Originally Posted by Sawtooth
I have been thinking about this thread a lot lately. I have come to the conclusion that although I fantasize about it, MY personal choice to go to a car free life would be very selfish indeed. I have kids to worry about. I am 10 miles from the nearest hospital. I cannot risk having a 35 minute ride to the ER if my little one is choking at midnight. Sure, it could be argued that I could just call an ambulance, but I believe that would be rather hypocritical. In fact, as has been mentioned, none of us who buy food at the local grocery store are independent of oil based transport. Also, our local roads are safe enough for me to commute on by myself, but I am unwilling to force my children to take that risk in a trailer behind me.
I can choose to ride my bike to the store or work as often as possible, but in a suburb without mass transport, I simply cannot go carless without making my family suffer. I suppose we are all just somewhere on the continuim of being less oil dependent rather than being completely independent thereof.
Being carfree is a choice of convenience vs necessity, and sometimes a difficult one. For a family to be carfree (and I don't submitt anyone needs to be, just that they can), they would find it easier to live close to (say within walking distance) services-schools, grocers, hardware, doctors/dentists offices and respective employers. Currently in much of the US, housing costs to live this close to services are astronomical. This used to be termed a village, community, or neighborhood. Can a family be carfree? Sure-but it might take a lot of effort.
A lot of families need both parents working to get by, and both parents may spend a lot of time commuting as well. This leaves less time together, and less time raising children. The benefits of living in a Village style community (as above), add this time. The loss might be the extra expense of personal vehicles-which would not be needed daily anyway.