Ebikes will get you a good chunk of the way there in a lot of places. Other than that, if you live in a city then vote like hell and go to city council meeting as often as possible to demand bike lanes. Local voting actually matters and can change (some) things.
If you live in the country… Eh… Start sabotaging gas stations I guess? I don’t even know where to begin with a constructive answer. Rural folks are basically forced in to cars and there isn’t much to do about it without massive changes. In the Netherlands even small towns get train stations, but in the US and Canada and even a lot of Europe rural folks are just screwed.
At least here in Illinois rural towns have okay train access and can easily accommodate bike infrastructure. Many rural towns with a university have decent bike networks already. It’s North American suburbs that are more hopelessly designed around private vehicles.
I lived in rural California and Oregon for a while and there was just nothing. You had a car or you couldn’t live. Wanna get groceries? Drive, because it’s too far to bike and even if you did you’d probably get killed by a car. Wanna get your mail? Drive to the post office. Don’t bike because you’ll get hit by a semi. Wanna go see a movie in a theatre? Yeah, drive for at least half an hour to get to the closest one. But both of the towns I spent the most time in burned to the ground in wildfires so… Yeah…
But it’s good to hear not all of the US is hopeless and some of it is almost functional. I hope at least some parts survive, because there’s a whole lot that just can’t exist without cars and cars can’t exist forever.
Exact same here. The amount of money cars cost is fucking ridiculous. I would pay more and wait longer to not have to deal with the bullshit of owning a car, but I can’t even do that because American public transit is worse than Mordor.
Literally same. My entire life has been striving to build a life where I don’t need a car. (mainly out of frustration with NJ’s toxic surcharge program).
Sadly, no one in NY was hiring and my dumbass moved to Austin.
Now my drive is to get back to NY where there actually is a hope of using public transit.
I think the key is “have to”. I’m living in the sticks and I’m working from home. Sometimes I’ll take the car and drive up into the mountains with my dog and go for a hike wherever we end up. I’ll take the car shopping. But if it’s broken or needs some maintenance, well, then we’ll walk near the house and I’ll ride my cargo bike along the paved path down the valley, 15km to the shop. And I’ll do maintenance and repairs on my own schedule. I think that’s a bit of a sweet spot. Have it as a tool or something to that my radius of movement, but I’m not dependent on it.
I’m 31 and if I could never drive a fucking car again that’d be great 👍
what about a regular car?
Ebikes will get you a good chunk of the way there in a lot of places. Other than that, if you live in a city then vote like hell and go to city council meeting as often as possible to demand bike lanes. Local voting actually matters and can change (some) things.
If you live in the country… Eh… Start sabotaging gas stations I guess? I don’t even know where to begin with a constructive answer. Rural folks are basically forced in to cars and there isn’t much to do about it without massive changes. In the Netherlands even small towns get train stations, but in the US and Canada and even a lot of Europe rural folks are just screwed.
At least here in Illinois rural towns have okay train access and can easily accommodate bike infrastructure. Many rural towns with a university have decent bike networks already. It’s North American suburbs that are more hopelessly designed around private vehicles.
I lived in rural California and Oregon for a while and there was just nothing. You had a car or you couldn’t live. Wanna get groceries? Drive, because it’s too far to bike and even if you did you’d probably get killed by a car. Wanna get your mail? Drive to the post office. Don’t bike because you’ll get hit by a semi. Wanna go see a movie in a theatre? Yeah, drive for at least half an hour to get to the closest one. But both of the towns I spent the most time in burned to the ground in wildfires so… Yeah…
But it’s good to hear not all of the US is hopeless and some of it is almost functional. I hope at least some parts survive, because there’s a whole lot that just can’t exist without cars and cars can’t exist forever.
Exact same here. The amount of money cars cost is fucking ridiculous. I would pay more and wait longer to not have to deal with the bullshit of owning a car, but I can’t even do that because American public transit is worse than Mordor.
Literally same. My entire life has been striving to build a life where I don’t need a car. (mainly out of frustration with NJ’s toxic surcharge program).
Sadly, no one in NY was hiring and my dumbass moved to Austin. Now my drive is to get back to NY where there actually is a hope of using public transit.
I think the key is “have to”. I’m living in the sticks and I’m working from home. Sometimes I’ll take the car and drive up into the mountains with my dog and go for a hike wherever we end up. I’ll take the car shopping. But if it’s broken or needs some maintenance, well, then we’ll walk near the house and I’ll ride my cargo bike along the paved path down the valley, 15km to the shop. And I’ll do maintenance and repairs on my own schedule. I think that’s a bit of a sweet spot. Have it as a tool or something to that my radius of movement, but I’m not dependent on it.