BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

I bought my first car last year because

I need one for work. NEED like it would

be impossible not to have one.

Also:

- Because sometimes I need to haul things

- Because sometimes I need to travel large

distances at high speeds

- Because family does not live close by

and it is nice to see them

- Because there is nowhere in the city

to buy nerf dart refills

Same reason I own a hammer, or refrigerator. It does certain jobs well that my other tools can't do.

My hammer can be used as a weapon, I don't use it to hurt people, but it has that potential.

My refrigerator uses energy generated by coal or nuclear energy, but based on my own inability to have my family survive on things that are found in my yard, I have to use the fridge as part of society's system of food production.

Nothing is purely good or purely evil.

I guess I need to come to grips with the fact my quality of life will be compromised becuase others need cars, because it's impossible without one, where did I go wrong. I wish now, I too needed a car.

It's just my opinion but the car is purely evil.

Little info, until about a hundred years ago, very few people owned autos. The reason things are so far apart now is because of the car. This continues because you support. It's not immposible to survive without a car. In fact something like 92% of people on this planet do it.

You are correct, It is also possible to live without heat, electricity, or running water.

More power to you if you can go car free.

It is sad but the car is becoming a way of life.

Did you know that a large percentage of the people of the world do not have the internet? Why are you wasting the worlds resources gobbling up power surfing the internet when you could be living under a rock?

I'm posing a simple question trying to understand. Why is this meet with anger? The subject is the use of the auto, yet someone quickly brings up something completley off topic, the internt? I could live under a rock? I haven't posted in some time. It's been said I'm negative. I'm just asking a simple question.

It's actually been suggested by people here other then Jason, that I live under a rock, does my anti-car life really offend others on a bicycle forum that much you feel I should live under a rock?

No, a car, or a gun, or a hammer or refrigerator are only inanimate objects posessing no good or evil until used inappropriately by a person.

Read some of the historic accounts of New York city in the late 1800's, when horses were used as cars are now. Disease, pestilence, thousands of dead horse carcasses and thousands of tons of manure on the streets each day. Mechanized transportation transformed life, and saved lives.

People are slowly becoming aware of the wrongheaded direction things have gone because of the focus on the individual automobile. But railing irrationally against an inamimate object, instead of working rationally against policies that promote it's primacy, and to the detriment of other modes, won't change anything.

I'm asking a simple question, what motivates others to partake, in my opinion a wasteful folly. A simple question met with derision. now your accusing me of being irrational, is it irrational to want to understand what I can't. I should live in a cave? that sounds irrational. I'm not railing, I'm posing a question to try and understand, sorry to waste your time.

I'm not railing aginst an inanimate object. My objection is to people using them. I'd love to have a 69 Pontiac Catalina and just keep it inanimate. sleep in it once in awhile and drive it on my birthday.

There is no anger here. Just posing a question back to you. Where do you draw the line on modern convinces? You obviously can live without a car. Other people can live without running water. Some people can't live without a hot tub on thier deck in the hamptons.

I have a car because not every day is sunny and warm. I also need to haul stuff sometimes.

Also, did you know that owning a cat is worse for the environment than owning a car? Imagine how bad a dog is for the environment.

I often go on short-lived tirades about how wasteful cars are as well. I agree it's something some people need. You and I probably live in just the right circumstances that we don't need a car. I don't think cars are intrinsically evil. Why do you smoke? I think smoking it horrific. I don't think you or the cigarette are evil, I do however extend some blame to the manufacturers and policy makers and culture for allowing it. But really, it's not something that I lie awake at night sweating about, I just keep riding my bike and enjoying clean lungs because I can do whatever I want.

Jason- I would like a reference for your cat information.

I do have both-and use the car as a tool for transport when other forms fall short. Lack of sunny and warm never prevents me from making a good choice on local transport.

I pretty much draw the line at not owning a car and I'm attempting to build a 300 sq ft passive solar home in Garfield, which will not be hooked up to outside utilities, except sewer. My concern here is not enviornmental. It's quality of life. although the ideas aren't mutually exclusive of one another, I'm not sure why my anti-car stance is always viewed as an enviornmental descion, I just think cars are stupid.

Tim, I think it comes down to lifestyle. What is a necessity for one, is a luxury for another. I think similar thinking goes into your car question. Yes you can live without a car and many on this board are proof of that. But by living car free you give up some lifestyle things. With a car I can go fishing anywhere within a three hundred mile radius of my house with about zero planning. To do the same without a car requires a lot of planning and in fact sometimes is almost impossible to do without taking many days off from work and expending a whole lot of effort. Now do I need to go fishing 200 miles from home? No. But do I enjoy going fishing wherever I like and with little planning? Yes.

Similarly I guess one could move every time you changed jobs so that you could avoid the necessity of jumping in a car, or only take jobs within a certain distance of your home to avoid the need for a car. But then you would be giving up friends/neighbors, home equity, and your kids school continuity.

Life is about compromises.

Our society has decided that they want to subsidize the oil and car companies by building highways instead of local streets with sidewalks. Since there are no sidewalks you are persuaded to by a car - it is a self propagating cycle. If you want the cycle to stop you have to elect representatives that think the way you do. Then we as a society will spend more resources on mass transit, trains, bike paths, and community roads and sidewalks. If you want to get rid of the car get involved in politics – just be ready for a very uphill battle.

I don't smoke inside nor do I ride by you on your bike and blow smoke on you, I never threaten anothers life with my bicycle. This is acceptable though if someone with thier auto does it to me.

Marko, I don't give up any lifestyle things, I would actually argue my life is richer for not owning a car, I certainley have more money for bikes and candy.

You might not be giving up anything, but I would be giving up fishing where I want to. This is what lifestyle means.

see Marko, I don't like fishing anyways, I do like camping though and eating other peoples fish, I can't wait til the GAP trail is done, riding through Rankin is a pain in the ass to go camping.

I enjoy camping too. And riding my bike Have a good afternoon!

I took your original question as serious, and responded seriously and sincerely to the best of my ability as to why I own and use a car, not with derision or accusation toward you. But yes, the statement, "cars are evil", is completely irrational.

If you feel like your views are marginalized, I can't argue with that, you are one of a fortunate minority who are able to live car-free, you should feel fantastic about that.

If the entire discussion boils down to "you just think cars are stupid", then, yes, you're absolutely right, there is no discussion there. So what was the point?

Cars are evil is only my opinion, which I stated, OK an irrational opinion. My opinion only. The question remains. Why is it so hard to respond? Even if it is my opinion and an irrational one, I should live in a cave or under a rock, this too seems irrational.

Bringing uo horses and life in the 1800's, that's called history, i know about this. I read history books but this is not relavent to the discussion either, is it?

Edmonds, you quickly brought up hammers and refridgerators as well, the question is automobile culture and why others join in. So to me bringing household appliances and hammers into the discusion seems to marginalize my views.

I answered your question simply and directly - my car is a tool that I try to use in an appropriate manner, given the circumstances of my environment.

History is absolutely relevant to the discussion, history is everything. We cannot stand at our current position in time and understand anything without understanding the course that has gotten us to this point. And we certainly won't work our way out of our current situation without understanding how we have gotten here.

"Cars" have only been around a little more than a hundred years. I bring up history because, at first, they solved a lot of problems for society, they made life better. But, large scale policy decisions has brought the use of the personal automobile far beyond the point of over-use, and they are now causing us a shitload of problems. The over-use of anything is never good. So we need to figure out exactly the decisions that got us here so we can change those things. We cannot wage a "War on Cars", it's just a huge waste of energy, it would be like the "War on Drugs" or "War on Terror". How have those gone? We need to change the environment that allows the problem to become a problem.

I aggree, exactly what I can do is not drive a car, I didn't get us here. I do believe someone does need to rail against it. Take a stand and not just make excuses, and maybe you can't wage a war on cars but I can. It's my belief cars are a huge waste of energy. Someone needs to stand up. I guess it's me.

Timito- I think you may want to be saying that "use of cars is evil." As they are inantimate objects, they seem to be no more or less evil than a rock or a drop of water. Yet any of those objects can be used for evil purposes. Any of those objects can be used for good also.

My question was very simple "why own a car'. not the historical development of the culture. A very direct simple question, yet it seems to not be able to be answered without bringing up other subjects. Is it really that hard to answer.

Not every simple question has a simple answer.

Helen, it's hard for me to accept cars being used for good, i believe everytime one is used, it promotes more use, money will be spent on roads and people will die, oil will end up in the ocean, soldiers will die. Me and my daughter will have are lifes threatened and forced to breath in pollution.

So if you can't answer the question then what, change the subject, denounce me for smoking cigarettes and being irrational.

A couple of people have answered your question, for themselves, personally, and I think people have stayed on subject rather well.

The un-acknowledged elephant in the discussion is that, you have presented a question that, for you, will never have an acceptable answer. It's like asking my daughter "why don't you like asparagus, asparagus is awesome!" In reality, it was posed as a rhetorical question. You don't like cars, and think they are stupid. That's fine, there is absolutley nothing wrong with holding that opinion.

But, if you actually want answers, and don't just want to "rail", it would be much more productive to present a question that has actual answers, such as "why has society made it so difficult for people to function without cars?" and "how can we change things to make it easier for more people to function without cars?" The vast majority of the public, even outside bikers, would love to be without car payments, insurance, repair bills, but they have no idea how to get to that place.

Edmonds I know it's a difficult descion, they way you get to that place is get rid of your car, people are intelligent and resourceful, you won't die if you don't have a car. I beleive I know why society has made it difficult, it's vastly profitable to a few people. My question is personal, why do you own a car? Yet it's difficult for people to answer without bringing up a myriad of other subjects.

Timito, if you really want to rail against the car please feel free to hang out on my street Thurs-Sat nights at 1:30-2:30 am as a certain Lawrenceville bar's patrons roll out to their cars, many of them parked illegally and otherwise making a loud nuisance of themselves (drunken fights, tossing garbage on the street, setting their alarms off because they can't figure out how to work them or just find it amusing to disturb the peace). You can remind them that this neighborhood was built before everyone owned autos and not designed to take their influx from outside of the neighborhood (many from the suburbs, apparently). You can illustrate the steep price we all pay for their decadent behavior. You can extoll the virtues of carlessness to them. Please. I'll even set up a nice chair on the sidewalk for you. Make you a sandwich if you get hungry. Offer you a drink if you get thirsty. Provide an ashtray as well. You'll be cursed at, derided, insulted, perhaps even spit on, but it'll be worth it. I promise.

Comment redacted

"You'll be cursed at, derided, insulted, perhaps even spit on, but it'll be worth it. I promise." Sounds like a day on the bike. What type of sandwich? I don't need an ashtray I can just throw my butts on the sidewalk.

Edmonds actually only you and two others answered the question although there were many more posters.

"Sounds like a day on the bike. What type of sandwich?"

Much worse, actually. That's my point. We'd have a more concentrated, captive audience of car-dependent types whose behavior is a perfect illustration of your carless argument. We're sympathetic here, even if some of us own a car and drive it occasionally. They are not. Let's take the argument to the problem in its most egregious form. Anything less is feckless. Let's agitate.

You do this and I'll make you any sandwich you like. Free beer, too.

I own a car out of neccessity. I have three kids involved in school, daycare, and other activities that require me to transport them to destinations that can be miles apart on a tight schedule. On top of that, I have a job, my wife works and goes to school so our weekly life is run on a particularly rigorous schedule. Given that, I ride my bike as often as possible, to work, for errands (even ones that require double digit miles), to and from social activities, on group rides to promote bicycle advocacy, and just for fun and exercise. Most weeks my miles in the saddle outnumber my miles in the cage. I agree with you that the current car culture is out of control, however I don't think given our current transportion and urban infrastructure that families like mine can do without the car as a viable means of conveyance without seriously disturbing our lifestyle. I'm glad for you that you have been able to make lifestyle choices that have enabled you to live car free. But for myself and my family we still need a car. I think the solution is not to completely demonize car usage but to encourage others to try other forms of transport, like cycling, and to limit their car usage as much as they comfortably can.

thanks chefjohn, you managed to answer the question without the need for a history lesson or suggesting I remove myself from civilization. It does really come down to choice and it seems most here have familys who's lives would suffer greatly without a car. I don't demonize that. I just find it unfortunate my views would be deemed irrational instead of extreme

There's a theater company in Washington PA. They stage some interesting plays. But it takes me about 7 hours to bike there and back (plus another 3 hours on transit). So if I see a play there, I can't do anything else that day. If I had a car, I could go there more often.

Little info, until about a hundred years ago, very few people owned autos. The reason things are so far apart now is because of the car.

That was already happening before cars. Trolleys were already letting people spread out, throughout the 19th century. Perhaps the movement goes back to the first person to figure out you could ride an animal.

The farther you can travel in a day, the more options you have. You can live in an inexpensive house in the country and work at a high-paying job that's far away. With a slower mode of travel, you have fewer possible jobs within range of your country house (or fewer possible houses within range of your high-paying job).

And it's not just jobs, of course. Want to visit your cousin, 90 miles away, on Saturday? With a car, it's easy enough to spend all day there. With a bike, maybe you could wave before you have to turn around and head back. Want to put your child in a school that's better than the one in your neighborhood? Join a sports team for a favorite game they don't play in your town? Go to a recommended doctor for your chronic medical issue, not whichever one's closest?

Of course, plenty of people in poor countries just do without. Maybe they only see their relatives once a year, accept the local school, and find some other sport. Maybe they have a tough low-paying job because that's all there is in the village where they live (and they can't afford to live anywhere near the good jobs). There's no reason we can't live like that too. But most people don't want to.

Some of us are lucky enough to have acceptable homes and jobs and schools and teams and doctors all close enough to commute by bike, and we're willing to live without the additional choices we could get by using a car. But most people aren't.

I beleive I know why society has made it difficult, it's vastly profitable to a few people.

I think it's because most people want the additional choices and options you get when you have faster transport, and they're willing to pay for it. As car transport becomes more expensive, that bargain won't look as good to some.

"I think it's because most people want the additional choices and options you get when you have faster transport, and they're willing to pay for it."

This is my major conflict.I pay for it as well.

Well said, Steven.

I own a car for the same reason I own a bicycle...it allows me to do more things that I wish to do.

Steven aside from your first paragraph, you use "you" intead of "I" rememeber I don't need a car. My options are fine your concerns are unwarranted. It's telling though, people often explain, Why you need a car, not why I need a car, an unconcious attempt to convince me I do? or is it just shifting responsibility?

Timito, the word "you" in Steven's statement was not directed at you.

In English composition, the use of the word "you" in an explanation of a concept is generally understood not to be referring to a specific individual.In fact, it is useful shorthand, as writing "the hypothetical individual" over and over takes up way too much space and time.

You will see this style of writing quite frequently; I hope that you don't feel the word "you" is always directed your way, as that would likely lead to a great deal of day-to-day confusion.

I hope that helps clear things up.

I know. I wasn't asking a hypothetical question or about a concept. It's a personal question. I was interesterd in first hand responses. I'm confused to receive a hypothetical response, not confused by the English language, thank's for attempting to clear it up. If I need any English lessons I'll let you know.

I'm gonna go try my new sturmey archer B2C kickback hub, enjoy your day.

"...If I need any English lessons I'll let you know..."

You seem to get quite sensitive when someone responds sarcastically to your statements, and yet that's your response to a reasonable point of discussion. Rather assymetrical. It's little things like that make it difficult for people to accept a hypothetical individuals remarks as rational. That's all.

thank's for attempting to clear it up. If I need any English lessons I'll let you know.

No problem...my pleasure. Any time you want tips on spelling, grammar, capitalization, punctuation, pomposity, excessive verbosity, or the use of illustrative example to explain personal choices, feel free to PM me.

Enjoy your hub! (It's a shame that a truck had to be involved to get it to you.)

It wasn't JUST a truck you know, there was a bunch of other machines involved, don't get me started.

I'm not really sure where I was all that sarcastic, maybe to some guys offer to sit on his sidewalk or the suggestion I dwell under a rock, both reasonable offers I guess.

I own a car because it enables me to maintain a middle class job with health insurance and retirement benefits (two other things I wish I didn't "need"). The type of job I currently have is hard to get and keep. For the most part, I have been able to take the bus or bike to work (from the North Point Breeze area to downtown), leaving my car at home. Several times a month, my job requires travel to Moon Township, and sometimes I need to be at both locations on the same day. It is possible to do this by bus: however the transportation time would at least triple (from ~45 min each way to ~2 hrs each way by bus) and force all the car drivers to conform to my bus schedule.

For 9 of the 10 years I lived in Seattle, I did not own a car and did not miss having one. My first three years in Pittsburgh I did not own a car.

At the end of 2012 my downtown office is moving out to Moon. I don't feel that I have the stamina to bike RT there from my home, which I own. I also am not looking forward to the possibility of spending 2-4 hours per work day getting there by bus. I don't want to live in Moon Township. I hate the suburbs.

So, I will keep my car and look for others to carpool with, and continue to try & drive as little as possible.

If my office were to stay downtown, I'd actually probably get rid of my car sooner rather than later. I would still use things like PAT Transit, buses, trains, planes because I like to travel and the type of work I do requires it.

So, for me it is a matter of personal "choice" related to income and lifestyle. If the economy were better, I might seriously think about changing jobs in order not to drive (I hate driving - it is scary and wasteful).

I think it is good to question cars and to demonstrate the possibility of not using them to the best of one's ability. Their proliferation has made it harder to live without them without being willing to live on a low income.

There are other things in life that the vast majority of people choose to participate in, which I find irrational, irksome, and hard to avoid, but I'll skip the temptation of a threadjack.

I think it is silly for people to tell you to move out to the country. Unless you were a total homesteader...most country folks I know (including family members) drive a heck of a lot more than I do as a city dweller.

my 2 cents.

I grew up in the suburbs where you pretty much had to have a car to get around anywhere, and since moving to Pittsburgh, where most places are accessible by bike or public transportation, I still wouldnt dream of ditching my truck. I cant load up 5 friends, a ton of camping gear, food and beer and go out for a week on a bike. I cant carry a kayak on my bike, and a multitude of other things.

On top of the practicality of it theres also the enjoyment. Nothing helps me relax more than a spirited drive through the country with the windows down and some good music. The adrenalin rush of going a 1/4 mile in a 10 seconds or going around a road course at triple digit speeds is hard to match.

theres also the enjoyment

That, too. Although I don't like driving, sometimes cars are just awesome to look at, especially hand painted low riders with tricked out interiors, polished chrome and good sound systems.

"...especially hand painted low riders with tricked out interiors, polished chrome and good sound systems." This sounds like a bike I have in mind.

Pseuda, I could help you out with a ride route to Moon that you could occasionally do, when the time comes.

Sorry, back to the OP.

I've been car-free for thirty years. Big thanks to all my chauffeurs! you know who you are.

If you're trying to eliminate personal car use, living in a city will make it much easier. But if you're trying to reduce as much as possible your total dependence on fossil fuels, I think you'd need to live on a farm in the country, out-Amishing the Amish.

Lots of stuff you buy in a store has gone thousands of miles to reach you, often made from parts that have gone on their own thousand-mile journeys, via truck, rail, ship, and air. So if you don't want your money to go to oil companies, you'll need land, seeds, and good weather. And forget about bicycles. You'll be too busy trying to grow enough food to survive the winter to go anywhere.

And as Reddan indicated, I'm using "you" as an indefinite pronoun. I could have said "So if one doesn't want one's money to go to oil companies, one will need land, seeds, and good weather," using a different indefinite pronoun. That seemed a little too pompous.

I'm confused to receive a hypothetical response,

In a discussion, people sometimes answer the question they want to answer, not the one you asked. I couldn't answer your counterfactual question of why I owned a car, so I instead described one thing I miss by not having one.

I was going to stay out of this, but then I figured writing down my thoughts would be a good way to get them in order, so here it goes...

Why do I own a car? I enjoy the convenience, that's for sure. Certainly, I put about 4000-5000 miles on my commuter in any given year, but sometimes, it's just easier to drive somewhere. Additionally, I enjoy traveling, and given the lifestyle choices my wife and I have made, owning a car is the best way to facilatate that. Yes, we could ride our bikes to Santa Cruz next week, but I'm not sure I could get three months off work.

Additionally, I've drawn a line in the sand as far as how I use a car. I don't drive to work, and never have. We live in the city, and live near things that allow us to leave the cark parked for days at a time. Sometimes I'm uncomfortable owning a car, and sometimes I wish we didn't have one, but, then, I think about traveling, and climbing, and I make my peace with it. We all draw lines in the sand indicating what's acceptable to us. Some of us here don't own cars (and don't like cars), but we still take advantage of the conveniences of cheap fossil fuels. We all make concessions, some more principled that others. That's life, I think.

Finally, while I don't think cars are "evil," (I don't believe such appellations can be given to objects), I do agree that public policy, especially in the middle part of the 20th century, mucked things up but good with regards to sensible transportation and living arrangements. The best way I figure to fight that is to attempt to live a sensible way that doesn't absolutely require a car to do everything. Some people may be compelled to fight that issue in a different. More power to them. I do believe, however, that simply calling other people names regarding their choices, does little to further the discussion.

Hopefully I answered Tim's question.

Re; moving to the country - someone did a study not too long ago that demonstrated that New York city is the most sustainable place in the country, in terms of energy and resource use per capita. Rural areas fared much, much worse. But timito said that "green" isn't necessarily his issue.

Yet no ones come forth to defend the auto and there choice to own one. Does anyone care to comment and quantify the benefits for me,please, you own a car WHY?

I came in at about the 60-posts point and have read every line of this thread. (And yes, the "you" below does not mean any particular person.)

Yes, I have a car. I live 10 miles north of the city, at the southern edge of a sprawling school district. It is not possible to go car-free in McCandless, as there is no grocery store within 0.7 miles, and sidewalks and shoulders do not exist. Any trip to a kid's school requires a car, period, as does any trip to a kid's friend's house.

Compare me to my nearest neighbors. I have one car for three drivers. Next door is two cars for two drivers. Next to them is four cars for three drivers. Next to them, two cars for two drivers. Across from them are about five vehicles for two drivers. Only the retired couple across the street has a single car.

Twenty years ago, I owned and drove four cars, maybe 60,000 miles a year. Once I had a chance to make transit work -- something I had never tried before as I'd never lived in a city -- I decided to rely on it. It worked. I had transit squarely in mind the next time I changed residences, and in time managed to rid myself of three of the cars, saving $10K/year in transportation costs.

I've been a one-car family for 16+ years, using public transit and more recently bicycles to get life done. How is it that I can make it with feet, bus and bicycles, while nobody else even tries? Because only I really care about: Traffic. Pollution. Carbon footprint. Total cost of ownership. Oil spills. Oil imports. And on and on and on. It never crosses their minds, while I am trying to minimize all of the above.

I may *have to* buy a second car. Why? Because I am between jobs, and my next gig may well be in a place that simply cannot be gotten to by anything else. Even Wexford, all of 4 miles away, is next to impossible to get to by anything but a car. One possibility is in West Virginia, another in Utah. I am not going to let the non-ownership of another car stand between me and a well paying job.

Transit commutes can really suck. Most of last year, I managed to get from McCandless to Moon by transit, mainly, and the typical trip to was 90 minutes, and from more like 150, but 3-hour trips home were not uncommon. Every single day. Scroll back through 11 months of tweets on @bus15237; it's all documented. Four-plus hours in motion, daily, on top of an 8-hour day. That, unfortunately, is reality, to get and hold a decent job, and intend to not get a car. I will not do that again. Yes, I could bike it, but 35 miles on the bike (90-120 minutes each way) was so physically exhausting, I could only do it every once in a while. I'm 52.

Bottom line, while I have a car, I try to use it as little as possible. I care. I want not to pollute, to increase our trade deficit, etc., but some use of the thing cannot be helped. I am living proof, though, that there is an alternative way of life, even in the suburbs.

I hope this answers your question.

"I was going to stay out of this,"

Yes, rather.

One of the things I say to people, people I work with, neighbors, casual acquaintances, about cars, is, "when you have a car, you've got problems." This confuses them generally, since most people see only the advantages of the car: the freedom to travel and transport, the great expansion of range, the enormous augmentation of personal speed, the open road. These things seem obvious to most.

Of course there are costs, too. And pret much everyone reading this, everyone on this board, people who think about alternatives, knows about those costs.

To the point, I have problems. Who doesn't? A household, a family, two jobs suggests some transportation concerns. So problems? Yes. Evil? That's less clear.

I own a car because there are times when I need to get from Monroeville to the north side in an urgent manner in order to scrub in to surgery for people who are involved in a trauma. I don't like paying for gas, I don't like pollution, but at least i bought a tiny car that is an "ultra low emissions vehicle".

I haven't read all of the responses here in their entirety, but the argument can be made that bike parts are made in foreign countries by little kids, correct? Bikes aren't purely good either.

I like my truck. It let's me haul wood, stone, concrete, tools and lots of dirt for my yard and trail building. It also let's me go out of town to ride my cross country and downhill bikes several times a week. It also gives me a place to sleep when I am at expensive resorts riding my downhill bike for weekend trips. I have gone car free for stretches of 3 to 5 years a few times in my life but at this point i enjoy the freedom to pursue my biggest hobbies that my truck affords me.

Google the carbon footprint of a cat or dog and you will find many references to the face that they have a larger footprint than a SUV. FYI, I don't have a problem with pets (I have a large dog).

To the original poster: I have 2 cars. The first one is a Honda civic, I use that for daily driving and good fuel economy. It is big enough to haul the dog around and keeps me dry and warm on cold and rainy days.

I also have a Ford ranger pickup, I use that to haul loads of mulch, gravel and anything else that is messy and stinky. I also use it to haul my dirt bike. It is used for large Costco trips that usually are too big for the civic.

I usually own a street motorcycle but currently do not, I am shopping for a new one now.

I love gasoline and burning it. I own many gas powered machines: Honda civic, ford ranger, bobcat skid steer, lawn tractor, lawn mower, weed wacker, chain saw, 1 regular dirt bike, 1 trials motorcycle, and lastly I currently have a offroad go kart in the garage. My furnace runs off of diesel fuel.

I also have several bicycles. I ride my bike to work when the weather is nice. It is 5 miles of rural roads. I used to live in the city and I liked riding the city better, traffic was much slower. The cars zipping around on the roads around here at 50-60mph is a bit discerning.

I currently do not

When I came back from the peace corps in 2003, I had a college degree, two suitcases of clothes, and a resume.

I was raised in the city - my parents had a car, but I didn't really use it. My genetics are nomadic (nobody's lived, married, birthed, or died in the same place going back 200 years, on any sides). My relatives are strewn. I want to see them, I have to fly or drive. I hate that.

Back to my point, I got back with nothing. Didn't get electricity for a month (it was required by the lease). Didn't turn on the fridge for two months. Didn't get a phone for six months. Bought dishes when I invited a cute guy over for dinner, and realized that chopsticks and a cuttingboard wouldn't do for two.

Eventually I got a decent job, but in the suburbs (took 10+ months). I tried to figure out how to get there by bus. I could do it in 1.5 hours, which at the time was unacceptable (ironic, because that's my current commute - with a car). I didn't realize I could have biked there (8 miles).

I bought a car because it was expected of me. I bought a car because everyone else had one. I bought a car because I could afford one for the first time in my life. All of a sudden, I could drive to my cousins' in DC. I could get to my grandma's north of the city. I could go to ikea (and buy that bed). I bought a car because I didn't know how to do all of these things without a car.

Now I know how to live without one, including grandma and the cousins. But the life I set up for myself - the house I bought, the job that pays for it - all of that was acquired without the scheming it takes to be car free. And I didn't accidentally choose perfectly. I now keep and use a car, despite my yearnings to dump it, because I don't want to waste all that time, money, and effort I spent building this life by instantly ditching the car, and then losing the job, potentially losing the house (and the husband, and the pets).

I got a car because it seemed like the thing to do. I still have a car because I'm at the beginning of extricating myself from the life it's enabled me to build (but retaining the husband, dog, cats, happiness and health).

Wow, this is like some kind of hybrid of AA and AAA.

Thanks for the legitmate,honest answers instead of the litany of excuses and blame shfting common when brought up in less bicycle friendly venues, in which of course most of my freinds and all my family reside. I've had educated friends tell me my daughters life would suffer because of my descion, we will see about that as I doubt I will reverse my descion. Of course my lifestyle is different then most, perhaps due to circumstance as much as rational decsion making but here I am now vehemently opposed to cars and their overwhelming place in the society in which I choose to live. I am soon going to attempt a more minimal existence by residing in a 300 sq ft passive solar home unattached to utilitie companies and I'm not moving to the country to do it, as that would be vastly more difficult on a bike.

Steven you, like many others somehow infer my reason for not driving is the use of oil. It's to me only an unfortunate byprodut. Something that could be heavily curtailed by the elimination of the inordinate amount of oil the auto and it's infrastucture consume. I've never stated otherwise. It's a typical response along with mentioning my complicity by purchasing products manufatured and transported with the use of oil. For me it's not about your using more oil then me, feel free to use as much as you want, I'd just rather not be included in the traffic jam.

Tim, for what it's worth, I don't believe your daughter's life will suffer for your decision to live without a car and in a 300 square foot passive solar home--indeed, it may be all the richer for it.

An ironic side note to that. We spent a week in the country with a friend I respect and who's educated. He commented that Sarah's life would be negatively impacted by my refusal to own a car.

She barfed all over his car on the way home, she's never barfed on the bike, you decide.

She did kinda make a good point though.

It seems it comes down to lifestyle choices. I've never had much and wanted for very little so my lifestyle doesn't suffer from not owning a car, in fact my finances are improved by not owning one. The reason I want to live in a 300 sq ft house is motivated by financial incentive, not a desire to change the world although that would be nice, it won't. It'll change my world, that's enough.

Nate mentions a confusion when life without a car is mentioned. It seems everyone here has probably encountered that. "You rode yor bike here?", in the rain? Stu must seem a complete whack job where he lives. Nobody sees life without owning a car as financially possible, for me owning one is not possible. It would hamper my lifesyle and my ability to buy bike parts and enough chocolate milk, for what it's worth I go camping for weeks at a time on my bike, I rent a kayak with the money I save on car insurance, most my friends are to busy working to join me, they have to work, what with their car payment, the mortgage on the suburban home, repairs, insurance, gas, etc.

When you give that little bit of background, that explains a lot. If you're coming from an environment where family and friends feel like they can comment on and criticize your lifestyle choices and even your child rearing, that sucks ass. When my kids were little I had numerous people offer unwanted child advice, regardless of how well intended, and i had no problem telling same numerous people to suck it. Live your own life man, be well.

Tim, in a similar vain I have been cable-TV free for quite a while now. I get the free over-the-air channels via a 19 inch set with some rabbit-ears and watch movies/ news/ entertainment on my computer or DVD’s from the library. My friends and some neighbors think I'm crazy for this (and other reasons), but they pay over $100 a month just for TV! I occasionally miss a sporting event I would like to see, but if I really want to see it I can walk to the bar a few blocks away, and $100 buys a lot of beer. Doing things different is, well, different. We had quite a thread going a while back about eating/not eating meat. The conclusion I came to is you have to do what you think is best, and trying to convert others is mostly futile.

I opted out of TV when they digitized the airwaves. I get TV on the internet and the internet on the internet and yes, convincing others this is true has proven futile. I think they think I just make this shit up.

It's not like I'm trying to get them to eat bread and or pizza rolls out of Mancinni's dumpster, though they may have at that one dinner party, I'm not sure.

Similarly, I have been TV-free since 1994. Most people think me a whack job because of that alone. But with the Internet, I'm sensing there isn't that much difference between 'Net and a TV, esp. with YouTube. My point is that, like being car-free, it's a lifestyle choice, and yes it does have some effect on my kids' lives. They've grown up to be bookworms rather than TV addicts. Both of them use the car to get to friends' houses, but unlike their friends, they both do on occasion use a bicycle or bus to do it. Most of the time it just isn't possible, but they do think about it, and do try. That's all I can hope for.

I have an adjacent vacant lot, and my son (21) has put together a non-trivial plan to put a 400 sq-ft house on it, even going to the boro building to get a list of restrictions and guidelines to work within. Will he actually build it? Probably not, but I think my car-free attempts and lack of TV has caused him to think differently from everyone else, and that's the best I can hope for.

Good luck on your house project, timito. We have a lot in common.

I thik it is important to let people know that car use is a choice they make.

For some people, to live car-free would be an extremely difficult choice, filled with sacrifice. There are some people that being car-free would not be worthwhile.

I think it takes a considerable amount of gentleness and un derstanding to convince people that car use is choice. Most people have made their choices in such a way that not using a car doesn't appear to be a choice for them.

Forexample, there are plenty of living/work arrangem,ents athat are made by choice and most people never would stop and consider "this will eliminate car-free existance as an option for me."

Any harshness in explaining that car use is a choice will just convince people that there is no choice and to think otherwise is whack.

I think it would help if they enforced driver's license laws and took licenses away from people who shouldn't be driving, but right now, that is about asd likely as the government rigorously enforcing traffic laws.

Apart from the convenience issue, I drive a car because it's fun and awesome and enjoyable to drive a car.

It's also fun and awesome and enjoyable to ride a bike.

I also have a motorcycle. Riding a motorcycle is fun! And awesome! And enjoyable!

If I could afford an airplane, I would probably have one: because I bet flying an airplane is fun and awesome and enjoyable.

That post was also fun, awesome, and enjoyable.

It's been presented to me the choice to own a car, is to maintain a certain lifestyle. It just happens that this degrades my lifestyle, too bad for me. It's been said the car is a tool, like a hammer, I own several hammers, I've never had anyone yell. Hey Faggot! nice hammer. A hammer doesn't need a massive infrastructure to facilitate it's use. I once read on this forum about a women killed while running with her baby, by a car not a hammer. I'm sure her familys' lifestyle took a hit. I believe this type of simlpification skirts the impact the personal auto has. There was a time in this country when certain members of society were considered tools, used to maintain the lifestyle of the landed gentry. That's some archaic thinking, it took a massive war to change that policy.

I own a car because it's the only way that I can do everything I need to do in the time that I have to do it. It's the way that our country has been structured and I choose to accept that fact and not kill myself everyday by trying to avoid using a car. This city's public transport sucks (sorry, Stu) in my opinion, and I simply cannot get done everything I need to do by relying on car-less means of transport. I mean, why is a car so evil to you and not a bus? They both spew emissions. They both ruin the roads, and they both make life on a bike hell.

I would also agree with others on the board that driving a car, under certain circumstances, is enjoyable, just as riding a bike is enjoyable under certain circumstances.

Bus, car, I rely on neither. The cultural hierarchy developed by the advent of this automtotive culture degrades my quality of life while it raises the quality of yours, your car in my way. Though it may be how this country has been structured, I don't have to accept it.

"...It just happens that this degrades my lifestyle, too bad for me..."

That is exactly the argument some anti-bike advocates in New York City are using to work against increased bike infrastructure, that bikes are dangerous to old people and babies and they shouldn't have to be threatened by them. Of course that's ridiculous.

My neighbor is a hunter, he owns guns, guns scare the crap out of me, he could accidentally discharge one and send a slug right through my house and hit me or one of my kids. But he is completely legal, all I can do is trust that he doesn't drink a 30 pack of Keystone light and start cleaning his guns.

Another neighbor has a huge nasty German shepherd that is sometimes out loose, I can't even take a walk by there in the evening out of fear that thing could come after me or the kids. There is nothing I can do. It degrades my life.

Sure, the car culture is way way out of control, cars use resources and impact society way out of proportion to their usefulness. But they are far from being the single most evil thing on the face of the earth, there are dozens of common things that we humans find it necesary to comport with that can do massive harm to others around us if used irresponsibly. As a society we have to decide what things provide useful benefits, that are in proportion to the problems they cause, and we have to be able to either accept what other people in society find to be allowable, or try to constructively change the things that we as a society find useful and acceptable.

So let me see if I'm understanding this argument, timito. I think you're talking about the Civil War, with the whole people as tools and landed gentry business. So by that analogy, do you mean to say that people with cars are the slave owners, and people without cars are slaves? Because I'm not sure that works as an analogy. I'm not sure that really amounts to anything that makes sense.

Or do you mean those with cars oppress those without cars? I suppose you want us to accept that automobile exhaust is a tool of oppression. That driving a car and yelling "hey faggot" at someone on a bicycle is part of some sort of strategy to dominate people on two wheels.

But working a little deeper into that post, I marvel at how you twist the notion of a motor vehicle as a tool into humans as tools (ie.: slaves - in the context of your Civil War analogy). That just doesn't work at all. You see, a tool is "A device or implement, used to carry out a particular function." A slave is "A person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them." That difference is often described by the metaphor of "apples and oranges," or one is not like the other.

And about that hammer. Where to begin. Ok, how about this. You mention the woman and baby hit by a car and killed in Mt. Lebanon. The operator of that motor vehicle was driving under the influence. He wasn't out looking for people to run over. And by the way, since you're all about hammers, how do you rationalize the kid who bludgeoned his girlfriend on the T tracks not that long ago? Let me guess, hammers don't kill people. People with hammers kill people, right?

"Hey faggot, nice hammer." I love that. You go from car=tool, tool=hammer to "I have hammers" to "hey faggot, nice hammer." So if my math is right (if a=b, and b=c, then a=c), what you are saying is: "hey faggot, nice car"? You have mentioned before you were not an English major. I was, so let me help you here. I think what you intended was car=tool, tool=hammer, people that drive cars are tools, and tools yell nasty things out of their car windows at people riding their bicycles? Or something like that? I don't know, Tim. But that's some pretty tortured logic.

If you feel your lifestyle is degraded by other people operating motor vehicles for personal use, that their exhaust harms your health, that their use by malevolent operators endangers your life, and those of your family, I get that. You've been very consistent on that, and I can respect that. But its an ugly, fucked up world. You can spend your life tipping at windmills, barking at the moon and shaking your fist and cars. And at the end of that life what will you have to show for it.

Life is short, Tim. I've never met you, but I admire a lot about you. But you gotta pick your spots, man. This world isn't going to do what any one of us wants it to do. This world is going to impose its will, whatever that will is, and whether we like it or not. Being pissed off about it isn't going to change that.

Good luck man, and do me a favor, please dispose of your butts properly.

For me submitting to the idea that the automobile and it's vast surrounding infrastructure is just the way it is, part of our culture requires a level of passivity I am unable to submit to. I've been told before it's irrational. Living 30 miles from where you need to be and spending time and money to get there is to me, irrational.

Here's what one guy's doing when he's not driving his car around:

http://youtu.be/JpiwDQr7OTs

To portray the auto as a simple tool belies the horrors of human devastation caused by it's misuse. It doesn't take into account the vast tracts of earth carved out to facilitate the ease and luxury of it's users. It doesnt include the armies of men that undertake it's construction and maintenance. Then there's all that oil and the pollution, meh.

Timito, thanks for the clarification. Also, I didn't mean to imply that you should accept it. I only said that I have chosen to accept it.

I would agree that living 30 miles from work, etc. may, at first, look like a bad decision. But for some people, decent and affordable housing may outweigh the one-hour awful commute every day. For me, in the abstract, it wouldn't. But my paycheck would dictate that (i.e. http://playspent.org/) Unfortunately, cheaper and newer housing is often out in the suburbs. I would tend to agree that Pittsburgh follows that pattern as I find that rent is quite overpriced in the city for the pieces of crap that are on the rental market.

What I guess I'm trying to say is that everyone makes choices based on budget, values, and overall circumstance. You've made a certain choice, and it seems like you don't need us to justify it for you, although I feel like that what's you're looking for here---please correct me if I'm wrong. People will criticize you for making certain choices, or just generally say very rude things when they should keep their mouths shut. It's pretty clear that you've got people in your life who are making some rude or not well-thought-out remarks about how you've decided to live your life and raise your child(ren). I think that's pretty sad on their part, honestly. I don't see how living without a car hurts your daughter in the slightest.

But what I would caution you about is that your wording and phrasing about your choices in life come across almost in a similar fashion as those who are unfairly criticizing you, and people on this board (including me) and others hear that first and react to that, making it harder for us to get to the underlying issues that you're experiencing.

Wish you luck with the house project (seriously, I'm not being sarcastic).

"...part of our culture requires a level of passivity I am unable to submit to. I've been told before it's irrational. Living 30 miles from where you need to be and spending time and money to get there is to me, irrational..."

You're absolutley right on all counts, I couldn't agree more. And you have arranged your own life so you can live car-free, fantastic, lead by example. Have you been to Pgh city planning meetings to make sure the city is including bike infrastructure in it's public works, or talked to your city council person, to make it so more people can make the change? Have you met the DA to make sure they pursue cases in which motorists have killed and injured cyclists? Have you been to the national Bike Summit to see what is being done at a national level to take the country away from carcentricity? or http://bike-pgh.org/bbpress/topic/bike-to-work-day-planning-meeting-feb-17#post-67961 Those are things thousands of people are doing to make the change that you want to see. Maybe you have done those things too. But if you have only changed your own lifestyle, and done nothing to change society as a whole, other than rant on a message board, you have indeed submitted passively, and you are but a noisy gong, or a clanging cymbal.

I'd also like to point out that choosing to live as part of a society means accepting that you will be adversely impacted by others. Can't really avoid it.

For example, I live uphill from Alcosan. My quality of life (at least olfactory, when they get the mix wrong!) would be higher if everyone in town would stop using the toilet. I rather doubt railing about the enormous waste of water and resources embodied in Big Toilet is going to help in that regard, however.

Silliness aside, the choice that one has to make really comes down to "do the benefits of living where and how I do outweigh the detriments?" For something such as automotive overuse, which has become both culturally and practically entrenched, you cannot make it go away in a matter of months or even years (decades of consistent effort, maybe). So, you need to make a choice: live with it, or relocate to an area where you are not assailed as a result of the choices of others.

Tim, I suspect that one of the reasons you keep hearing people say "move to the country" is because it is one of the only practical suggestions that people can make in response to your concerns about cars impacting your quality of life. No-one here can make cars go away...no-one here can make the people in your life stop criticizing your choices. All anyone can do is say "Ok, I hear what you're unhappy about. Here's what I can see that you can do."

Personally, I applaud your choice to live car free, and your efforts to build an efficient and practical home. I hope the choices you make work out well for you.

That living spent website was pretty interesting, but after running through it a couple times, WOAH does it make some assumptions about what 'choices' we have. I can't get rid of my car, really? I have a $75 phone plan? I realize these are predicaments people are really in, but websites like this that try to humanize things subtly show that a lot of these things are 'not choices.'

I'm glad this debate turned more civil, and I am glad to see a lot of people's opinions about it.

For my 0.02: I have never owned a car, and I haven't driven in who knows how long now. It's definitely a choice I make, but I also know it impacts those around me as much as the choice I would make if I did have a car. I do need a ride occasionally, or perhaps need to rent a truck because 4x8 sheets of 3/4 ply are a *little* hard to bike in pgh with. And each time one of those 'exceptions' happens, those are all choices too.

I think Mick hit it pretty well on the previous page, about making sure people know they always have a choice. I try very hard to not say it is my way or the high way and you are wrong when the subject of transit comes up. But I do like to bring up all the alternatives to the 'main stream' in a hope that someone will make their choice actively, and before they are forced to for other circumstances.

i haven't had a car for about two years now, and i don't miss it one bit. i agree wholeheartedly that society turns a blind eye to the true costs of personal automobile ownership and that it often does more harm than good.

that said, this thread is truly absurd. "just asking a simple question", my rear wheel.

do you need a rear wheel?

definitely not just a simple question. feels more like confessional to me. Am I a worse sinner if I drive one car a lot or drive a little but have several cars? What about if I set up my life so that I can bike to work and social events all week, but take a car on road trips every weekend? What if it's the same number of miles driven, but one person is just driving because that's what people do and the other person is driving because they've made a conscious choice about their lifestyle and hobbies and decide to utilize a car? There are a million different scenarios for how, why and how much people use their cars and asking 'why' on this message board isn't going to solve any transportation issues.

Like others have said, I drive because my life has been built around roads and highways. It's how Mr. Tabby and I keep our jobs, how we visit family, how we transport the dog, how we complete projects on our home, how we get to medical providers and how we dispose of recyclables.

I'm hopeful that we can move more quickly towards a region where choosing not to drive will be an easier and more natural choice. But I'm not just hoping, I'm a member of BikePGH so they can advocate for it as well as also having a job that works on walking/biking issues myself.

I bought a 2010 Yaris when I got a job offer last year in Uniontown. I sold my old car weeks prior to this and wasn't sure if I was getting a new one. Now everyone in the office has moved as far away as possible and we mostly work remotely. Went from commuting 80-120 miles a week on bicycle to this. I only make the trip twice a week now which is still 5-6 hours of driving a week that I would rather not do. The more I think about it, if I lived anywhere near Uniontown, I would probably drive to Pittsburgh more than I commute to Uniontown.

Anything unreasonable there? I'm sure the right thing to do would be to move to what I consider the sticks. I'm getting some beefier tires for my road bike and will be exploring in a few weeks after work and also planning a 15-20mi park and ride commute for bike to work day.

In an ideal world companies would keep their offices near population centers accessible by more than just a car.

"In an ideal world companies would keep their offices near population centers accesible by more than just a car."

Like Mumbai.

ah Mumbai,

"the other person is driving because they've made a conscious choice about their lifestyle and hobbies and decide to utilize a car?" this person like those here should be congratulated.

I will confess I owned a car in the mid-nineties. i bought it to go on road trips, to haul stuff, etc. After months I realized it just cost too much and I didn't achieve the results intended. It broke down and was towed away. I never considered retrieving it nor did I care what happened to it. I didn't learn to hate cars until I began pushing my baby up and down Butler in a stroller. I realized the people that yelled at me to ride my bike on the sidewalk weren't paying any attention to traffic on the sidewalk,either, even at signed crosswalks. It almost seemed as my rights were being violated. I spoke with the people at Lawrenceville United about the lack of signage, some things as simple as painting the proper lines. Quite frankly they blew smoke up my ass, unless they just didn't know when the lines were last painted. Either way they lied to me, which led me to believe they didn't really care.

Then I found bike pgh, they seemed to be doing something, so i gave them $30. They get shit painted and seem a forthright bunch. I offered to repaint the lines myself and have cosidered just doing it, my other ideas are too extreme to pursue.

I didn't leatn to hate cars until I began pushing my baby up and down Butler in a stroller. I realized the people that yelled at me to ride my bike on the sidewalk weren't paying any attention to traffic on the sidewalk,either, even at signed crosswalks.

Sounds like maybe you just hate the asshole Pittsburghers that are driving around the cars. Having lived in a couple other states where assholes and traffic violations are much more rare, I can tell you that it doesn't have to be the way you describe. Just about anywhere in the Twin Cities Metro area, you hardly have to think about looking before crossing at a crosswalk, because almost every single person is going the speed limit and will stop for you without a second thought. I lived in a city in California for over 5 years without a car, and biked everywhere. I can't recall one time where I had someone yell something at me from a car. It isn't the car I dislike, it is the people driving them. It isn't like the people yelling crap at you will magically stop being jerks if you remove them from the car.

I believe California has very strict laws regarding the use of crosswalks.

I'm like a dog, dog can't figure it's someone driving the car, dog just hates it. That's me, like a pissed off dog what hates cars.

So does Pennsylvania, not that anyone cares. I really believe you'll have a lot better luck trying to fix the things you dislike if you politely focus on incremental, small parts using the existing laws and systems. Start by getting properly signed crossings and enforcement in your neighborhood, rather than trying to rid the world of cars overnight. Write to your city council person, your state representatives, your neighborhood organizations, and 311. Maybe you don't succeed right away, and remember, you are dealing with politicians, so you'll have a metric ton of smoke blown up your ass, but it will prove far more useful to your ends versus trying to convince a bunch of cyclists that cars are no good.

I'm here honing my argument, it seems a good place for constructive criticsm.

@dwillen It isn't like the people yelling crap at you will magically stop being jerks if you remove them from the car.

LOL.

Of course, the car is an extremely effective tool for these people.

I think for many people using a car less has a lot in common with using a bicycle more. People kind of want to do it for a variety of reasons, but the barriers seem "not worth it."

It's useful and persuasive to be exposed to ideas and models for doing life differently.

For example, show and explain how you do simple things like get groceries or bring your daughter to the doctor without a car.

There's another thread on this board about how to get to work on a bicycle when you have to do your job in a business suit. Lots of people are putting forth ideas about how to pack the suit, how to freshen up, etc. I think the person will now be more likely to actually do it ...

Right, but they'll do just fine without the car. I promise. I've had people yell at me from a bus stop before. A line of Pitt students waiting for the bus (likely drunk) yelling "nice bike faggot!". I mean, really? Is it that much worse than standing there at the bus stop? Bike through the Southside, or past just about any bar where people have to smoke outside, and you'll have something unkind yelled at you. By that logic, we should ban smoking outside bars! Some guy skating the wrong way down the middle of Forbes, on a skateboard, called a flock of cycles ride "a bunch of faggots". I had a kid, maybe only 4 years old, sitting next to the Junction Hollow trail this Monday afternoon take a break from tossing ballast onto the trail to look me right in the eye, and toss a rock at my bike as I rode past him. Little shit. I assume his father was coaching soccer in the adjacent field - I'd have stopped and said something, but would it really have made a difference? If you are raising an unsupervised little psychopath, not much chance you are much different. Only 12 more years before he moves from throwing rocks to tossing slurpies out the window of his brand new car, same thing, different mode. People have posted here about kids chucking stuff out of school bus windows, and of course kids in E. Lib seem to do a fine job beating the shit out cyclists without a car. Cars aren't the problem. Lack of enforcement, non-existent punishment, and a culture of not giving a shit are the problem.

dwillen - kids don't think when they do stuff like that. Unless *somebody* says to the kid "HEY. ENGAGE BRAIN, THEN ACT" in a way that gets their attention, they grow up to raise kids who don't think and throw slurpies out of the car. When there are no personal consequences to their actions, they won't go thinking about the results.

People have mentioned other places where pedestrians are respected WAY more... Victoria, BC is one of them. As a 13 year old yinzer I went there to see some family friends one summer. Got freaked out that, as I approached the edge of the road, cars just stopped. No matter that I was timing my crossing to go around them after they'd passed (if they'd maintained a constant speed). They'd just stop. I tried sneaking up on the edge of the road, didn't work, they'd stop. Even if I didn't want to cross the road, they wouldn't let me wave them by, they'd stay stopped, waiting, possibly an entire light cycle on the chance that I might cross. I found it really creepy...

Now I'm nostalgic about it. A place where the motoring public is paying more attention to what's going on outside their vehicle than to what's going on inside their cars/minds. A place where other people matter.

Culture change starts at home - Timito you've made the first steps. Next is to do all the advocacy things people have brought up. Then the hard part, the part I'm crappy at (and leaving because of) - wait. Otherwise the frustration - no matter how justified or righteous - will ever increase and get worse and worse.

(and totally OT: I have harboured the dream of living in a tiny house for most of my life [only lately 'cause of efficiency too], I'm super jealous you're planning a reality! you should totally write up your adventure and post somewhere for tiny-domicile-ophiles like me to pour over! very very cool!!)

ej, dwillen, the things you are mentioning don't have anything necesarily to do with cars or traffic, they are based on the almost complete absence of a civil society in the good old us of a. Civility, politeness, good manners, pshaw, complete nonsense in American culture. It's much more important to get ahead of the other person, get more, crush the competition, blah, blah, blah. Kids are taught either implicitly or explicitly from a very early age - crush the other person and grab as much as you can for yourself!

Good luck changing that, that's been the American way for a looooong time, behaviour behind the wheel of your car is just a symptom of that much larger disease.

Pittsburgh is particularly lacking in charm and social graces as well as sunlight. They may be related. I still like it here though, and no one has ever yelled anything at me on my bike.

re: crosswalks

hawaii was the same way. i cant wait to go back. its amazing how nice people are when they are all generally happy.

@bill i blame ayn rand.

Cars are equalizers.

Someone without legs can drive to work in a car.

Someone 8 months pregnant can drive one.

Someone taking two special-needs children to three kinds of therapy at Children's can drive one.

Get back to me about "evil" when you have tried being one of these people. Yes, some drivers are a holes and I don't like Bush oil wars either.

I contend that a lot of city traffic is suburban drivers who simply do not know how to use transit and/or bicycles to get to their destination. The recent PAT cuts have made this harder than ever to do. Despite that, I do manage to get in and back without a car regularly.

I built these little tools from data on PAT's website, munched it around in Excel some, and posted copies on the fridge door and one for my handbag.

The first one shows when I have to leave the house to walk the 0.8 mile along Perrymont Road in McCandless to pick up a bus on McKnight Road. That's an unlit, sidewalk-less, mainly shoulder-less suburban road posted 35 with an average traffic speed more like 45. I walk or bike it 500 times a year, at least.

The second one is an excerpt of a 150-entry list showing how to get out of the city. Four bus routes are used. Two get me about a mile away, the other two about three miles away. Maybe I use a bike, or get picked up in the car, or just walk, but the point is, the car does not go into the city.

If everyone had similar tools at their disposal, transit use would be growing, not shrinking.

I love my car, I love VW's, and there are far too many other things I do that cannot be done with a bike. I can't ride 10 miles on my full suspension bike, change tires, ride some mountain trails, swap tires back and ride home very easily. I enjoy shooting and the ranges are pretty far out. Hard to carry a few guns, ammo, and what not on a bicycle. I have two small dogs, kind of hard to take them to the vet in the winter on a bicycle. I like to visit family and friends, kind of hard on a bicycle. I like to go to concerts and I have a hard time wanting to chain a $3000 bicycle to a rack and hope it is there afterwards.

Stu - that's why I like Transitguru's web site so much, and why I think money well spent would be advertising for that site. It's far more helpful than the PAT site.

orionz - I've now got 3 animals that I'm trying to keep healthy and happy, one is 17 and needs to go to the vet every three months or so. He's a good sport, and would be able to handle the bike ride, but the others... the vet is a question I constantly ask myself.

You'll also find people mentioning "solutions" to the "problems" with doing things by bike you brought up for your particular situation (get a second cheaper bike for concerts, better gearing makes hauling heavy ammo/guns easier, hybrid tires make mixed trails/roads easier (or roads on knobbies are "good exercise")) But from the sound of it, fundamentally you love your car. You don't need the other reasons you use it, other than maybe the pets and it sounds like schedule also would be a reason, you're pretty busy.

Whatever it looks like, I apologize for owning and using a car more to myself than to the other people on here - I do NOT love my car (I love the heated seats, but I can sit on a radiator to same effect).

But if you love your car, it's a lot simpler. I envy you your clarity and satisfaction, don't muddy the waters more than necessary!

The daughter of a friend once told me she like to set her air conditioning down to 65 degrees on really hot summer days so she could snuggle under her down quilt. I told her her action was environmenally irresponsible.

I figured out many years ago (when gas was around $.35 per gallon) that driving around just to be driving and watching the gas gauge move closer to E was also environmenally irresponsible.

I do sometimes use a car but most days it just sits there.

@orion there are far too many other things I do that cannot be done with a bike.

What are these things that can't be done on a bike?

All the things you mention are quite doable.

For example, I put my cat in a cage with a large hot water bottle to take her to the vet in the winter.

Part of the reason I stopped going out to concerts at Burgettstown was that it is so hard to ride out there. The other part is because you have to pay too much money, it is a lousey venue, and they treat you like dirt, though. So, it isn't much of a loss.

My tires work fine for roads and trails.

I'm always puzzled and disturbed that anyone would start out for a bike ride by putting the bike on a car. Also, I don't understand why someone might have a $3000 bike if they can't use it to do the things you mention, but that is a different issue.

I sense at least three ways to answer timito's original question:

1) Why *ever* have a car and/or drive? (i.e., the absolutist approach he is trying to live by)

2) Why do we drive so much, when there are clear alternatives? (i.e., my last couple of posts)

3) How the car enhances or enables our current lifestyle of choice?

All are valid ways to answer the question, not that you have to choose just one. Earlier today, I drove to the bike shop to buy parts for two broken bikes, rather than drop an hour into bicycle travel time to accomplish the same task. I'll use that time to actually fix the bikes. The car allows me to do that. My point here is that the car does enhance my ability to conduct life. If I still had the Perry Hwy bus, I'd've used that instead of driven, but I did not restrict myself to ONLY using the bike to get life done. There sometimes is a trade-off to be considered. Whether you actually consider it, or just blindly drive everywhere -- I think that's the main point. In other words, first you have to care.

"What are these things that can't be done on a bike?"

-haul any quantity of any building material

-haul a weeks worth of groceries for a family of four

-meet the transportation needs of a family of four (two adults with jobs, two school age children and all of the attendant activities)

-get anywhere if you are ill or injured

-transport elderly family members or neighbors

-visit family 300 miles away on a weekend

-pick someone up at the airport

-back-to-school shop with kids at the mall

-go to Kennywood with young kids (although I can get to the zoo with 1 kid, at least until he outgrows the seat!)

(Mick's question was specific - what can't be done on a bike, which is different than what can't be done without a car.)

And I also recognize the rhetorical aspect to the question - but it does beg the response that there are legitimate needs for a motor vehicle. Could many of these things be accomplished with some type of modified bicycle by someone who had lots of time and some specialized gear? Certainly. There are many examples of that on this board.

The real question is: what is practical for people to do on a bike. I'm afraid the answer to that question would be as varied as there are people who would consider it. We all have different tolerances.

What may work for a single, 24 year old man may not work for a married 42 year old with a couple of kids. So it all comes down to the individual.

And that is why the question of WHY has little relevance: each of us has different needs, tolerances, limitations, capacities, interests, priorities. And all of our answers to the questions are different, and all of our reasons why are different too.

So different that someone on a bicycle can't fairly judge someone just because they happen to be driving a car at that moment.

These things are much easier if you live within the city limits where your trips can be shorter, or live in another city altogether. I just got back from Germany, and you just ride a bike or transit because it's easy and cheap. Owning a car is a hassle most people don't want. When you can bike or take cheap transit to the train station, hop a train to Hamburg that also includes public transit in Hamburg it's an easy choice to make.

@ALMKLM

I've hauled a sheet of 1/2" plywood on the back of my bike rack (cut in four pieces)

Also carried five or six ten foot sections of 1/2" PVC pipe on the same trip.

Only problem was the ends were flapping all around making a bunch of noise like those clapper things, which was making me laugh

Don't think I'd want to be a bicycle contractor though

Ironically, I was building a contraption to haul four or six bicycles behind me from North Park to Morningside. I ended up just using a van.

Still need to finish that project for proof of concept...

@ALMKLM

About half the things you mentioned were things that I can see doing without a car.

Some, like going to Kennywood with a kid, it puzzles me as to why the question of using a car would come up.

Some, like picking people up at the airport, I have done. I ahven't picked up gracoerceries for a family of 4, but I've certainly made hauls from teh grocery store that were large enough for that..

the question of riding on the road to trails is a bit misleading. i'm betting orionz's idea of trails and biking on them is riding singletrack mtb trails in the woods, a pretty technical and specific purpose that his full suspension bike is built for. you REALLY don't want to ride knobbies for that sort of thing on the road as it will absolutely destroy them and the tires can range from $40-$80 each. this isn't the sort of riding that one does on a hybrid bike. i mean, you CAN, but it isn't nearly as much fun and you can't go nearly as fast. a $3k purpose built machine for a particular hobby isnt really all that odd either mick, how much is your guitar equipment worth? how much do people here spend on beer or pot or tobacco in a year? i'd much rather spend it on more bikes to do more kinds of fun riding in the woods.

Well what's the point in saying that a machine designed for a specific purpose cannot do something it isn't designed for? "My hammer can't drill." "My plunger can't vacuum."

I wouldn't want to haul building materials in a Porsche 911 either.

Are we really debating that there are uses for a car? I'm imagining getting hit by an SUV and then when the ambulance shows up, with my last dying breath I say "No... fetch a pedicab..."

I would be more interested (if only slightly so) in "How often do you drive a car when cycling would suffice? Why in these instances do you drive a car instead of cycling?" I think we've already heard the answer to that question a million times

Oh! Also I bet flying a helicopter would be really sweet, too. I would TOTALLY want to fly a helicopter.

I don't really get a lot of the hand-wringing here. I mean, if you really want an example of something you can't do without a car, the obvious example is "If you don't drive a car, you can't have fun driving a car."

Now, you might say "I personally don't enjoy driving a car", to which my response is "That's great, then you shouldn't drive a car." After which point the conversation will be over, and I will either drive or ride away, enjoying my drive or ride, depending on which of my awesome fun vehicles I happen to be on at the moment.

@ pierce

Yeah, it gets hard trying to parse out rec biking from utility biking - sometimes they are very different things.

I have some pricey musical instruments, but I'm generally just as happy playing the cheap stuff.

I haven't spent money on pot since the 1980s - which can be a little surprising to those that know me.

For a long time, I'd say "I have fun and get exercise when I travel by bike, but I never ride for fun and I never ride for exercise." Between going on flocks and training for, then riding, the GAP, this is no longer true.

I'm still a bit baffled by "serious" rec cyclists, though.

@peterb - Sometimes, when talking to people about their "need" for cars, I point out that if they worked where they do and lived in Bedford, they would "need" a helicopter. I imagine that helicoptors are much worse on fuel than planes of equal capacity.

@Mick - "doing things without a car" is very different than "doing things on a bike."

My mountain bike is a purpose built bike, it is optimized for riding singletrack and some light downhill stuff, not for pavement. I wear through 3-4 tires a summer on dirt, imagine what would happen if I had to commute 10 miles to the trail on the road and 10 miles back. My total of $3000 invested is actually closer to $2500, but either way, that is cheap for a good mountain bike to do what I like to do.

As for hauling guns to the range, how does one carry the gear that fills the hatch of my car?

My parents live 250 miles away, my grandmother lives 25 miles away, and others are further. I can't exactly bike 250 miles to go visit for a weekend, can I?

That being said, I enjoy doing as much as I can on a bike, but I guess I have not given up enough other things to see how life without a car could be. I suppose if I were renting, had no need to visit relatives, decided to not go to the range, not have pets, and have every other large item delivered I could do it, but that is a pile of stuff to give up. I worked too damned hard to get to this point and give that up.

Why have you chosen to fixate on the car?

And by car are referring to all modes of transportation that use internal combustion engines?

How would you feel if the car was not invented and everyone commuted by horse and buggy and we still had to build paved roads everywhere?

The car IS a tool. Read the definition of a tool and see how car fits in there.

Oh, I was once made fun of for the hammer I was using. I was using the only hammer I owned for framing, it was a finish hammer. Needless to say I bought a new hammer.Using a framing hammer for framing makes a huge difference. The right tool for the job.

@Mick I'm not really seeing the problem with needing to commute by helicopter, other than cost. Commuting by helicopter sounds awesome. I look forward to continued improvements in personal helicopter technology and fuel efficiency until, some day, I will be able to participate on the http://heli-pgh.org forums.

@peterb -- back when I was living in the Raleigh Durham area, I had a 50 mile commute to work. I was semi-seriously looking at ultra-lights as a more fun what to commute.

The only thing that really stopped me was the concern of crash landing into a Deliverance scenario. [Well that and the fact that at the time I was too heavy for all but the highest powered ultra lights.]

peterb - for years I had "pilot a helicopter" on my Bucket List. A few years ago I decided to start moving towards crossing it off, discovered that a prerequisit is "pilot a plane". That was the end of that dream, since that is on my Avoid At All Costs list. Cant' really explain why. I guess Top Gun was less exciting to me as a child than Airwolf.

Pierce - your pedicab comment made me laugh so hard I almost cried. Now I'm realizing it's more morbid than funny, but I still can't help it.

Orionz - your comment on "I guess I have not given up enough other things..." is making me think. First, if you see it as "giving things up", it's not going to go well (nobody likes deprivation), and I'd advise even the mental exercise.

The second line of thought is a little different, maybe...

Some people, like me, encounter an idea they fancy and throw themselves at it 150%. Currently I'm not just spring cleaning, I'm gutting our possessions with a minimalist guidebook (which will eventually also be banished). I don't have a few potted tomatoes and a trelis of beans, I dug up my entire front yard and half the back into garden. I don't just bike on weekends in the park, I eschew the car completely unless a paycheck or painfully annoying relative is invovled. I see how far I can take whatever idea has struck my fancy. Drives my husband nuts. I'll call this a curious and discontent type.

Most people, like my husband, sidle up to implementing an idea. He'd been planning on getting a dog for 6 years. We have one because I told him to go to the shelter, we brought Daisy home the next day ('cause I got involved ). He's just bought a camera he's been researching for two years, upon thinking he might start some photography. I expect to see the first prints in a year or two. He just got a bike, he'll probably be up to biking the GAP with me in about 4 years or so. I'll call this the curious but content type.

Some people are of the personality/mental make up that they aren't inclined towards incorporating different ideas, new hobbies, whatever. They have a life that works for them and they're happy. When gas prices go up too much, or their hobby becomes illegal, they're totally lost (the "I just stay home" type mentioned in the gas price increase article, maybe). I'd call this type simply content.

So just presenting a content person with a financial difficulty (gas prices), an environmental problem (smog/pollution), and an alternative (cycling, walking, mass transit), won't change anything for some people. To me, to do the same thing this year as last is painful. To some, it's joy (if it was a good year).

That's the idea I struggle with the most, I think, is understanding that some people are content and not curious, and that doesn't make them wrong or horrible, though my mind recoils at the thought of a life like that. Maybe someone else on here can better explain the psychology of change.

My comments on helicopters were'n't about how cool they are or not. But rather how much a person "needs" them in similar terms to how much they "need" an automobile.

Certainly, if you lived in certain parts of Alaska, air travel would be close to a necessity.

(As a matter of examining how "cool" helicopters are, they are probably far less gas efficient than similar sized airplanes, which themselves are pretty fierce earth killers, but...)

I've come to realize something in this thread. I was drawn to to bikes originally by the fact that they a good way to avoid much car use.

To me, biking isn't nearly as cool as walking. Not as fun. (Dancing on the earth as opposed to rolling on metal and petroleum products in an unatural posture? No brainer for me.) I don't think it's as healthy, nor as safe. All the things people do yoga for, like spinal allignment and neurologic calmness and focus can be acchieved mroe effriciently on foot than on a bike in mo opinion.

Of course a bike is far faster and energy efficient(like muscle energy).

In any case, have come to a bike from the perspective of "Excellent tool for reducing car use!" my attitude towards rec cyclists becomes more cleqar to me.

There are people for whom "riding a bike" is another way to use their car more. Even, as seen in this thread, even a justification for owning one of those creepy, murderous machines. I find that disturbing and perverse.

I think that partly helps explain my attitude towards spandex-cld riders, too. Seems to me spandex is usually a hallmark of serious, irrational addiction to car use (although I knos this is not always so).

would you guys just stop already.

Odd.

What part of this do you find so bothersome Timito? My wReTcHed spelling? Or what?

The few times I was in Seattle, there were people that commuted to work downtown by seaplane. I am not advocating that, but it might work in Pittsburgh.

The few times I was in Seattle, there were people that commuted to work downtown by seaplane

Hmmm...West End Overlook + hang glider + kayak + duct tape == yinzer seaplane?

@Mick - The original question wasn't why do you "need" to own a car. The question was "Why do you own a car?"

I own a car because I like it - which is also why I own a bike. I think turning the conversation to what we "need" is a sure-fire way to take it nowhere, because I'm skeptical that talking about what we "need" as we type into magical boxes that communicate through invisible waves of electromagnetic radiation, like unto gods, is unlikely to be a conversation that can be had in good faith. It also implicitly adopts the assumption that "need" is the best standard by which we should make our transportation choices, which is unwarranted.

@peterb.

Yeah. You're right. Real material needs are pretty basic. 2000 calories and some water.

"Every thing she sees is everything she needs."

I own a car because my pyramid-energy powered transporter has been down since about 1980, and I can't find parts. Cars are also extremely punk, and I need to maintain my hardcore image on the street.

He's new wave, not punk.

ALMKLM hear, hear.

Men say that they can live without a car with 0 or 1 kids in tow so why can't everyone who has 3 and weighs half what they do. Hmmm.

Whoops they = men.

You should ask Scott "mini-van" Gibson, He had a parade going.

I never stated that Gary Numan was punk. I said that cars were punk (not "The Cars". They suck). Gary Numan was synthpunk.

Cars are like Bitchin' Camaro punk. Don't even try to tell me that the Dead Milkmen aren't punk.

If this city were flat like Amsterdam I'd be set but towing uphill ain't happening even if my brakes were good for it on the way home.

"The more you drive, the less intelligent you are." Repo Man (1984)

"I met a guy who drives a truck

He can't tell time but he sure can drive."

--Julie Brown, "I Like 'Em Big and Stupid"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vEU_5lVjRFQ

http://www.likecool.com/Gear/Pic/Why/Why.jpg

You see how that guy is driving his car from the boat to the house. He could easily take a bike, it would take longer, sure. I wonder where he buys his gas.

I looked at it a little better. It appears maybe he's the lighthouse keeper so he's probably got a bunch of stuff he's gotta get over to the lighthouse.

What he needs is a dock on the other side of the island, a boom, a winch, & some pulleys to haul up all that beer stuff.

On 2nd thought, what I really want to know is WHY he owns a boat in the 1st place. He should be paddle-boating that beer to the island.

'course it might also be the furnace/fireplace in the lighthouse is shot, and he lives in the car.

Living so remotely, he should have an SUV. It could take hours for AAA to get to him if he got stuck.

I'm no expert, but that photo of the lighthouse looks a little dodgy to me. The shore area and the rocky abutment near the lighthouse look a little suspect to me.

To answer the question on the pic, i'd reply: photoshop.

Sh*t, someone reading my mind again:

@PeterB: "Apart from the convenience issue, I drive a car because it's fun and awesome and enjoyable to drive a car.

It's also fun and awesome and enjoyable to ride a bike.

I also have a motorcycle. Riding a motorcycle is fun! And awesome! And enjoyable!

If I could afford an airplane, I would probably have one: because I bet flying an airplane is fun and awesome and enjoyable."

Me (future goals): 1989 Eddy Merckx 7-Eleven team edition, 1961 Ferrari 250GT Lusso, 1983 BMW G/S 80, 1944 Stearman Kaydet (trainer).

Me (presently): 2005 Waterford RS2200 custom, 1985 Merckx Corsa SL (fixie), 1992 Merlin Mountain (restored, SS), 2008 Mini Cooper Clubman, 1964 Triumph Tr4 roadster, 2007 Buell XBs12TT, (unfortunately funds don't presently permit any personal aircraft!)

..as for "why;" - consider the endless possibilities for adventure/life experiences to be had throughout the entire planet. - this is what's called "living."

-wp

I much prefer the Triumph TR3b, with the drop windowsills. Classic.

Myself, 1969 Citroen DS21. The Goddess.

..still love your Bottechia!

Well, while we're at it, I have had a car fetish since childhood. I'd love to have a 1959 Edsel. Why? They were building them the day I was born. It has some utilitarian purpose; it's a nice shape for a car, huge amounts of space, huge trunk. In terms of design, the '59 is a bit more sensible than the '58.

That, and I'll take a Model T, too. But both of these are more for show than use.

Found some synthpunk featuring helmets and spandex.

That was awesome. I just heard today that Devo are coming to the north shore thing sometime. That would be fun.

The problem with a lot of bike advocacy threads is that the topic is actually car-bashing. And oftentimes the car-bashing is based on the belief that everyone in the world is 25 years young, 140 pounds, and healthy. After all, if everyone is the same, shouldn't we all think alike?

@thehistorian, I think I understand where you're coming from, in a general sense, but I'm pretty sure there are several people who post to the board regularly who are probably more than 140lbs, over 25, and car free. People are car free for a variety of reasons, including personal politics or economic conditions, among other things.

Its just as easy to over simplify those living without cars as those who do own and drive them. One of the things I like about this forum is that people from a fairly broad range of ages/genders/lifestyles/income levels/political viewpoints &tc post here. I suppose we do have basic internet literacy & bicycling in common. A few posters don't have home internet access.

I'm 47 with a two year old and don't own a car and have no plans for one in my life. I certainley understand some people can't ride bikes. I just don't think supporting a gigantic infrastructure to transport those people is practical. It seems to me people think of cars as an extension of themeselves and if it was removed from thier life they would be unable to survive.

To make a comparison, I'm reminded of John Muir meeting the elderly Emerson and being disappointed the poet didn't want to spend the night camping in the open. Muir didn't understand that sleeping indoors in a bed is, quite often, preferable to sleeping outdoors on the ground, and especially if you are elderly and have arthritis. If I recall correctly, Muir blathered on in his typical fashion and missed the point that Emerson might not have wanted to spend the night under the pines for whatever reason.

Sorry folks, but cars aren't evil. As for supporting a giant infrastructure, that's been pretty much the people's choice. There's a reason cars are everywhere. That doesn't mean bikes can't be everywhere too.

It may be the peoples choice to support a giant infrastructure but it's not mine, it's seems wasteful and ignornant.

Maybe explain to me why cars are everywhere.

As for supporting a giant infrastructure, that's been pretty much the people's choice.

In my opinion it would be more accurate to say its the initiative of a few elected representatives and the people who lobby them. For example, Eisenhower.

It's unfortunate that the early vision of "giant infrastructure" didn't make more provisions for cyclists and pedestrians. In broke cities like Pittsburgh it's been a tremendous effort to have bikes share the traffic safely and with minimal harassment.

I think Henry Ford had more to do with it than Eisenhower. If people didn't want cars, they wouldn't buy them.

And there are probably a lot of people in Detroit who want jobs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Moses#Triborough_Bridge

I might suggest Ford built cars not roads. I'm thinking the historian appears ignorant of much history.

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/7e1b30b48b/mad-men-on-trains

I think I've fed the troll enough. I should have read through the entire thread before plunging in.

Oh, and I want a helicopter now too. That sounds nearly as much fun as riding a bike. Or - SHUDDER - driving a car.

or you could have read an entire history book.

In my opinion it would be more accurate to say its the initiative of a few elected representatives and the people who lobby them. For example, Eisenhower.

Truth! If instead that network were passenger rail we would be in much better shape today.

There was, for a moment there, the possibility that this thread would take a turn toward something enlightening. I rather enjoyed the bits about Robert Moses and John Muir.

But fighting cars for the sake of fighting cars is about as pointless as fighting English house sparrows or Japanese knotweed. They're here, they've taken over, and there's bloody little we can do to make them go away. If you want something else to thrive in their place (eastern bluebirds, native grasses), you have to do some work.

Person by person, trip by trip, figure out why someone who drives feels such-and-such a trip has to be done by automobile, and learn whether it's education, preparation, clothing, weather, fear, whatever. Kinda like getting people to not smoke; haranguing them gets you and them nowhere. They'll quit smoking, and driving, when they're damn good and ready, and not a moment sooner.

Enough grousing, let's get to work.

Education is good, spouting misinformation confuses the issue. I know I hate cars. I don't expect others to join me but when it comes to history, unless you actually know what you're talking about, don't bother.

"There was, for a moment there, the possibility that this thread would take a turn toward something enlightening. I rather enjoyed the bits about Robert Moses and John Muir."

In Muir's account in "Our National Parks" he blames the folks traveling with the 68 year old Emerson with keeping the latter from camping. "But he was past his prime, and was now as a child in the hands of his affectionate but sadly civilized friends, who seemed as full of old-fashioned conformity as of bold intellectual independence."

@ rsprake, stu, tim, hist, whomever:

The analogy with knotweed and sparrows is inappropriate. They are organic, self replicating organisms, while the automobile is not (though my old VW Rabbit may have reproduced...) More apt would be comparing (automatic) firearms to cars.

Auto use is encouraged by the US Gov. through tax breaks to the producers of fuel. Otherwise, our petrol prices would be on par with Europe.

Train use is now being championed, as eventually our fuel prices will be comparable to those in Europe. The US can't afford to keep the highways lubed.

www.madfasttrains.com

Helicopters, fighter jets, aircraft carrier, I've piloted them all and more. Eventually the novelty wears off and it's just a ride. Prefer bikes, walking, canoes, kayaks, blimps and balloons: more intimate, but that's me.

"Fun" or "awesome" seems a rather solipsistic approach to public policy to me, but how self-centered is that?

There is no argument that America is addicted to oil. I think anyone can see that is not sustainable. Withdrawal's a bitch.

Best to maintain a sense of humour?

I'm pretty sure Henry Ford was uninvolved with this debacle: http://www.trainweb.org/mts/ctc/ctc06.html

I love trains. However, to be devil's advocate, imagine a future in which a large portion of the population is able to be coaxed out of their cars and onto rail, however the rails are controlled by one or two large corporations, much like the phone services now. Anybody see a horror story coming there? We the people continue to allow politicians to piss away our control of our lives at the altar of "deregulation" and the free market. From the trainweb article above, the only reason San Fransisco still has a streetcar system is because it was owned by the city and GM couldn't take it over. Be vigilant.

I drove today instead of biking, kind of sucked, but I am now able to leave for work at the same time, drive to the mall for a haircut and get home in time for the pens game without missing anything. I will also have time to swing by Giant Eagle and make a big haul. If I rode today, I would have to have gone in earlier so I could make it to Ross Park in time for my haircut, figure out where to leave my bicycle at the mall, then make it to Giant Eagle, figure out what I can and can't get, then ride home hopefully in time for the game. DVR changes some of this, but you can't deny that owning a car makes this assloads easier.

That being said, I only drove 30 miles last week, pretty good, eh?

"Ford was, however, more influential than any other single person in changing the paradigm of the automobile from a very expensive, heavy, hand-built toy for rich people into a lightweight, reliable, affordable, mass-produced mode of transportation for working-class people."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford#On_the_idea_that_he_invented_the_automobile

"Over the next 19 years, Ford would build 15,000,000 automobiles with the Model "T" engine, the longest run of any single model apart from the Volkswagen Beetle. From 1908-1927, the Model T would endure with little change in its design. Henry Ford had succeeded in his quest to build a car for the masses."

http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/showroom/1908/model.t.html

Another pre-Ike person, PA's Gifford Pinchot:

"Governor Pinchot's work camps built 20,000 miles of paved roads for "taking the farmer out of the mud." These paved country roads made it easier for farmers to get from the farm to the market."

http://www.dcnr.state.pa.us/stateparks/history/historypinchot.aspx

Those farmers weren't using bikes to bring produce to market.

This is somewhat related to the 'internal combustion engine is evil' meme of this thread:

http://www.thedaily.com/page/2011/04/12/041211-opinions-column-fungwah-salam-1-2/

"It seems to me people think of cars as an extension of themselves and if it was removed from their life they would be unable to survive."

To me, this is the debate in a nutshell.

I do own a car, but do not think of it as "an extension of myself" but rather a conscious choice to own a tool with limited real value for local transportation. If more people recognized that having and using a car is a huge choice with far reaching ramifications on their life, bank account, and the planet, it would certainly be an improvement.

Unfortunately I feel most people are rather unconcious about a lot of their choices.

For my family, it is less that I have a car, and more that my house has a car. Three drivers, four people with someplace to go. One person does not have it all the time. One person may deliver one person to a bus stop (Northway Mall is 1.4 miles away), pick up a second who's getting off a bus, take him/her home, then drive self to his/her activity. Like the screwdriver on the rack on the basement wall, to be available when needed but put back when done, the car is a tool, a necessity for the family as a whole. My one neighbor's solution is to have one car for each person. We do not each need a power drill. That distinction, I think, is essential to this discussion.

But Stu, I live alone and I own multiple drills, saws, hammers....

vises...

vices...

(Oops, wrong forum)

@orionz06

Ross park mall has a bike rack at the north entrance. Toaster bike rack, but bike rack none the less

Cool, that still does not negate the time factor, but it does show that 100% of my day could have been biked.

I will add that as the day goes on, I am missing the opportunity to ride on a nice sunny day when it is not too hot.

orionz06 - many people dislike automobiles precisely _because_ automobiles enable shopping malls. So using shopping malls to explain your car use is a little circular.

I didn't bother to read the big fight here so I am going to respond honestly to the original question posed by timoto.

About ten years ago, I pulled an old volvo out of a field and it has been sitting in a warehouse ever since. This past few months I have had a really great time bonding (and bondo-ing) with my father while restoring the old girl back to a reasonable state.

The experience was completely cathartic and relaxing as well as allowing me to flex areas of my brain that haven't been tickled in some time.

I was born into a family of antique car enthusiasts. It's in my blood. I love the feeling of sitting behind the wheel of an ancient machine that I fixed up myself and get to tinker with constantly.

The same applies to bicycles as well for the record.

There are certainly a few times that driving is a complete fiscal necessity for me and times when I drive for fun and enjoy the fruits of my labors.

Could I get along without it? Sure, but it would be an imposition on the other people in my life and I choose not to ask them for use of their cars when I need one.

Cars are one of the many things I love but choose to use sparingly. See bluefin tuna, drugz, beef, airplanes etc.

It's not as if I am a mindless consumer drone dutifully filling the fuel tank twice a week. I use a car very sparingly in general and am acutely aware of the impact and implications of doing so.

I'm also a big fan of your Volvo, and 69 Pontiac Bonnevilles and 71 Impala wagons, Cutlass Sumpremes, pretty much any pre 75 GM with a V8. No Fords, thank you. I hate that man.

I'm really just frustrated with the lack of common sense in current urban planing, go by the new Greyhound station, you'd never guess there business depended on pedestrians. Pretty much same thing at Amrtrak and frankly their morons for not having roll on service, at least on the DC-Pgh route. The biggest industry in America is tourism, what's one of Amtraks biggest revenues, tourists. That kinda shit just baffles me.

@Lyle, I can see what you are saying to a degree, but I fail to see the issue with a mall. One location with many different stores where one can do a one stop shop for multiple needs. Seems less wasteful to me, car or not.

I enjoy the independence a car gives me, while enjoying the fact that I can be car free for the better part of a week at a time.

there is a lot to be said of the massive ecological damage that runoff from malls and plazas generate. See: Millvale under 20 ft. of water

Not really sure how you get around having a bunch of centrally located stores... What are the anti-mall people proposing instead?

What are the anti-mall people proposing instead?

Central Business Districts.

Ross Park Mall has garnered scorn for some time for its treatment of anyone who does not arrive in an automobile. Ditto the other two Simon Properties malls, Century III and South Hills Village. Bus stops were relocated from front entrances to the far side of the ring roads. A Ross Park Mall sign clearly posted by its northern main entrance says "Automotive Traffic Only". And the bike rack at RPM that someone mentioned is a fairly recent installation, as there were discussions as recently as Summer 2009 on this board about the absence of same.

As far back as 1996 I am on record as saying that if I cannot (easily) get to the store by bus (or bike), then I will not patronize the store even if I have the car. I've gone years at a time without setting foot in RPM.

I suppose that idea would be great if downtown had more than it does. I suppose I am just an odd person for thinking that a mall is in fact convenient considering how everything is in one location, one parking spot, and one trip.

I like to able to leave my house and go shopping without having to spend money on a bus or car. Arriving places by walking, enjoying the sights and the pace of it. I choose to live where I can do so, unfortunately many are unable to make this choice so for them huge expensive infrastructures are funded and built, parking is required by zoning laws. The human scale is then destroyed and people are left to reason that cars make sense. I see people spending money to sit in traffic and remain unconvinced.

CBDs and business districts in general. West View, Millvale and Bellevue in the northern 'burbs, and Lawrenceville, Squirrel Hill and the Strip in the city, are well defined and in some cases thriving.

Malls and mall-like big-box developments are entirely dependent on cars and suck the life out of CBDs and BDs. West View took a hit when the Target opened just off I-279 at Camp Horne Road. This in turn is the result of bad land-use policy which expects all transportation to be done by private cars.

And this, I think, was timito's original point when he started this thread. Why cars at all? You can live in West View and not need a car. It's a walkable town, including to a grocery store, and has plenty of transit service.

Malls are good places to steal cars, and you can rob people in the parking lot too, no one is really paying much attention to what's going on outside thier auto nor do they seem to care.

Industrialism has created the most degraded urban environments ever seen, Americans abandoned their public spaces and went in search of Eden. They called it suburbia. The abandonment of communities led to the segregation by income that we know today, a quintessential US phenomenon. Unfortunately, our suburbs were created without planning, without public spaces, without a decent sense of aesthetics: they were simply conduits for automobiles and achieved social isolation. observe the relationship between the poorly designed habitat we live in and the social problems (i.e the highest violent crime rate in the developed world) which afflict our society, and demonstrates a tight connection.

Kunstler chronicles the manipulative influences of the auto industry in making sure public transportation never became viable in the US, and of the house building sector, which was allowed to destroy the environment with its disposable little ranches and a zoning law that chewed up public space at unprecedented rates. The growth of the building industry is still predicated on destroying local communities. Kunstler has plenty of detailed examples to illustrate these claims.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Geography_of_Nowhere

I don't feel like becoming dependent on some bus that I cannot control. Owning vehicles for different purposes allows me to have near total control over my life. Relying on a bus does not, in fact it becomes a huge waste of time should I decide to utilize the bus, but if I ever need to, I have chosen a home location that allows both me and my fiancee an efficient car, bike, and about as good as we can get bus route into town. But the big thing is, when the bus stops when the union decides they need more money, we do not.

A big part of the appeal of my town is the availability of shops, restaurants, groceries, markets, professional services, etc. within walking distance. That was a big part of our choice to live here.

I'm able to depend completely and entirely on myself for transportation, I would contend you do not have the same control with an auto. The term efficent car is an oxymoron, there is no such thing, there are some cars that use less gas, yes, but they are not efficent, they are wasteful, they may appear efficent to the uninformed but require vast infrastructure to use, this has been discussed at length but as usual it's just not part of the average auto owners equation when considering how efficent thier car is. The thing that I find fascinating is how much people will spend on something that sits idle about

95% of the time.

At some point you are gonna rely on a motor vehicle, even if it is the clunk truck that delivers new tires for your bike. I don't see this Utopia where we have no roads as practical.

I could have predicted, implicating me in complicity because I have bike tires that took a ride on a truck. I do not use a motor vehicle for personal transportation, I do not rely on autos. I don't control how products get to market. I control my life that's all I can do, next it will be how I should live in a cave.

"Efficiency" is a relative term, not an absolute. It requires comparison and context to have any meaning.

And not one person here depends solely on themselves for transportation. Others built the infrastructure (like sidewalks and roads) that we walk and ride upon; others built the accessories (like shoes and bikes) that we use to make travel more efficient. As a thought experiment, try to imagine how you would travel between any two places in the city, without making use of something produced and maintained by others. Interdependency is an inherent part of urban living: many people are no more conscious of it than fish are of water, for much the same reasons...

Personally, I find it fascinating to see how hard people will try to pretend that they are free and independent of the society in which they exist, as if the ability to have so many conveniences clustered in close proximity is a natural thing.

"At some point you are gonna rely on a motor vehicle, even if it is the clunk truck that delivers new tires for your bike. I don't see this Utopia where we have no roads as practical."

Not to mention the ambulance that takes him to the hospital if, God forbid, he's in an accident. I'm pretty sure that's not a pedicab....

No, you are controlling as much as you can in a means that satisfies you. For me, the cargo capacity of a bike and often times the travel time of a bike is limiting. A car is a viable solution in this case.

Back to the mall, to me, everything in one location is appealing. Given the cargo limitations of a bike, a vehicle makes sense and the mall is no longer an issue.

As a homeowner, a vehicle makes sense. As a responsible pet owner, a vehicle makes sense.

Reddan,

Very well put.

All this being said, remember that most of us here are all trying to do the same thing, rely on ourselves as much as possible for transportation, fitness, or just plain enjoying the ride.

"At some point you are gonna rely on a motor vehicle, even if it is the clunk truck that delivers new tires for your bike. I don't see this Utopia where we have no roads as practical."

Not to mention the ambulance that takes him to the hospital if, God forbid, he's in an accident. I'm pretty sure that's not a pedicab....

yep, I think the guy who sells me pot drives a car too, so there's that, though I do ride my bike to his house.

I realize I'm a part of a carcentric culture. I like America. I ride my bike on roads, though they're much bigger then I need and filled with pot holes that I'm pretty sure aren't caused by my bicycle. Operating a personal auto to do what I need makes no sense to me and I actually think they're unneccasary and wasteful and part of a much larger problem. problems for which I have no solution. But I don't have to own one, or in fact ever get in one. To try and alleviate your guilt by implying my underlying compicity is pathetic and typical of ignorance.

yep, I think the guy who sells me pot drives a car too, so there's that, though I do ride my bike to his house

I hope you're supporting a local farmer, rather than subsidizing Big Weed.

"yep, I think the guy who sells me pot drives a car too, so there's that, though I do ride my bike to his house."

He doesn't deliver it to the bridge you live under?

He probably would but I won't divulge the location, wait, how did you know it was a bridge?

If it helps you to justify your sense of entitlement to poke fun at the outsider, have at it.

I figure considering how much I use my cell phone and the fact they're launched on rocketships. I'm at least due a ride on one. right?

When I break down and go to a shopping mall I am usually annoyed that I had to do it.

it's the union's fault you need a car? wow - you win the thread. no wonder you can't imagine shopping anywhere other than a mall.

"When I break down and go to a shopping mall I am usually annoyed that I had to do it." See, I'm annoyed too, that's why I'm so annoyed.

"I figure considering how much I use my cell phone and the fact they're launched on rocketships. I'm at least due a ride on one. right?"

Only if you are going back to your home planet.

@Salty: That was the first thing that popped in my head that would cause public trans to shut down or become limited. But like many things we rely on, we are never too far from losing it or having it priced out of our reach. My independence from it comes in the form of a car AND bike.

I frequent many places other than a mall, and in fact as much local stuff as I can, but there are just some things that cannot be had without the blisters on our landscape known as a mall.

Come to think of it, with the exception of my trip last night, my most recent purchases have been at Pro Bikes, REI, and a few places on Carson Street... I either walked or biked, or a combo of the two.

"If it helps you to justify your sense of entitlement to poke fun at the outsider, have at it."

I live 300 some miles from The Point. Also, I'm a Tea Party member who rides bikes. If that doesn't make me the ultimate outsider, I don't know what does.

Reinhold Neibuhr;

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

and wisdom to know the difference.

Just throwing that out.

@Edmonds: Funny, I was just thinking about having a stiff drink.

@ Edmunds

God grant me the serenity

to accept the things I cannot change;

courage to change the things I can;

You mean it's not "Give me the wisdom to hide the bodies of the people I killed because they pissed me off..." ? ? ? ?

I've been misled.

"You mean it's not "Give me the wisdom to hide the bodies of the people I killed because they pissed me off..." ? ? ? ? I've been misled. "

See, and there's yet another use for an automobile.....

quizbot, your picture got me in trouble in my meeting. that's too funny.

Timito, I think, and I say this from a place of intended respect, that the disconnect in communication (independent from some of the back and forth on here which is not intended or received as productive conversation), is in the perceived consequences of the choice you asked about.

Nobody on here, no matter how much they love their cars, intends for their choice to directly and personally harm you or your daughter. Their choices, when taken individually (as they are made, by individuals), would not - if only one person owned and loved driving even the most gas guzzling car, you and your daughter may never even notice. It's the mass result of all these individual choices combined that cause you (and a lot of other people, even car owners) the grief that frustrates at best, kills at worst. It is the collective that is causing the problems, by living as a series of independent individuals. Others have pointed out on all sides of the argument - we're not independent, no matter how much we strive to be.

I have no answers or excuses or solutions to this disconnect. I think trying to go backwards and dissect/assign blame for our current car-centric infrastructure is only as useful as learning from history ever is - as a tool for acting in the present to improve the future. Other than that, I can only try to continue to personally move in what I believe to be a positive direction.

There's been enough good discussion on here, that I'm glad you asked the question, and others answered it. I wish more people would discuss the question and their personal answers honestly. So little in our society prompts anybody to ask "why", we're constantly innundated with messages providing us with answers that don't serve us (advertising).

Today I was hit by cars, not once but twice, both times pushing my bike through a marked pedestrian crosswalk, obeying the law, following the rules. The first women tried blaming me,she was really mad because the metal I was transporting to the recycler scratched her car while she was cutting me off and striking the front of my bike, she was yelling about calling the police and damages. The crossing guard witnessed the whole thing. I suggested she call the police and gave her my number so they could call me if they wanted to discuss the incident. The second women knocked me over, she felt really bad, wasn't her fault really because she didn't see me, I pointed out she wasn't looking. She was truly concerned so I didn't give her a hard time, just picked up my bike and dusted myself off. Yeah maybe I'd love cars if people knew how to operate them safely, they don't.,

I'm glad you're not badly hurt.

Did you report the incidents to the police?

I wasn't hurt and don't have time to waste waiting for police to show up and do nothing. It was probably my fault anyways because they didn't see me.

Dude...if you were hit by a car, you should get the cops there and get the driver's insurance info. Even if no charges are pressed, you've got a fighting chance to get your medical bills covered, if you find later that you are hurt. Especially if you've got a witness, ya know?

Reporting accidents also helps get city funds directed toward preventing them (via improved pedestrian infrastructure, assigning more police, etc.)

By skipping a call to the police, you're also showing drivers that their inattention is consequence-free.

I know, and had I been hurt or my bicycle damaged I would have but I can't do it just because I'm mad. The one lady was truly sorry and the other has to be an idiot her whole life, so that seems punishment enough.

What do you suppose the police would do, show right up, write a ticket, my experience indicate neither of these would take place and they would most likely show up annoyed maybe an hour or two later and ask what the call was for, no ones hurt no damages, why'd you call.

know, and had I been hurt or my bicycle damaged I would have but I can't do it just because I'm mad

Do it because it could be someone else next time, then. The next victim of those ladies' carelessness may not just suffer a bump.

Request an ambulance, to get checked out. Police have to file a report, and driver's insurance should cover the cost of the eval. Then, driver's premiums go up, and they suffer actual financial punishment even if the police do nothing.

Plus, if the driver leaves before the police show up, it's hit and run.

You're right and if I thought the police would have shown up in a reasonable amount of time. I would have. I just didn't have two hours to spend waiting.

Hit by 2 cars in one day while walking? Either you're extremely cursed for this current incarnation or maybe it's time to lay off the pot.

Maybe the drivers were high, I wasn't, gotta be my fault somehow though, right.

I'm not sure if I was high how that would cause someone to break the law and hit me with their car but then again there's lot's I don't understand.

If I was really hit by a car, I would've waited around for the cops to show up. Instead, I'll make up some shit and fake rage on the internet.

Now I'm making stuff up, I'm sure I could come up with a better story then that, not sure where I expressed rage, the whole thing was laughable, I didn't even raise my voice to the drivers. Some community here.

@ Quizbot -

I've been hit by cars 5 times in my life -and I've never waited around for the police. Granted, 4 of those times I was young and dumb and angry all the time, but still...

3 of them were at stop signs and near-stop speeds. The other two, it's really astonishing I wasn't hurt.

Only one was while riding.

Report everything. I've waited for an hour for a cop to show up after getting run off the road... nothing comes out of it but there is a report to follow up on if you're seriously pissed & want to follow up. Otherwise why bitch & moan if you're not following through? Boo hoo, cry on my blog.

Also... I'm an individual, not a community. My views are distinct.

Glad you + your bike are ok timito.

"It was probably my fault anyways because they didn't see me."

You were walking a bicycle with scrap metal on it through a crosswalk in daylight in a city and got hit by cars twice?

What are these particular intersections so I know to avoid them when I move to the area. I see Bike Pittsburgh has a map on which bike accidents are tracked. Have you reported them to Bike PGH, as opposed to posting about them in this thread?

The metal was on my bike at the first incident, 40th and Penn. It had been removed in time for the second incident at 24th and Smallman. And Quizbot you are indeed part of the community here, maybe you want to consult your dictionary so you can understand words better.

Is it really neccasry do make stuff up Quizbot, I didn't bitch and moan, nor did I rage. I was merely relating an incident. You must of had a hell of a time with reading comprhension, It's tough to actually read and understand something, I guess.

But you weren't riding? You were a pedestrian in a crosswalk? And the crossing guard at 40th and Penn witnessed a car strike a pedestrian and didn't call the police himself? Isn't that part of their job? (OK, I might be a naif, but still....)

BTW, if it's not coming across, I'm glad you are OK and the bike undamaged.

No comprende "must of". Try "must have".

Regardless of that, your most recent incident was pedestrian in nature. I don't see how it has anything to do with riding a bicycle. Am I missing something?

If you're not part of the community, why police the board for grammatical errors. I assumed this board was for engaging in dialog not for proving linguistic superiority.

If you're advising me to consult a dictionary, grammatical errors are fair game.

I love the smell of napalm in the morning.

Has Godwin's Law been invoked yet?

Not yet. Steering the thread toward a helmet discussion will also suffice.

"Steering the thread toward a helmet discussion will also suffice."

There are some places even I won't go.

"Only Nazis advocate mandatory helmet laws."

Might be time to invest in a walking helmet.

To ensure safety, one should protect all parts of the body, not just the head. So that would require padding for the body, optimally reinforced with a steel frame (for its strength). To enable us to have quick access in and out, it needs to have a hatch opening, preferably with hinges. It needs protection from the weather to avoid rusting (and loss of strength), so should be covered, maybe with an enamel coated skin of some kind. When we're walking with friends or family, we don't want to be all seperated, so it should be big enough to share with others. The covered, hatched, spacious steel frame would be too heavy for us to carry, so it should have its own wheels, and ideally some kind of propulsion and braking system to help us get it up and down hills. Since it's spacious and has it's own propulsion system, we need to make sure we don't bounce around too much inside, so we'd need a restraint system for each person.

Oh, wait, that's a car. What a slippery sloap!

@reddan - well played, sir.

And, its well known Hitler was a homosexual anyway...

I'm waiting for someone to mention Vikings.

Oops.

"What a slippery sloap (sic)!"

Slope. Just picking up grammar cop duties while Quizbot is asleep. Now back to trying to read a history book.

tx historian, I think I read on here too much, or sloaps posts often enough to confuse my sleep deprived brain.

It's cars, ejwme. They are evil and causing your sleep deprivation. Or so I'm told.....