rhm

I, too, hate cars.

That said, we just bought a new one, new in every sense of the word. A lot of money. Not much car. I'm not defending the decision; I just saw the futility of fighting it, and gave in. For years I'd been saying our current car would be our last, but in the end my wife is just not ready to go car-free, and she's not ready for me to go car-free either. When she's too busy to pick our daughter up at school, for example, it falls to me to do that. I try like heck not to use the car for my own personal business, and have been mostly successful. But earlier this month when I went to Harbor Freight to buy a 55 lb anvil, I took the car. Wasn't sure how to transport it on the bike.

The thing that pains me the most is that there is something antisocial about being anticar. I definitely don't want to be antisocial; but by refusing to get in the car for personal purposes, I elect either not to see friends, not to go for bike rides that don't start from my house, or I force my friends to drive more. There is no ethical or environmental high ground to my driving less if it means someone else has to drive more.

DavidW56

I don't understand, either, why being pro-bike supposedly automatically means being anti-car. At the risk of agreeing with BBM for the second time this year, I love cars, too. I also love to see what's around the next bend in the road, or over the next hill, and while it's fun to do that on a bike, it's far less efficient and far more time-consuming. I enjoy driving my Mustang convertible with the top down, and I enjoy hauling loads of stuff -- like yard sale bikes -- in the back of either of our two vans. I like getting places in a matter of minutes rather than hours, in comfort. And I like doing so in the privacy of my own car, where I can choose my own speed, direction, climate and audio entertainment settings. I'm a bicyclist when I'm biking, and I'm a motorist when I'm driving. No need to define myself as exclusively one or the other.

KonAaron Snake 

Forget the ethical or environmental highground, I just want the extra money that comes with making others drive

I'm not anti-car, I'm anti-me owning a car and paying for them.

DavidW56

Mind you, regarding the cost of operating a vehicle -- if I had to pay daily parking fees for my downtown job, I might take the bus instead of driving. There happens to be a bus stop about a quarter mile from my house, and my office building is on the route. But my employer (or client) gives me free parking only a couple blocks away. The $2 bus fare each way does not represent enough savings to make me take the bus or ride my bike. However, I have brought my bike in the van downtown, and cycled at lunch on the riverfront.

rhm

When I say I'm anti-car, I am thinking of what cars have done to our cities, to our landscape, and to our social attitudes. I believe I understand what people like about cars; I like these things too. But I consider the cost (to society, and to the world) too high.

Aaron, when you say "forget the ethical or environmental highground," I don't believe you. Sorry, I just don't. You have taken the ethical/environmental highground (and rightly, I add only grudgingly) on too many other issues (Ikea comes to mind) for it to be that far from your mind on this one.

KonAaron Snake 

rhm - honestly, I see cars and their environmental impact the subject of public policy (where I do have definite opinions) rather than individual choices. I'm less likely to argue to an individual that he/she SHOULD do something, or judge them for their actions, and more likely to agitate for policy decisions that are in my interest, or in what I view as society's interest.

Bottom line is that I don't feel I have any moral highground in not driving - I have a special set of circumstances that allow me to do it, and most don't. Commuting by bike, under current economic and tax policy, under current infrastructure (private and public) is not realistic for the majority of people. That doesn't mean I don't support policy chages that would affect those equations. Am I making sense?

Ikea is a special situation to me because very few people know the truth about them - that they're tax dodging leeches with a long history in Euro facism. Their public image couldn't be further from their reality and people just aren't aware of it.

liquefied

I guess I'm sort of half-way doing what he describes in the article but it makes sense for the area I live in.

I live in Oakland and work in San Francisco. I have a car ('97 Subaru Outback w/ 175k mi) but I take BART or the bus across the bay then ride my bike from downtown SF to my work a few miles away. Occasionally I drive if the weather is particularly bad or if I'm sick.

I'd love to live in SF. I used to, but it's so much more expensive to live there than in Oakland that it just doesn't make sense. Even if I drove to work every single day the gas, car maintenance, and bridge tolls wouldn't add up to the $1,000 more per month I'd have to pay in rent to get a similarly sized apartment in a similarly gentrified neighborhood in SF.

rhm

Yep, I agree with all of that, and lament most of it. And I like Ikea products; they are better designed than most of what's available. I apologize for the digression.

bikemore 

I haven't really followed this thread, but I thought I would take a peak. Anyway, I agree about the infrastructure. Right now if I commuted by bike it would take me 5 hours a day (55 miles using train, I am just not that fit). As it is it takes me 2 hours by car. I would take a train like liquefied can, but where I work the train hours are pretty odd and make it impractical. Better infrastructure, frankly a better job location, would make it a whole lot easier to commute by bike for me.

bibliobob

1) to clarify, I got rid of the HOME phone. I still have my cell and a work blackberry, for that matter.

2) I'm not in the least anti-car. But, they're several notches down in priority and, unlike many folks, I don't try and define myself by my car (Silly Rabbit, my bikes define me!). I I were rich, I'd probably buy a second car so that my wife and I each had one (and also because my '94 Wrangler is horrible for road trips).

3) Folks that shop at Ikea aren't any better than folks who shop at Walmart (they're just more smug ). Disclaimer - I end up at both about once per year.

mazdaspeed

+1

aixaix 

I too haven't followed this thread too closely, but I do want to stick my bit in. I am a car guy (in business for 20 years now fixing & restoring them), but I'm also a bike guy. The situation with cars in society is a lot more complex than most people realize, whether you are talking about economics, environment or other societal factors. Cars in cities are largely responsible for paving & thus cleaning up the streets. Some extraordinary photos in the Bettmann Archive show NYC streets before the automobile. They were a mess: mud, dust & horse apples everywhere. Of course cars and roads grew up together, giving people an opportunity to really get out & see the sights. Traveling any meaningful distance from home for the pleasure of it was a pastime of the wealthy before car ownership became widespread. At one time, the automobile and related industries employed one quarter of the work force in the USA.

Not to say cars are all good. They just aren't all bad, and as bicyclists, we have been affected by them positively (paved roads everywhere, e.g.,and yes I know about the role of the L.A.W. in getting roads paved) as well as negatively.

I am unimpressed by the article. smugness aside, his numbers really don't wash. Circumstances differ way too much to attach a dollar value to commuting a certain distance.

Cars are here, and have been for 100 years. Many people use and like them for sound reasons. Disliking cars is fine; commuting by bicycle is a good thing to do; advocating and working for changes in laws and technology which benefit the planet and individuals are worthwhile pursuits. Deciding that because you don't like cars and you can point to a number of bad things about them means they are inherently bad is silly.

khatfull

Interesting. My stupid car enables me to have my job, provide for my family, and pay taxes, which incidentally build the roads you need to bike your heart out effectively.

If I don't have a car I'm done...on the street, family in a tent, nothing to eat.

I don't find it stupid at all.

753proguy

I concur. I also do not set foot in any Wal-Mart or Sam's Club!!! However, I don't drive a Prius, or drive around in one telling people how environmentally smart I am for owning said vehicle. When my parents bought a Prius, I had to tell my Dad to chill out a bit after a few months of "it gets triple the mileage of the vehicle it replaced." Yes, it does, that's nice.

What I did was to reduce my miles driven per year by about 80% a decade ago, by leaving the rat race. The interestng thing is that I can earn a lot less money now, and live just as well. I save ton of money each year by not driving about 24,000 miles that I used to drive..... And the time that has freed up is astonishing. I was spending about 500 hours per year commuting back and forth to work!

753proguy

Some talk therapy might help? (I'm not joking...).

lostarchitect 

How so? Are you assuming the scooter is a 2-stroke? That's unlikely in the US, given the engine size. Also there's a lot less pollution associated with the manufacture of the small vehicle as opposed to a large one, and less pollution from the gas and oil industry as a result of using less. And again, less waste when the vehicle's useful life has ended.

khatfull

But what he's not realizing is the environmental impact of mining and processing the heavy metals for, charging, and recycling those batteries. Does he have photo-voltaic panels on his roof for charging, I bet not...

None of the hybrid/electric vehicle folks ever seem to want to address these issues.

Old Fat Guy

I'm pretty sure the metals in our old bikes were/are made in a way that is not at all environmentally friendly. Doubly bad if you have chrome on said bicycle. Never mind the by products of tire manufacturing.

Why don't we just talk about bike saddles, since everyone has an azz, some just bigger than others?

What has this place become?

ScottRyder 

I love that. That will be my favorite quote of the year on C&V.

I love my car too. Sometimes my car doesn't exactly love me but it all works out in the end. I think of all the great things in life that wouldn't have happened to me if it weren't for my car sitting in my driveway.

Scott

RobbieTunes

I would enjoy being a kept man.

RobbieTunes

Some day, we'll all be like Ex-Pres and riding around on scooters.
When that happens, I'll be glad to be on a bike, but I'll probably be Soylent Green.

Soylent Green, now THAT's a green technology.

753proguy

Correct. They are entitled to be early-adopters of that technology. Someone has to be, so they can subsidize the cost of perfecting it. I'll wait until it is mature to try it, personally.

Cradle-to-grave thinking is a good way to look at purchases. Cheap shoes cost more than expensive ones, both in Dollar terms and in pollution terms, over time (for example). Dr. Deming was once asked what his new shoes cost, and he replied "I don't know - I'm not done with them yet." Life Cycle Cost, Benjamin....

KonAaron Snake 

By nasty heavy metals, do you mean rokken with dokken?

gomango

I finally figured out the brake line issue with my 1972 2002.

The boys want to drive the beejeezus out of her.

I think we should all plan on taking a long drive in the country this weekend.

Just for grins.

Hope I have time to fit in a "bike" ride.

753proguy

I have found many folks over the years that are into both vintage road bikes and vintage '02s. I've owned about a dozen '02s over the past thirty years or so. Currently have an unrusty 1973 tii. Got pics.?