Roody

Those are good ideas. Another good narrative would be to match the experimental family with a long-term successful carfree family. It would be interesting to see the suggestions given by the experienced people, and also see how the new family adapts these suggestions to fit their own circumstances.

Roody

You should scroll back and read posts from Machka and Buglady. They were able to live carfree in Calgary for a long time. It's funny that you say something is impossible right under nessages from people who talk about doing it!

Machka 

Not entirely true.

I have never lived car-free in Calgary. When I returned to Alberta in 2005, I ceased being car-free. In fact, I've never used a car so much in my life ... 1000 km/week for a while there. I also didn't live in Calgary then. I lived sort of near Calgary, but not in Calgary. However, I have lived in Calgary in the past. And I have cycled in Calgary both while living there and when I've visited.

Also Buglady doesn't live in the outlying suburbs.

I-Like-To-Bike

I take this silly response as evidence that your concept of "millions" of people in North America "successfully" converting from personal car based transportation to a car free status, especially without significant lifestyle adjustments, is your own pipe-dream.

I-Like-To-Bike

No worries. Having a car in the household or using a car is no impediment to being considered car-free in this crowd. The only requirement is that someone chooses to consider themselves "car-free."

wolfchild

Sure there are car-free people in large Canadian cities and suburbs but they are not in "the millions" as you say...They are in a minority.

fietsbob

Does Ski-Doo, snowmobile count as a Not Car?

I-Like-To-Bike

The actual size of that minority of successful and/or interesting car-free converts, or people interested in them may explain why "They" have not made a documentary about successful car-free converts/conversions. Perhaps someone who is aware of "millions" of them can place a focus on them by doing so.

I-Like-To-Bike

Sure, so would a private jet, yacht, and helicopter limo service. Perhaps a documentary about somebody who decided to convert to such use might be interesting. Ya know, like the transportation choices of The Wolf of Wall Street (see the movie or read book), though he didn't go completely car-less. Maybe he would have been considered car-light.

Ekdog

Of course they're a minority. The question is: if there were decent rapid transit and good cycling infrastructure, and if multi-modal commuting were promoted, could there be thousands more people who could free themselves of dependence on the motor car? I say yes.

wolfchild

Cycling infrastructure like they have in Europe is out of a question around here, I just don't see it happening anytime soon. To be honest, I would much rather prefer to see traffic calming then separated bike lanes. Public transit is improving. We just had a Bus Rapid Transit Route build in my city, it's basically a bus-only freeway which runs along an empty hydro corridor and along one of the major freeways, I am sure some day we'll be getting LRTs.
With thousands of jobs lost in the last few years in our province and our economy on a roller coaster, the only way I can see "millions" of people becoming car-free in the future, would be out of necessity and not voluntarily.

mercator

Checking in from Cowtown, I'm car-lite and have been for six years now. My commute is 15km each way and I have no problem using the roads or bike paths, even in the winter. That said, most of Calgary is very inhospitable to cyclists and it is a big sprawling place so, for many people cars are seen as essential.

350htrr

Calgary would be the last place I would try to be car light, let alone without a car... JMO

Dahon.Steve

+1 Good point.

You're right. I was looking at the schedules incorrectly. I would still like to have a paper map so I can always have it with me but that App is quite useful. However, what happens if your phone runs out of battery? I guess I'm spoiled with NJ transit providing PDFs of every bus and rail schedule by the hour, seven days a week.

I was surprised the C-train was providing service at 10:00 o'clock on a Saturday evening in 10 minute intervals! HOLY COW! Who said Calgary has horrible public transit! That's better than New Jersey Transit where we wait 20 minutes for the tram on weekends. LOL!

I have to admit Calgary is expensive and single family homes are not cheap at all! The city built beautiful large homes and did not focus on affordable housing. (at least I didn't see it when searching for homes at various realtors) As a result, they spread out wide building huge homes and transit never caught up. However, homes are expensive everywhere even for those living in the burbs. I feel that if you can afford a 500K home in the burbs, why not live within bike or walking distance from the tram?

CharlyAlfaRomeo

As Buglady pointed out in the post you quoted you can get paper copies of the schedules.

So you base the overall quality of the transit system here on the frequency of train service? That's just one part of the equation.

As mentioned in a couple of other posts by people who live here the train system isn't extensive. There are only four arms to the train system that all pass through downtown. One goes straight south, one goes straight west, one goes to the northwest and one to the northeast and the distance between endpoints of the arms is huge.

It's good if you live near one of the lines and want to go downtown or somewhere near one of the other arms but not of much use for anything else.

It's a huge city with a very limited number of lines and there are only so many homes near the train lines.

You don't seem to grasp the sprawl of this city. To put it into perspective I can do a metric century in a return trip from my home in the SE quadrant of the city to the NW quadrant in a relatively straight line, and without actually going to the outer edges of either quadrant. I could easily add 30 km or more by going all the way from one corner to the other and back.

Roody

According to Brookings Institute (using US Census data) there are 7.5 million households in metro areas with no access to car, 10 million in the entire country. Since more the one person lives in each household, the total number of people who are carless would b much higher than 10 million.

And this is in the US only--a wealthy country, with poor transit and lots of urban sprawl, and the highest car ownership rates in the world. I suppose that worldwide, the number of people without cars would be in the billions. With a "B".

https://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Fil...tion_tomer.pdf

CharlyAlfaRomeo

And how many of those CONVERTED from using a car to being car free? You've completely missed the point he's making.

Roody

There is no data on how many converted, and I never made any statement related to that number. I referred only to the millions of Americans who are carfree, a number well supported by census data. His guesses or wild speculations about numbers who "converted" are pointless in the absence of data.

But to say that the unknown number of "converts" is zero is absurd. We can safely assume that some of the more than 10 million people who currently have no car used to have one. In other words, they "converted". Obviously some people did and do convert, since that's pretty much the whole point of this forum--people who are trying to "convert".

Ekdog

No matter where you go, there are always people like you who say: "It can't be done here. It's too hot. It's too cold. It's too hilly. It's not a part of our culture. The distances are too great." Ad nauseam. We got plently of those excuses here in Seville: "No one will get on a bicycle in such heat." "This type of thing can only be successful in northern Europe. It's not part of our culture." "It'll be a huge waste of money." "Protected bike lanes are unsafe." We shut them up by going ahead and building the infrastructure. Thousands of people started using it. The accident rate plummeted. There are still a few gearheads who complain, but their arguments are now met with derision. They've become a laughing stock.

From what I've read in this thread, it seems that Calgary has a couple of light rail lines. An expansion of that network might go a long way towards making the city more liveable for the car-free.

Roody

It's especially absurd that Calgary "can't afford" transit and cycling infrastructure, even though it's in the midst of a huge fracking boom. They can afford the billions of dollars invested in the oil fields, but not a penny for alternative transportation. What a frackin' joke!

Ekdog

It sounds like an expansion of the light rail system is in order.

Machka 

They were in a boom until about 2009.

I'm not sure how Alberta is doing now, I've heard that there has been some recovery.


Incidentally, Alberta has the most beautiful roads for cycling I've ever encountered anywhere I've been. I miss those roads so much, and would love for Tasmania to have just one road of the quality of Alberta roads. I'd ride it all the time!!

Machka 

Nice idea. Probably not a priority.

Hence the reason for the video linked in the first post ... to try to encourage Calgary to consider alternate methods of transportation.

wolfchild

Majority of those "millions" who converted to a car-free status did so because of necessity and not voluntarily. They converted due to financial hardships, job losses, unable to afford to own a vehicle, and not because "they" are trying to be green and save the planet, or because of some ideological beliefs... I doubt most of those "millions" who converted to car-free can even afford an internet, maybe that's why we don't have millions of converts coming to this forum.

Ekdog

I know this is hard for you to believe, but not everyone is as lacking in moral values as you seem to be. Many people are car-free for unselfish reasons: they are concerned about the environment; they want their children and grandchildren to have a future; they want their community to have clean air to breathe; they want an environment where children and the elderly can walk around and not be in constant fear of being mown down by a car.