Originally Posted by
Robert Foster
You may be right but I have been to a lot of other countries with a lot of other life styles and some things seem to be pretty constant, a home, a job and some kind of transportation. Where do we go from there?
I could see advantages to living in a place like London where transportation is far more convenient. The underground is amazing and the bus service is great. In fact if you are anywhere in the hotel district and are heading for the airport you can pretty much jump on a airport bus for free. I wouldn’t want to ride a bike in downtown London however.
I think there are a lot of cities in the US that could give London a run for its money, in terms of living car-free: Seattle, Portland, SF, Denver, and San Diego come immediately to mind. Personally, I could easily live car-free in any of these places. Actually, if you stayed west, the LA area would be perfectly doable, too. If not for the weather, I'd even seriously consider Chicago, Minneapolis, and Madison.
And I'd ride a bike in downtown London without hesitation. The cars there can't possibly be going much faster than 10-25 mph, and, at those speeds, mixing it up with cars is pretty safe.
Living car-free isn't that hard. Living car-lite is so easy it's ridiculous. I'm actually kind of surprised that so many families insist on having one car for every adult. I can totally understand that many families would make the decision that a car might be necessary for their circumstances. Things need to be hauled, kids need to be transported, and emergencies happen. But two, or even three cars per family? It seems a horrendous waste of resources. According to AAA, the average cost of owning a car in 2008 was just over $8000/year. Why would anyone want to pay twice or three times that amount to maintain extra vehicles that are a convenience rather than a necessity? (Maybe they just have a lot of extra cash lying around?)