid), or taking your kids to the doctor, getting dressed up for a formal dinner... I live in a fairly rural area where public transportation sucks.

That doesn't even cover urban sprawl, which in overpopulated cities is unavoidable.

I can personally have my cake and eat it too. I commute to work and exercise on my bike and spend time with my family on bikes, but when I need to take my son to the doctor or take a weekend trip upstate or just go skiing for a day, I'll take my evil car.

Roody

There are nearly 10 million households in the US alone with no car--many with young children. Somehow they get by. In fact, saying cars are safer for children is ridiculous when you stop to think that car accidents are the leading cause of death for children.

Roody

Yeah, but that which can be designed can be redesigned. I hope you'll read a few more of the posts on this forum before you make a lot of regrettable posts about how it's "impossible" to live without a car in America.

CarFreeFam4

We have been car-free since my youngest was just shy of a year-old. My kids are now 4 and 9. We manage to get ourselves to Cub Scouts, fencing lessons and plenty of other activities with no difficulty. I live in a milder climate now, but the first two years we survived a couple of harsh winters with several feet of snow. Nothing irritates me more than the rampant assumption that children make car-free living an impossibility. I will always concede that there are folks for whom it won't work, and folks that aren't inclined to it. That is just fine. It is NOT always impractical, however.

I take my son to the doctor on the bicycle. When he had a severe asthma attack in the middle of the night, we called a cab to get to the ER. I have ridden my bicycle, hauling both of my children, wearing a dress, to a formal dinner event. Weekend trips for us involve riding our bicycles to go camping, taking the train out of town or the occasional rental car. Being car-free permits me to spend much more time with my kids than I did when we owned a car. I don't have to work as much to support the car.

Living car-free is not for every family, but living WITH a car is also not the best choice for every family.

gerv 

On my way to work every morning, I see this father with his son on the back of a giant orange bike (maybe a Yuba...). Obviously, they find it a great way to defeat the lines of cars dropping their kids off by the school.

Maybe the bike is the right tool for this particular job.

CarFreeFam4

When my son was in public school it was always nice to roll past the line-up of cars and drop him off right at the door to his classroom. We were guaranteed contact with his teacher twice daily, something most parents in cars don't get because there simply isn't enough parking to accommodate it. We homeschool him now, though, so parent-teacher contact is a constant.

Artkansas 

Speaking as someone who has knocked the door of a 1965 Ford Galaxie off it's hinges , been purposely slammed to the curb by a Chevy Impala, forced into an involuntary right-hand turn with my elbow on the side of a van that right-hooked me in the rain, and whose bike has been run over by a Mustang while I was riding it, I have to say.."Ain't you got no sense of humor, Kid?"

Dahon.Steve

That was excellent. Thanks for posting.

You don't have to wait for light rail lines to come to you. You have to move to them! I live six blocks away from a light rail line and it's a game changer. I used to think about owning a car but now that's no longer the case.

twobadfish

You say you go fencing, cub scouts, etc... how do you transport gear with your 4yo and 9yo in tow 10 miles? Assuming that's the best-case or even average scenario.. how?

I'm interested to know how you transported your infant/newborn on a bicycle... My son is barely a year and I'm just now becoming comfortable putting him in a bike trailer.

If I lived in San Francisco or any big city with decent public transportation, it would be a real consideration. My wife and I talked about it quite a bit and decided it just wouldn't be practical or financially responsible. So I'm just curious if your view is from limited experience living in a city that accommodates car-free living.

B. Carfree

When my son got old enough to sit on a bike seat (and I mean just that, sit on a seat, about two-years old), we had a friend modify an old Huffy tandem to make it a rear-steer tandem with a kiddie crank. If we had gear to bring along that wouldn't fit in the baskets, it went into a trailer. The friend who made our rear-steer also made a middle-steer triple for himself and his two children. One of the advantages of having the child in front of you is that if he starts to fall off, you can just grab him by the shirt and hold him in place.

Now would be a good time to start looking for a builder to make you a custom rear-steer so that you are ready to roll when your son gets big/strong/coordinated enough to sit in the captain's seat. You can even go cheap like we did and just find a local person with a bit of welding experience to modify an old tandem.

It is not an all-or-nothing proposition. You can set yourself up to be able to get around without a car and still use the car when you find it necessary. The only problem with taking that approach for most people is that it is difficult to avoid creating "emergencies" for yourself just because you are feeling a little tired. Nothing cures fatigue quite like a bike ride with a child, but it is difficult to learn that if you are always in a car fighting traffic.

Mobile 155

Once again I admit I may not be car free and even if I ride my bicycles more than I drive I don't consider myself car lite because I simply realize my daily life is too dependant on the motor vehicle. But do any here really believe there is a serious way on the car by our fellow citizen? Just take a look at what cars are starting to sell again now that people have gotten used to fuel prices. In my area gas is even dropping a bit. But look at the charts in the WSJ:

https://online.wsj.com/mdc/public/pag...autosales.html

If there is a war it might be on ICE but the car seems alive and well even in a depressed economy.

I checked the numbers against Autodata Motor Intelligence and they were about the same.

If we are looking for a reduction in the private vehicle it might be a very long time before we can raise any flags of victory. And unless the nation gets serious about mass transit and interstate transportation the bicycle alone will not solve much of the transportation problems. I might think nothing of putting in a 40 to 100 mile day but I know darn well my neighbors aren't going to like being restricted in their travel. I have a hard time remembering when we couldn't get peaches and apricots in the winter.

CarFreeFam4

A cargo bike is infinitely useful for us. I ride a Kona Ute. My two kids can ride on the deck and still have plenty of room for the gear in the long bags. Trailers can serve the same purpose. Most of our trips are within 5 miles of home, primarily because we were very intentional when choosing a place to live.

As for the newborn, we didn't. We had a car until just a couple weeks before my daughter's first birthday, as I said before. By the time we we car-free, she was able to ride in a trailer with no difficulty. She could sit up long before then so settling into the trailer for her was fine. My sister-in-law rides with her 4 month-old in a carrier buckled into a trailer.

I don't live in a large city (pop. ~30,000). We do have public transportation here, but it is extremely limited and we rarely use it. It runs once per hour, in loops and therefore is regularly very far behind schedule. It also doesn't run past 7 pm and doesn't run on the weekends at all. I've used the bus three times since moving here a year and a half ago, each time either going to or from the bike shop for a repair. There are parts of this town we could live in that would make car-free living significantly more challenging. The last place we lived also happened to be in a neighborhood that made car-free living easier than others, although it was not chosen intentionally as this one was. I think within most cities you will find a few areas that are more car-free friendly. It's not necessarily about which city you live in, but what part of your city that you live in.

Ekdog

That's almost like having no public transport at all! What a disgrace! I wonder if pressure could be put on your local politicians to improve the situation.

christ0ph

More like war on the trolley car!

Google National City Lines to get some of the history of how the US went from having the best public transportation system in the developed world to one of the worst, if not the worst, in only 20 years.