When we lived in Rochester, New York, we had one car and could go for days without using it. We rode our bicycles to work; we walked to the grocery store, the bank, the post office, the doctor, and to church. Rochester's public transportation was (and probably still is) minimal, but its buses did get us downtown, and to the dentist, and a few other places we wanted to go.
I don't claim any particular righteousness for these ecologically sound actions, as much of my motivation came from the driving phobia I had at the time (that's another story); what matters is that they were possible, even convenient.Then we moved to Florida, to a semi-suburban housing development with over 900 homes, and suddenly nothing was convenient. Soon we had not one but two cars, and everything but a visit to the near neighbors required buckling ourselves in and driving away. I lamented the lack of "natural exercise"; with a one-story house and no longer relying on my feet for transportation. most of the exercise that was just a normal part of life disappeared.
Not that this season of life was all bad; all that driving probably did a lot to help me conquer my phobia. But lately I've been RETHINKING, and have discovered that I can make a few delightful changes, right where I am. There were two major catalysts in the process: One was our trip to visit Janet in Japan, where we could see and experience walking and biking distances for which, back home, we would have jumped into the car. The other was making the decision that, at my stage of life, it is critical to my health to get much more exercise than I have been, even if it means sacrificing other worthwhile projects in order to make the time. (Actually, exercise is critical at every stage of life, but it's much harder to accomplish when you have a young family to care for.)
I began making a point of walking and/or biking every day, a procedure which generally took about an hour and a half. At first I didn't go anywhere in particular, just around certain blocks in the neighborhood, or along the bike trail that conveniently cuts through our subdivision. At some point a light dawned, however, and my vision of what was within walking or biking distance suddenly expanded greatly. As long as I was devoting 1.5 hours/day to exercise, there was suddenly little incentive to drive somewhere if I could make the round trip on foot or bike in less than that time.
What is now within easy reach? Several grocery stores, two health food stores, some pharmacies, our favorite Vietnamese/Japanese restaurant (and many others), the pool store, the library, Home Depot, Target, Wal-Mart, Sports Authority, half a dozen parks, the post office, our dentist, many smaller stores and a large mall. I've already written about taking the car in for service and biking home; one way, that ride was only 15 minutes longer than my 90-minute window.
I still need the car, sometimes even for short distances. I haven't figured out how to carry five gallons of chlorine, or a 4x8 sheet of plywood, or even a pizza on my back. My trips to the grocery store must be more frequent, because I can't carry as much as the car's trunk can. But what do the extra trips matter if I would be spending the time exercising, anyway?
My newfound freedom is less accessible to those who have small children, large families, or live where to bike or walk to work would have them arriving drenched with sweat. But it's worth RETHINKING. Employers are paying much more attention these days to employees' health, promoting fitness and offering incentives for smokers to quit. How about adding bicycle racks to the employee parking and providing shower and changing facilities? (Bike racks are ubiquitous in Japan, but here I usually have to appropriate a fence or signpost.) If more attention were paid by city planners to the safety of bicyclists, whole families might cycle to the grocery store. (Then those extra mouths to feed could help bring home their own bacon!)
What chiefly needs RETHINKING, perhaps, is the association in many people's minds between non-automotive transportation and poverty, or even criminality. ("There's a man riding his bike for transportation rather than sport; he must have had his driver's license suspended.") I'm not certain I agree with those who pray for lower gas prices; perhaps our society needs this incentive to RETHINK how we get from here to there.
