Originally Posted by
tandempower
Often, we go out for car-free outings on weekends, because those are the days long enough and where bedtime is flexible enough to allow for long walks and bike rides. Although we LCF, it occurred to me that you don't have to 'be' LCF or car-light to take car-free outings, especially on weekends. Likewise, we often see other people taking walks and bike-rides on the MUPs, and many of them may not 'be' car-free or car-light.
So this thread is about the appeal of car-free outings for people who otherwise have no interest in LCF or LCL...
What do you think about this topic of car-free outings regardless of LCF/LCL status/interest? Is there a market for people to go out without driving for specific reasons, or are people who are totally comfortable with driving everywhere going to avoid car-free outings simply because they see it as a waste of time?
This may be an oblique reply to the focus of your thread about "the appeal of car free outings to people who have otherwise no interest in LCF or LCL," but I recently posted to a thread on road cycling,
"Cycling Goals for 2017,"
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
...In addition, for the first time we bought a second home in a resort town on Metro Boston’s scenic North Shore, a nice cycling route 40 miles long north of our condo in downtown Boston.
The region is also good for road cycling, and train service with the fully assembled bike is readily available. I described it in my
Cycling Guide to Metro Boston as
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
…North Shore: Beautiful Atlantic coastline, especially north of Lynn, to include Nahant, Marblehead and Marblehead Neck, on through Salem, Beverly and into ritzy Beverly Farms, and up to seafaring Gloucester, Rockport, Ipswich, etc…
So one could travel by train from Boston to Rockport, and then it’s a short walk to our place. Our house is also a short walk to Rockport which itself is an interesting walkable resort town, including beaches.
Rockport is on Cape Ann on the North Shore, and known as Boston’s "other Cape," in distinction to Cape Cod, which begins at about 80 miles from Boston, with no train service, requires crossing one of two bridges with horrendous traffic jams on the summer weekends, and is best traversed by car.
Just last night I was chatting with a colleague who has a vacation home on the off-Cape Island of Martha’s Vineyard. They have to plan their weekends months in advance to secure car passage on the ferryboat.
ADDENDUM: Parking in the center of Rockport is extremely limited. and visitors who drive there often have to park a couple of miles away and be shuttled into town by bus. Rockport as a convivial tourist destination was featured in the movie Coma (but not as the scary part).