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I gave it up for four years. I could go longer but my grad school happens to be in NJ. I'll need it there. Hopefully when I graduate and start looking for a home I'll be able to all but give it up.
judging by the great success of carsharing companies such as zipcar, it looks like a long-term trend. people are tired of being debt slaves to the car companies and the banks who finance the loans.
I agree to the extent that services like Zipcar make it easy for folks to forgo a car. If they also happen to live in a city with excellent public transportion and where Zipcar is available (14 cities at present). Without excellent public transportion for everyday needs, Zipcar is not enough.
I don't know any folks under the age of 90 who've given up their cars. I do know people who don't drive as much.
Probably true of almost every city without solid public transit and also true of rural areas. The majority of mid twenties people I know don't own or have access to a car, but in the two cities I spend time living in public transit is very good. Often these things are structural, and even if people's attitudes change they can't get around the physical realities of their built form.
By the way, if you don't mind me asking, which city are you referring to for the majority of mid-twenty year-olds you know? I've seen you post in the Canada forum, so I'm guessing it's one of the big cities like Montreal, Vancouver or Toronto?
I don't know any folks under the age of 90 who've given up their cars. I do know people who don't drive as much.
As much. I'd agree with that. There is probably is shift among the milennial generation away from cars as the prime mode of transportation. Car ownership may take a back seat to feet, bikes, and mass transit for many of our daily and repetitive tasks (eg, work)
I hope so. I'm not anti-automobile (provided the autos are reasonably efficient) but the auto obsession in this country (like all obsessions) is unhealthy.
The cost of car ownership has never been higher. If gas were still a buck a gallon and the regulatory environment weren't driving the price of cars skyward, I doubt we'd be having this discussion.
Given inflation rates, gas is barely less affordable now, for most of the country, than when it was a "buck a gallon".
As for the "regulatory environment," while I'll admit that it is frustrating, much of it is reactionary. Seatbelts came after the car was invented, and have saved a lot of lives. The same is true for air bags. And ABS. It's our county's obsession with trucks and full size SUVs that have required bigger cars (it's a matter of physics).
As much. I'd agree with that. There is probably is shift among the milennial generation away from cars as the prime mode of transportation. Car ownership may take a back seat to feet, bikes, and mass transit for many of our daily and repetitive tasks (eg, work)
Not going to happen to a significant degree. Distances aren't going to be reduced. Hills and hazards to bicyclists aren't going to go away. Mass transit isn't going to get cheaper or more comfortable (ask any New Yorker). But the millennials will get older, and less willing to put up with long walks and bike rides just to get to work. And they'll get married, and have the double-earner problem (you often can't be close to both workplaces).
Not going to happen to a significant degree. Distances aren't going to be reduced. Hills and hazards to bicyclists aren't going to go away. Mass transit isn't going to get cheaper or more comfortable (ask any New Yorker). But the millennials will get older, and less willing to put up with long walks and bike rides just to get to work. And they'll get married, and have the double-earner problem (you often can't be close to both workplaces).
You say that, but the millennials look to have fewer dollars to spend (graduating in a weak economy has always led to lower lifetime earnings for the group, though not necessarily for individual cases) across a growing (horizontally and vertically) set of costs.
Simply, less money is available, absolutely and relative to total income, for the car.
Meanwhile, the millenial generation has shown an affinity for denser, more walkable and PT-friendly environments.
But, this may be a west-coast flavor of millennial.
By the way, if you don't mind me asking, which city are you referring to for the majority of mid-twenty year-olds you know? I've seen you post in the Canada forum, so I'm guessing it's one of the big cities like Montreal, Vancouver or Toronto?
I live in a suburb of Montreal and in Vancouver proper. I'm from Montreal originally and I work in Montreal in the summers. For eight months a year, I study in Vancouver. Young people in these cities don't drive both because they can't afford the insurance, heavily taxed local gas, maintenance etc, and because the public transportation is robust enough to get away with it. It also helps that Montreal has terrible traffic and Vancouver doesn't have much in the way of highway infrastructure. I understand that young people living in far away suburbs on the fringes of the urban area, like Maple Ridge in Greater Vancouver or Hudson in Montreal are going to be in another situation, but in neither city do I live in the middle of downtown or anything so I think my observations are true of this demographic in many neighbourhoods.
Last edited by BIMBAM; 06-11-2012 at 12:04 PM..
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