Many of the people who live and work in the major cities are already car free. Parking spaces are more valuable that gold.
As most of the articles recognized, it could only work in densely populated urban areas, and mass transit is already the method of choice for those who live and work there. When my son lived in Boston he probably spent more of those years without a car than with one.
Trouble is, we’re a continent spread wide. In the overwhelming majority of our country mass transit as a primary means uf transportation is simply not possible. Even here in NH, my town doesn’t even have taxi service. Many years ago there was train service from Manchester to Boston, some 45 miles away, but that was discontinued for lack of patronage. I just read that the coach that was traveling between Exeter and Hampton NH was discontinued due to lack of patronage.
To change our society to a mainly carless society would mean the feds would have take over and assign jobs, assign housing, and build the transit system. Our lives would have to be centrally managed. Sound familiar?
For those who desire this, let’s hope you don’t get your way.
Nope, I’m in western Montana. I suppose the “on a nice day” caveat is more extensive than I let on, but still a reasonable person with a season-appropriate wardrobe can ride most days for at least 7 or 8 months here and plenty of crazies (myself sometimes included) do it all year round. You have to take it easy on the snow and ice (much like in a car), but with a good coat, hat and gloves it’s very doable.
I think that contrary to the majority opinion here, that it’s these small cities where there’s basically no public transportation infrastructure but the distances are relatively short that the largest number of car miles could be reduced in this country through bike commuting. Even if it only does so for half the year.
That sounds like the perfect place for a pedestrian bridge.
That was brought up at the meeting. Remember these rails to trails are NOT funded by the state…So we would have to fork over the cost. ONE pedestrian bridge - $500k. We need 5.
Nope, I’m in western Montana. I suppose the “on a nice day” caveat is more extensive than I let on, but still a reasonable person with a season-appropriate wardrobe can ride most days for at least 7 or 8 months here and plenty of crazies (myself sometimes included) do it all year round.
And you live in a area that doesn’t get much snow. Even on GOOD days in NH during the winter…there’s snow/ice on the ground…Can’t get away from it. If the temps rise above freezing…then the snow banks melt and then it freezes on the roads…Sorry…but in many places in this country…it’s NOT possible. The street I grew up on…is snow covered 5 months of the year. We NEVER saw the actual pavement from Mid November to Mid-April…But then again we probably saw 10 times the amount of snow Montana gets.
Maybe you could apply for a grant from the state government or from the federal economic stimulus plan. This sounds like the kind of project that might get funded if the writer of the grant proposal does a decent job.
The ONLY way you can ONLY ride a bike or walk where you live…
A…You’re single with no kids.
B…If you have kids they’re grown and they can take care of themselves.
C…You’re still young enough to walk and ride. I guess you’re NOT over 65 with any health issues.
D…You have the time.
E…You work near where you live.
That’s a very very narrow list that people will have to abide by to ONLY bike or walk.
What is a single young parent suppose to do when their 3yo is running a high-temp and you don’t have any meds to bring the temp down. This parent going to hop on the bike and ride 5 miles to a store and back to get the meds?? What are they suppose to do with their sick child…What about the other kids???
Your very narrow view of how it could work…will in reality only work for about .5% of the population that lives in the burbs…Sorry…but totally unrealistic.
A&B… They have kid trailers and follow-along bikes that bolt onto yours, and it’s not THAT long until they can ride their own bike. I ride with my 8 year old about a half mile to school every day and in a year or two she’d have no problems going anywhere in her school’s catchment. And whaddyamean you have to be single? Is it immodest to be riding a bike with your significant other or something?
C… Most of the work force is plenty healthy enough to ride a bike. Not to mention the fact that they would be healthier overall if they did.
D… for most just around-town commutes riding your bike is not significantly slower than driving and if your town has a good bike trail system it can be much faster.
E… Yep, that’s why I think small cities where people don’t typically live more than a few miles from where they work are ideal for bicycle commuting, but culturally they’re usually very car-based and so there’s a lot of opportunities there to cut down on car trips (not eliminate entirely-- I absolutely agree that most Americans do need to at least have a car for situations like you describe, or for inclement weather). A lot more than .5% of people in such communities could easily replace a lot of their driving with cycling.
I don’t mean to be authoritarianly anti-car-- in fact I started bike commuting because I’m very pro-car and didn’t like having to do little 4-5 mile hops in my cars all the time.
I remember at my high-school there was an old driver’s ed textbook from the early 60’s that said that in the next few decades, cars would be on a slot-car like track system and that knowing how to drive would no longer be important. I’m still waiting…
A&B - GREAT for ONE kid…how about 3…all in car seat age…And you mean to tell me you’re going to take a sick kid out in the back of kid trailer when he/she is running a temp of 103…and it’s -10???
C IF AND ONLY IF the place you work is anywhere near where you live…I’m very healthy…avid weight lifter and run 3-5 times a week…but there is no way I’m able to ride my bike 40 miles to work and then back every day…
D Again…narrow view…BIG IF.
E And MOST people DON’T work in the town they live in…sorry that’s reality.
If I had a job near where I work I’d ride a bike when I can…but NOT possible…And there’s no way my 10yo can ride to school…2 miles on a busy street…YOUR situation sounds great for you…but as I said…only about 0.5% can do it…and I’m very very generous on that 0.5%.
Many of the people who live and work in the major cities are already car free. Parking spaces are more valuable that gold.
My neighbor owns a business in Boston not far from North Station. The parking garage he uses to park his car costs him(actually his company) $1100/mo.
Even here in NH, my town doesn’t even have taxi service.
We don’t have taxi service or bus service or any public transit of any kind…Way too costly.
. Many years ago there was train service from Manchester to Boston
There’s a new bus service to Boston with stops on I-93 and Rt-3…Great for getting into Boston…but how about getting to Concord MA??? Take bus to Boston…then Bus to Concord…Total ONE-WAY commute time - 2 hours (when traffic is PERFECT), which is about 2% of the time.
Many years ago in the US, we had the infrastructure that made this possible, simply because the majority of people in that earlier era did not own cars. Besides the mass transit that still thrives in large cities, as recently as the late '40s-early '50s, trolley service from cities to the suburbs existed, and there was a network of trolleys through suburban areas and even some rural areas. And, of course, train service for longer-distance travel was far more comprehensive than it is today.
Train tracks were pulled up and trolley cars were scrapped as the post-WW II generation began to own their own cars. By the mid-'50s, the die was cast, and getting from point A to point B in suburbs and rural areas meant owning your own car.
We could–in theory–return to that earlier era of ubiquitous mass transit with a HUGE infusion of government funding, but with all of the other demands on government funding, it is clear that we will not be able to return to that earlier era. Europe never scrapped the infrastructure of its train and trolley systems, simply because of the tax-influenced price structure for gasoline in the European countries. In the US, for many decades we enjoyed really cheap gas, and as a result, we allowed much of the mass transit infrastructure to be scrapped.
Let’s face it folks. We really shot ourselves in the foot. The cost to return to an era of true mass transit is simply too high for government or industry to bear at this point in our existence. We wanted to have our own cars, and we got them, but that situation put a bullet into the head of mass transit for all time.
All we can hope for in the years ahead is better technology to make cars more fuel efficient, since those of us in the suburbs and in rural areas have no choice but to rely on our own cars for transportation.
well, they got it half right. If you look at most drivers on the road, you can easily tell knowing how to drive is not important. Atleast not as important as talking or texting the person’s house they just left.
Not only will this only work in a city, it must have good public transportation. SF has BART, NYC has the NYC Transit system, and DC has Metro. But other large cities, like LA, and Baltimore do not have enough public rail to make this work.
I think we’re both experiencing two extremes and making generalizations. Commutes of 30 or 40 miles are not common-- they are what the census bureau calls extreme commutes and only a small fraction of the population does them.
The average commute is about 15 miles, but note figure 1 and where it mentions that over two thirds of commuters have commutes shorter than 15 miles-- this means a very small segment of the community has very long commutes that bring the average up. 29% of the population is in the 0-5 mile commute range, which is definitely bikeable and another 22% are within 10 miles, which I would say depending on the roads/trails is also usually doable. Even assuming some of those people are too infirm or have insurmountable logistical obstacles, that’s still a very big chunk of the population that likely has the ability to at least occasionally bicycle commute.
And, again, I’m not saying someone should completely give up their car and I’m certainly not saying they should force their poor sick kid to ride his bike to the doctors office in a blizzard. But claiming that alternative transportation is only for dense urban areas is simply not true.
This is an interesting thread. Is rural America still alive? I guess it is, but barely. It is being taxed to death to support urban dwellers.
I would rather ride a bicycle year round in the North than in the South. I have done it both places and it is just too hot and sweaty in the South. With the right kind of bicycle you can navigate the urban/suburban environment with a lot of ice and snow.
