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Cars are like any other debilitating addiction.
Thinking of life without them is almost impossible, and like giving up crack or any other mentally, non-physically addicting substance, its hard at first. But for those who can, the reward is priceless. Total freedom that positively impacts all other areas of your life. Losing the car is like getting out of jail or flipping off the terribly mean and horrific boss you had when you got hired in a great new job. Its that liberating
Cars are like any other debilitating addiction.
Thinking of life without them is almost impossible, and like giving up crack or any other mentally, non-physically addicting substance, its hard at first. But for those who can, the reward is priceless. Total freedom that positively impacts all other areas of your life. Losing the car is like getting out of jail or flipping off the terribly mean and horrific boss you had when you got hired in a great new job. Its that liberating
As it owning equals more freedom, since it gives more travel options and flexibility, of course it is more freeing. But having to need a car just to do basic errand or get anywhere outside my house is restrictive and then the car becomes an object of no choice rather than something increasing freedom.
It's certainly a balanced approach. My (and many others') position can be summed up in one sentence: cars are great, but car dependency is not so great.
Quote:
Originally Posted by thunderkat59
Cars are like any other debilitating addiction.
Thinking of life without them is almost impossible, and like giving up crack or any other mentally, non-physically addicting substance, its hard at first.
We're no more addicted to cars than we're addicted to banks or addicted to computers. We can certainly imagine our lives without them, but whole point is that our lives are better with them than without them. It's a question of desirability more so than necessity.
I save 1 hour on my commute, every day, by using my car instead of a bus. (and that's not counting the times the rather unreliable bus leaves me stranded). So that's something like 230 hours a year. Unless my time is worthless, that pays for a lot of car. That's without getting in to flexibility arguments. Five hours saved every week.
Ten to 12 hours savings a week for me. Mass transit involves three transfers if I want to be dropped off within a quarter mile of the office door; two if I drive to a park-and-ride and walk a half mile, and none if I spend a little more money to take the train and walk a mile and a half.
Ironically, it's a half-block walk from my house in the 'burbs to one of two bus stops, but a quarter mile to a half mile walk from the nearest bus stop to my office in the city.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Carlite
Would you feel stranded if your car broke down? Again using San Francisco, you might well be inconvenienced, you might even have to cancel or defer certain trips. If you had a car, you'd probably want to fix it, though I've certainly read of cases where a breakdown pushed someone to ditch their car. But however much you wanted the car back you wouldn't be trapped in your unit. There are plenty of places where you would be effectively trapped without immediate and constant access to a car.
I'd get the car fixed immediately even if I drove it only to church on Sundays. I like my car.
For me, having many options provides freedom. I have a car, but do not need it for my daily life.
But yesterday I drove to a trailhead 12 miles from home and did a very enjoyable hike I had never done.
Most of my daily needs are with in walking or biking distance. The bus to either Boulder or Denver is two blocks away.
An international airport is one hour by bus, so 3 hours to a sunny ocean beach.
For anything else, I have an eight year old, low maintence, low cost car.
I have a friend with 3 cars in a McMansion subdivision. He is having vision problems, he can walk, but not drive.
Talk about someone without freedom!
But you can have a car in a non car dependent neighborhood, and live a car dependent lifestyle. Also, car dependency is in the eyes of the beholder at times. Someone may just not know about other transportation options.
You can live a car dependent lifestyle in a non-car dependent neighborhood, although both car ownership rates and vehicle miles traveled are lower in those neighborhoods.
What you can't do is a live non-car dependent lifestyle in a car dependent neighborhood. Your options have been foreclosed by the way much of the United States was developed in the 20th Century.
So what do you think, agree or disagree that car dependency is a freedom?
In the grand scheme of things, needing a car is a form of dependency. But in day-to-day, street-level reality, that doesn't matter.
I've most of my life in Chicago. Chicago is one of the few US cities, along with New York and Boston, where owning a car is a convenience rather than a necessity. I choose not to drive because I don't have to; I have ample access to public transit.
Sadly, very few US cities are like New York or Chicago. For people living in L.A., Phoenix, Houston, Miami or a thousand other cities or towns, not having a car is crippling. People unable to drive, or unable to get someone to drive them, are almost prisoners in their own homes. For them, cars are indeed a necessity, made so by 100 years of horrible urban planning.
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