Reducing Car Dependence (@ content in posts)

[aurora]

Apr 24, 2019 16:13:46 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

...
We also compost for our garden and use cardboard to keep down weeds. We only use water on it, no pesticides. We use exactly 0 treatments on our lawn and it looks fine. I think our yard is pretty sustainable. 

Can you tell me more about this cardboard for wed prevention? Are you using it as a physical barrier on the soil? How far do you keep it from your veggies? How often do you replace it?

[Gato]

Apr 24, 2019 11:04:50 GMT -5 minzy said:

Apr 24, 2019 8:47:51 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

Also as someone who is car dependent but who rarely flies (i have been on a plane once since 2004), we should engage in discussions about that too

www.nytimes.com/2017/07/27/climate/airplane-pollution-global-warming.html

I wonder when the tide will turn on flying, too. Right now it seems everyone loves to travel and proudly chronicles trips taken, but at some point, I think that will change. I used to love to travel, and road trips and flights were a cornerstone of my teens and twenties (and part of how I view the world as I do, and also why I want to protect it), but now I feel pretty strong guilt about it. I’ve already bought carbon offsets for the next flight I plan to take but it’s not really enough.

I think the tide will turn.  In our own case, we were surprised and upset enough about the impacts of flying that we made changes.  We take the bus from Maine to NYC now instead of flying.  Actually, since it's a 5 minute cab ride to the bus station, and you can hop on 10 minutes before departure, and the ride is 6 hours to the center of Manhattan, we spend the same amount of time, and save a whole lot of money, by taking the bus.  We've curtailed our vacation travel by plane to one trip a year.

[2curlydogs]

Apr 24, 2019 20:35:45 GMT -5 aurora said:

Apr 24, 2019 16:13:46 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

...
We also compost for our garden and use cardboard to keep down weeds. We only use water on it, no pesticides. We use exactly 0 treatments on our lawn and it looks fine. I think our yard is pretty sustainable. 

Can you tell me more about this cardboard for wed prevention? Are you using it as a physical barrier on the soil? How far do you keep it from your veggies? How often do you replace it?

Ohh! I volunteer as tribute!

I use cardboard/paper in a number of ways. We use it under wood mulch in planting beds. Last year I did a control between shredded paper and paper bags from the grocery store for between our raised beds - paper bags won, overall, but weeds popped up at the margins that were tough to get out. This year I'm going to do grocery bags with shredded paper at the edges to help control that.

Shredded paper is also effective as a general mulch if you put it down, wet it, put down another layer, etc. Etc. I'll do this, then put some cedar mulch over it. It helps cut the cost of what we spend on mulch each year.

I don't use printed paper in my raised beds though. For that I rely on intensive planting and combos like the three sisters.

[msmerymac]

Apr 24, 2019 20:35:45 GMT -5 aurora said:

Apr 24, 2019 16:13:46 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

...
We also compost for our garden and use cardboard to keep down weeds. We only use water on it, no pesticides. We use exactly 0 treatments on our lawn and it looks fine. I think our yard is pretty sustainable. 

Can you tell me more about this cardboard for wed prevention? Are you using it as a physical barrier on the soil? How far do you keep it from your veggies? How often do you replace it?

Yes, as a physical barrier. We do it twice per year, when we plant and then when we rip out the garden to keep stuff down over the winter until we get around to planting again. For reference, I think I'm zone 5? We just put our plants in last weekend and will likely clear them out late October/early November.

We leave probably 6 inches in all directions around the plants. I plant tomatoes, tomatillos, cucumbers, a variety of peppers, lettuce and herbs.

We do some composted dirt (which we also do in the holes where we plant) and soil over it, which has weed potential, but it cuts down the frequency of weeding noticeably. Its the same concept as that weed fabric you can buy.

(Obviously we just take off any tape/plastic bits and only use boxes printed with regular ink, nothing with a vinyl-y sheet to it, and the cardboard just biodegrades.)

[minzy]

Apr 24, 2019 20:10:59 GMT -5 mssaint said:

Apr 24, 2019 12:19:10 GMT -5 wawa said:

Yes! Get involved in your local planning process. In every jurisdiction I've worked in the local community has a lot more power than you'd think for at least incremental change, and if you can be one of the few voices advocating FOR more housing near transit and more buses you'll make a difference. Promise. Even if it's slow and feels like nothing at first.

Yes! Activists in my town just got speed limits dropped on a dangerous-to-pedestrians stretch of road.

@@
I agree with this, too. I’ve realized aside from voting I can’t do a whole heck of a lot on climate change on a big scale because I am just one of 7.7 billion people and I only have two hands. But what I CAN do is influence my community, and I’ve been raising hell as much as I can lately and will continue to do so. This shit is just too important. In the last few months even, through a myriad of different angles, I’ve emailed and/or talked about climate issues to our school board, principal, PTA leadership, classroom teacher, our HOA board, other parents, people in the neighborhood, multiple local sustainability leaders, the farmers’ market coordinators, places where I volunteer, my friends, family, et al. I am at least asking the questions and making comments to make people think, and I am seeing movement on some of this stuff, and that gives me hope. We all need to wake the hell up, and soon.

[Jalapeñomel]

@@@
We carpool with friends.

On the way home, we pick up each other’s children, so we don’t have to go out in the car again.

We walk to basketball, tennis, soccer, etc.

DH takes a Lyft to the train station on the days he goes.

Kid takes the bus.

We’ve had one or no car for 15+ years, although we inherited a 12 year old car today. Not sure when we will use it, but we plan on staying with the same routine for now.

We go grocery shopping when we are out instead of taking extra trips from home.

[sillygoosegirl]

Apr 24, 2019 20:35:45 GMT -5 aurora said:

Apr 24, 2019 16:13:46 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

...
We also compost for our garden and use cardboard to keep down weeds. We only use water on it, no pesticides. We use exactly 0 treatments on our lawn and it looks fine. I think our yard is pretty sustainable. 

Can you tell me more about this cardboard for wed prevention? Are you using it as a physical barrier on the soil? How far do you keep it from your veggies? How often do you replace it?

After clearing most of the big weeds, I cover any area where no desirable plants are, ripping holes or slits in the cardboard to go around the desirable plants. Then pile whatever wood chips, grass clippings, or other mulch on top. You can also use paper grocery bags, newspaper, etc, just don't use anything glossy. It's an especially good use for things like pizza boxes, which are too dirty to recycle, but are still totally fine for composting. When I was a kid we mostly used 2-3 layers of newspaper in the same way (because back then we got the newspaper, but not a million cardboard boxes all the time). This dramatically cuts down on weeds. I'd estimate the cardboard lasts around a year before decomposing. (Obviously, don't mulch with your lawn grass if you use herbicides, or if it's gone to seed by the time you cut it.)

I was even happy to discover this spring, after cardboarding/mulching a bed that had been taken over by Monsanto lawn grass last fall, that the cardboard kept down the grass and most other weeds, but my onions and garlic still managed to break through the cardboard. I'd just figuring the onions and garlic would be a total loss on account of it being too hard to kill the grass without killing the desirables too.

[aurora]

Thanks to the answers on cardboard! I had never heard is using it like that but have far more boxes than newspaper now so all excited about the idea!

[karinothing]

I think we actually have good public transportation here. I mean I can catch maybe 10 buses to different places within walking distance to my house. My main issue is just that there is no direct route to my work (I have to transfer at a main station, so a 3 minute drive turns into a nearly hour long bus trip).

As for trains, they are expensive unless you plan in advance. If you can plan months ahead of time you can get tickets for under $100 pp. At least from DC to NY you can. Minors are discounted too.

[msmerymac]

Apr 24, 2019 20:42:58 GMT -5 Gato said:

Apr 24, 2019 11:04:50 GMT -5 minzy said:

I wonder when the tide will turn on flying, too. Right now it seems everyone loves to travel and proudly chronicles trips taken, but at some point, I think that will change. I used to love to travel, and road trips and flights were a cornerstone of my teens and twenties (and part of how I view the world as I do, and also why I want to protect it), but now I feel pretty strong guilt about it. I’ve already bought carbon offsets for the next flight I plan to take but it’s not really enough.

I think the tide will turn.  In our own case, we were surprised and upset enough about the impacts of flying that we made changes.  We take the bus from Maine to NYC now instead of flying.  Actually, since it's a 5 minute cab ride to the bus station, and you can hop on 10 minutes before departure, and the ride is 6 hours to the center of Manhattan, we spend the same amount of time, and save a whole lot of money, by taking the bus.  We've curtailed our vacation travel by plane to one trip a year.

I've gotten used to driving to NYC. The issue is that I live in the northern Philly 'burbs, and I could take the train almost door-to-door to Manhattan, but it would require walking .5 miles to the commuter train, about 40 minutes to 30th street station, then either an Amtrak (2ish hours) to NY Penn station, which is $$, or another commuter train to Trenton, then taking NJ transit from Trenton to Penn Station (about 1/2 as much cost as Amtrak). So, depending on how many trains and the wait in between, we're talking about 3.5 hours minimum, whereas if we drive in early on a weekend morning, we can be in NY in just under 2 hours AND we can stop at Starbucks on the turnpike. I have driven to Trenton before, though (about 45 minutes from me) to take NJ transit, which I guess is better than nothing. Driving costs probably $30 anyway, with turnpike tolls and the bridge/tunnel tolls, but that's for 2 people - well, however many people you can fit in a car. Amtrak costs about 4 times that amount. 


Same issue with going to visit my in-laws - convenience. They live about 40ish minutes outside of Boston (depending on traffic, which is always horrific - so in rush hour it's probably more like 1.5 hours from Logan). I was at a conference once and my husband was going to come up and meet me so we could go stay with his parents for a few days. Since I drove up with coworkers (who had alternate plans for getting back), his options were flying or train. Flying was cheaper. For either, he would need to get into Philly somehow. He could do the aforementioned train route, or he could take the commuter rail to the airport and be in Boston in about 2 hours. For both of us traveling to visit them, it's just way more convenient to drive the 6 hours, since we can come and leave whenever we need to (which is especially important with winter weather if we need to adjust a day or two either way) and don't need someone to get us from South Station (Amtrak - and my in-laws live on a T line that does not go into South Station). Plus, the cost of two of us in a car is far less than two of us on a train, even though we also have to cross the GW bridge to get up there! However, they do have an extra car (they are retired and have 3 fairly new cars, don't even get me started) that we could use if we really needed to while visiting them if we were to take the train.

So... do we make it more expensive to drive than it is to take the train? More expensive to fly? Force my in-laws to move downtown in an expensive metro area?  

[wawa]

Apr 25, 2019 7:35:28 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

Apr 24, 2019 20:42:58 GMT -5 Gato said:

I think the tide will turn.  In our own case, we were surprised and upset enough about the impacts of flying that we made changes.  We take the bus from Maine to NYC now instead of flying.  Actually, since it's a 5 minute cab ride to the bus station, and you can hop on 10 minutes before departure, and the ride is 6 hours to the center of Manhattan, we spend the same amount of time, and save a whole lot of money, by taking the bus.  We've curtailed our vacation travel by plane to one trip a year.

I've gotten used to driving to NYC. The issue is that I live in the northern Philly 'burbs, and I could take the train almost door-to-door to Manhattan, but it would require walking .5 miles to the commuter train, about 40 minutes to 30th street station, then either an Amtrak (2ish hours) to NY Penn station, which is $$, or another commuter train to Trenton, then taking NJ transit from Trenton to Penn Station (about 1/2 as much cost as Amtrak). So, depending on how many trains and the wait in between, we're talking about 3.5 hours minimum, whereas if we drive in early on a weekend morning, we can be in NY in just under 2 hours AND we can stop at Starbucks on the turnpike. I have driven to Trenton before, though (about 45 minutes from me) to take NJ transit, which I guess is better than nothing. Driving costs probably $30 anyway, with turnpike tolls and the bridge/tunnel tolls, but that's for 2 people - well, however many people you can fit in a car. Amtrak costs about 4 times that amount. 


Same issue with going to visit my in-laws - convenience. They live about 40ish minutes outside of Boston (depending on traffic, which is always horrific - so in rush hour it's probably more like 1.5 hours from Logan). I was at a conference once and my husband was going to come up and meet me so we could go stay with his parents for a few days. Since I drove up with coworkers (who had alternate plans for getting back), his options were flying or train. Flying was cheaper. For either, he would need to get into Philly somehow. He could do the aforementioned train route, or he could take the commuter rail to the airport and be in Boston in about 2 hours. For both of us traveling to visit them, it's just way more convenient to drive the 6 hours, since we can come and leave whenever we need to (which is especially important with winter weather if we need to adjust a day or two either way) and don't need someone to get us from South Station (Amtrak - and my in-laws live on a T line that does not go into South Station). Plus, the cost of two of us in a car is far less than two of us on a train, even though we also have to cross the GW bridge to get up there! However, they do have an extra car (they are retired and have 3 fairly new cars, don't even get me started) that we could use if we really needed to while visiting them if we were to take the train.

So... do we make it more expensive to drive than it is to take the train? More expensive to fly? Force my in-laws to move downtown in an expensive metro area?  

Do you not have a bus to go to NYC? Doesnt help you with the ILs since they aren't *in* Boston, but I used to take a bus to NY on a regular basis. When I was 18 I did it once a month since I had a long distance boyfriend up there. You'd probably still have to get in to 30th Street, but at least last time I checked it's cheaper than tolls, gas and parking unless you've got a full car. With the drive to 30th it's more than 2 hours, but not having to park my car in NYC was always a major motivating factor for me.

[msmerymac]

Apr 25, 2019 8:53:29 GMT -5 wawa said:

Apr 25, 2019 7:35:28 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

I've gotten used to driving to NYC. The issue is that I live in the northern Philly 'burbs, and I could take the train almost door-to-door to Manhattan, but it would require walking .5 miles to the commuter train, about 40 minutes to 30th street station, then either an Amtrak (2ish hours) to NY Penn station, which is $$, or another commuter train to Trenton, then taking NJ transit from Trenton to Penn Station (about 1/2 as much cost as Amtrak). So, depending on how many trains and the wait in between, we're talking about 3.5 hours minimum, whereas if we drive in early on a weekend morning, we can be in NY in just under 2 hours AND we can stop at Starbucks on the turnpike. I have driven to Trenton before, though (about 45 minutes from me) to take NJ transit, which I guess is better than nothing. Driving costs probably $30 anyway, with turnpike tolls and the bridge/tunnel tolls, but that's for 2 people - well, however many people you can fit in a car. Amtrak costs about 4 times that amount. 


Same issue with going to visit my in-laws - convenience. They live about 40ish minutes outside of Boston (depending on traffic, which is always horrific - so in rush hour it's probably more like 1.5 hours from Logan). I was at a conference once and my husband was going to come up and meet me so we could go stay with his parents for a few days. Since I drove up with coworkers (who had alternate plans for getting back), his options were flying or train. Flying was cheaper. For either, he would need to get into Philly somehow. He could do the aforementioned train route, or he could take the commuter rail to the airport and be in Boston in about 2 hours. For both of us traveling to visit them, it's just way more convenient to drive the 6 hours, since we can come and leave whenever we need to (which is especially important with winter weather if we need to adjust a day or two either way) and don't need someone to get us from South Station (Amtrak - and my in-laws live on a T line that does not go into South Station). Plus, the cost of two of us in a car is far less than two of us on a train, even though we also have to cross the GW bridge to get up there! However, they do have an extra car (they are retired and have 3 fairly new cars, don't even get me started) that we could use if we really needed to while visiting them if we were to take the train.

So... do we make it more expensive to drive than it is to take the train? More expensive to fly? Force my in-laws to move downtown in an expensive metro area?  

Do you not have a bus to go to NYC? Doesnt help you with the ILs since they aren't *in* Boston, but I used to take a bus to NY on a regular basis. When I was 18 I did it once a month since I had a long distance boyfriend up there. You'd probably still have to get in to 30th Street, but at least last time I checked it's cheaper than tolls, gas and parking unless you've got a full car. With the drive to 30th it's more than 2 hours, but not having to park my car in NYC was always a major motivating factor for me.

So I literally just found a bus that's in the next town over from me that goes to Madison Park for less than $30 and now I'm sheepish. 

I know there's a commuter bus from Doylestown, too, which sounds horrific if you actually commute everyday, but is nice for day trips (my boss has used it a lot because she lives within walking distance). That one goes to Port Authority. 

[wawa]

Apr 25, 2019 7:35:28 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

Apr 24, 2019 20:42:58 GMT -5 Gato said:

I think the tide will turn.  In our own case, we were surprised and upset enough about the impacts of flying that we made changes.  We take the bus from Maine to NYC now instead of flying.  Actually, since it's a 5 minute cab ride to the bus station, and you can hop on 10 minutes before departure, and the ride is 6 hours to the center of Manhattan, we spend the same amount of time, and save a whole lot of money, by taking the bus.  We've curtailed our vacation travel by plane to one trip a year.

I've gotten used to driving to NYC. The issue is that I live in the northern Philly 'burbs, and I could take the train almost door-to-door to Manhattan, but it would require walking .5 miles to the commuter train, about 40 minutes to 30th street station, then either an Amtrak (2ish hours) to NY Penn station, which is $$, or another commuter train to Trenton, then taking NJ transit from Trenton to Penn Station (about 1/2 as much cost as Amtrak). So, depending on how many trains and the wait in between, we're talking about 3.5 hours minimum, whereas if we drive in early on a weekend morning, we can be in NY in just under 2 hours AND we can stop at Starbucks on the turnpike. I have driven to Trenton before, though (about 45 minutes from me) to take NJ transit, which I guess is better than nothing. Driving costs probably $30 anyway, with turnpike tolls and the bridge/tunnel tolls, but that's for 2 people - well, however many people you can fit in a car. Amtrak costs about 4 times that amount. 


Same issue with going to visit my in-laws - convenience. They live about 40ish minutes outside of Boston (depending on traffic, which is always horrific - so in rush hour it's probably more like 1.5 hours from Logan). I was at a conference once and my husband was going to come up and meet me so we could go stay with his parents for a few days. Since I drove up with coworkers (who had alternate plans for getting back), his options were flying or train. Flying was cheaper. For either, he would need to get into Philly somehow. He could do the aforementioned train route, or he could take the commuter rail to the airport and be in Boston in about 2 hours. For both of us traveling to visit them, it's just way more convenient to drive the 6 hours, since we can come and leave whenever we need to (which is especially important with winter weather if we need to adjust a day or two either way) and don't need someone to get us from South Station (Amtrak - and my in-laws live on a T line that does not go into South Station). Plus, the cost of two of us in a car is far less than two of us on a train, even though we also have to cross the GW bridge to get up there! However, they do have an extra car (they are retired and have 3 fairly new cars, don't even get me started) that we could use if we really needed to while visiting them if we were to take the train.

So... do we make it more expensive to drive than it is to take the train? More expensive to fly? Force my in-laws to move downtown in an expensive metro area?  

From a policy POV I'm not sure how we disincentiveze flying. It already sucks so hard, and yet we're all willing to do it.

I think the government could do a lot to even out the hidden subsidies for each mode though...FHWAs budget is in billions. FRAs is in millions. Same disparity at the state level. There are reasons there, but it's also just our priorities.

[wawa]

Apr 25, 2019 8:56:33 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

Apr 25, 2019 8:53:29 GMT -5 wawa said:

Do you not have a bus to go to NYC? Doesnt help you with the ILs since they aren't *in* Boston, but I used to take a bus to NY on a regular basis. When I was 18 I did it once a month since I had a long distance boyfriend up there. You'd probably still have to get in to 30th Street, but at least last time I checked it's cheaper than tolls, gas and parking unless you've got a full car. With the drive to 30th it's more than 2 hours, but not having to park my car in NYC was always a major motivating factor for me.

So I literally just found a bus that's in the next town over from me that goes to Madison Park for less than $30 and now I'm sheepish. 

I know there's a commuter bus from Doylestown, too, which sounds horrific if you actually commute everyday, but is nice for day trips (my boss has used it a lot because she lives within walking distance). That one goes to Port Authority. 

THIS THREAD IS OFFICIALLY A SUCCESS. Lol. Mission accomplished.

[2curlydogs]

Apr 25, 2019 0:13:51 GMT -5 aurora said:

Thanks to the answers on cardboard! I had never heard is using it like that but have far more boxes than newspaper now so all excited about the idea!

Maybe we should spin off a thread on sustainable landscaping/gardening...  Cause I could talk about that ALLLLL day.

[Deleted]

I have a feeling flying is going to take care of itself, at least for those medium distances where it’s less efficient. The hassle of driving, parking, long and tedious security checks, feeling like our privacy is being violated because of facial recognition at the gate....all after we’ve paid hundreds of dollars a ticket to do so...people are going to look for other options.

Already we are looking at driving 10 hours (FL panhandle to Indianapolis) for a wedding this summer because flying is just too tedious and expensive. Unfortunately train or bus travel would take 24-36 hours and cost about 3 times as much as driving, I think because the distance is just long enough that it gets a lot more difficult.

[sillygoosegirl]

[Source] wawa said:

I think the government could do a lot to even out the hidden subsidies for each mode though...FHWAs budget is in billions. FRAs is in millions. Same disparity at the state level. There are reasons there, but it's also just our priorities.

I'd really like to see this. I think a lot of people don't realize how heavily subsidized our highway system is. They know Amtrak is subsidized and say, "but the service is subsidized already and it's still shitty and expensive." Which is undeniably true. But it's subsidized so much less than our highways. If we wanted to get people out of their cars for long distance and interstate travel, we could fund Amtrak properly and offer ticket pricing that incentivizes getting people out of their cars.

I probably sound like a broken record on this, but in Germany at off peak hours (any time after 9am, I think) up to 5 people can travel on a group ticket that costs about 1.5x an individual ticket, so that it doesn't become more economical to drive when you have a small group. I'd personally take the train much more often if this was the case. If I go to visit my sister by myself, or with just one family member, we take the train. But often there are 5 of us, so we drive. And vice versa when her family is visiting us.

They also run many more trains than they can fill up, but even if some seats are empty, there's still a lot of value to having the service. How do you feel when the train you need to take is the last train of the day? How stressed are you that you might miss it and wish you had a car? If the last train of the day is late enough that it doesn't have many people, it's an effective backup to keep people from stresssing that they might not get home. If there are enough trains that there are always empty seats and reasonable prices even purchased last minute (even if the last minute seats are crappy jump seats in the hall--seems to be the system in Italy), you keep the train as a viable option for trips that aren't planned in advance or people who need some flexibility in their schedule. These are solvable problems. They've been solved elsewhere, in places that choose to make it a priority.

[Velar Fricative]

Apr 25, 2019 9:24:48 GMT -5 @villainv said:

I have a feeling flying is going to take care of itself, at least for those medium distances where it’s less efficient. The hassle of driving, parking, long and tedious security checks, feeling like our privacy is being violated because of facial recognition at the gate....all after we’ve paid hundreds of dollars a ticket to do so...people are going to look for other options.

But flying has been an overall terrible experience since 2001 and yet here we are, still flying. I don't know, I feel like no matter what the airlines and Homeland Security try to do, we're still gonna fly, and not just coast-to-coast or across oceans. 

[Velar Fricative]

I wonder if/when autonomous cars do eventually become prevalent and fewer and fewer people own their own cars (and going back to the OP, will that actually happen when we love our storage space in the car too much?), whether that will actually be better for the environment. If I still wasn't able to drive but I could request a self-driving car come get me right at my front door and take me to the front door of exactly where I need to go and I won't have to deal with annoying people on the bus, then that's what I'm doing. Because I'll have disposable income to do that when I need to instead of paying less for bus fare, rendering public transportation as just a way for the poor to get around even in places like NYC where public transportation is how people of a variety of means actually get around. And therefore continuing to not fund it the way that we should.

Yes, I'm actually picturing the Jetsons here, but still using roads and nobody sharing a vehicle together unless they know each other, which sounds worse for the planet.

[wawa]

Apr 25, 2019 10:20:58 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

I wonder if/when autonomous cars do eventually become prevalent and fewer and fewer people own their own cars (and going back to the OP, will that actually happen when we love our storage space in the car too much?), whether that will actually be better for the environment. If I still wasn't able to drive but I could request a self-driving car come get me right at my front door and take me to the front door of exactly where I need to go and I won't have to deal with annoying people on the bus, then that's what I'm doing. Because I'll have disposable income to do that when I need to instead of paying less for bus fare, rendering public transportation as just a way for the poor to get around even in places like NYC where public transportation is how people of a variety of means actually get around. And therefore continuing to not fund it the way that we should.

Yes, I'm actually picturing the Jetsons here, but still using roads and nobody sharing a vehicle together unless they know each other, which sounds worse for the planet.

Oh it's totally worse for the planet.  Full automation without some HUGE concurrent policy push for congestion pricing or some other massive user fee for roadways and probably also a massive planning/zoning overhaul is going to be catastrophic.  And that's not going to happen.  So....yup.

[msmerymac]

Apr 25, 2019 9:48:22 GMT -5 sillygoosegirl said:

[Source] wawa said:

I think the government could do a lot to even out the hidden subsidies for each mode though...FHWAs budget is in billions. FRAs is in millions. Same disparity at the state level. There are reasons there, but it's also just our priorities.

I'd really like to see this. I think a lot of people don't realize how heavily subsidized our highway system is. They know Amtrak is subsidized and say, "but the service is subsidized already and it's still shitty and expensive." Which is undeniably true. But it's subsidized so much less than our highways. If we wanted to get people out of their cars for long distance and interstate travel, we could fund Amtrak properly and offer ticket pricing that incentivizes getting people out of their cars.

I probably sound like a broken record on this, but in Germany at off peak hours (any time after 9am, I think) up to 5 people can travel on a group ticket that costs about 1.5x an individual ticket, so that it doesn't become more economical to drive when you have a small group. I'd personally take the train much more often if this was the case. If I go to visit my sister by myself, or with just one family member, we take the train. But often there are 5 of us, so we drive. And vice versa when her family is visiting us.

They also run many more trains than they can fill up, but even if some seats are empty, there's still a lot of value to having the service. How do you feel when the train you need to take is the last train of the day? How stressed are you that you might miss it and wish you had a car? If the last train of the day is late enough that it doesn't have many people, it's an effective backup to keep people from stresssing that they might not get home. If there are enough trains that there are always empty seats and reasonable prices even purchased last minute (even if the last minute seats are crappy jump seats in the hall--seems to be the system in Italy), you keep the train as a viable option for trips that aren't planned in advance or people who need some flexibility in their schedule. These are solvable problems. They've been solved elsewhere, in places that choose to make it a priority.

They do this a lot in Europe. Basically, if you treat commuter rail like a subway and run it every 10-15 minutes throughout the entire day, people will use it as a subway. They won't have to look up schedules or plan reservations or trips around when the trains are running because... they're just always running. They're reliable. You show up and wait for the next one. 

My commuter rail comes 2-3 times an hour during peak, but on the weekends it runs once an hour each way. It's incredibly annoying to finish dinner and check your watch and realize the station is a 5 minute walk away, but the next train comes in 45 minutes. Or to have cut short a visit to a museum or a networking happy hour because you want to catch the train that's leaving in 15 minutes instead of waiting an hour and 15 minutes. It just makes planning so much more difficult, so no wonder people suck it up and drive, even if it means an hour in traffic and paying to park. 

(Boston was actually way worse. My in-laws have awesome express trains which take the length of a trip from their house to North Station down from about 55 minutes to about 27 minutes, and they run frequently during rush hour, but evening trains are almost non-existent. It's like 8:22 or wait until 10:14. I think they only run about 7 trains total on Saturday, too.)

[aurora]

Apr 25, 2019 10:13:11 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Apr 25, 2019 9:24:48 GMT -5 @villainv said:

I have a feeling flying is going to take care of itself, at least for those medium distances where it’s less efficient. The hassle of driving, parking, long and tedious security checks, feeling like our privacy is being violated because of facial recognition at the gate....all after we’ve paid hundreds of dollars a ticket to do so...people are going to look for other options.

But flying has been an overall terrible experience since 2001 and yet here we are, still flying. I don't know, I feel like no matter what the airlines and Homeland Security try to do, we're still gonna fly, and not just coast-to-coast or across oceans. 

I don't know about this. There are definitely trips where we drive because flying is such a hassle. Of course that doesn't really help from an emissions standpoint, but if there were a reasonable train alternative that would be appealing.

We've driven up to about 8 hours because that's only slightly longer than getting to the airport, through security, flight time, etc. for a flight, and much less stressful and more comfortable than crowds and TSA.

[TBM]

Our light rail sevice only runs on weekdays. It doesn't run late enough to be able to take it when we go downtown to the theatre (coming home is about 15-20 minutes too late), and it still wouldn't work if we changed our tickets to the earlier shows, since they are only on the weekends.

We have used it a few times, once to go to an art festival and avoid parking, and would love to use it more because it is very convenient to an area that we frequent, except that we usually can only go there on weekends. We haven't been able to make it work for the other places we have tried, because we couldn't find a connecting bus and uber would have made the cost/time to get there ridiculous compared to driving on our own. Paying more than it cost to drive to take the train/ bus is not a problem, but adding on a car ride seerms to negate the benefits of using mass transportation.

I don't think DH is going to accept the job offer he just got, (in part because it would mean a commute instead of working from home), but it does look like he would be able to take the train and either take a bus or walk ther rest of the way to the office on the days when he doesn't need to be out in the field or being clients, so that part is good.

When we moved here, I searched for places with good walking scores, but they would have meant a longer commute for DH. My favorite place was a tiny house that I thought we could use as a rental if it turned out not to be our dream home, and it was in an area with some walkability and seemed to have a neighborhood vibe that suited us. Maybe more me, but still. DH thought the house was creepy, and I wasn't there to sell him on it, so we would up in our very perfect for us house, closer to his job at the time, where we do have a few restaurants and Starbuck's within walking distance, but no place that we actually have a desire to go to. There used to be a grocery store there, but that was before our time. I would have loved being able to walk to the grocery store.

We do love our house, but after 6 years here it turns out that the creepy house is in DH's favorite area, with his favorite pie shop, favorite cheesemonger, etc., where he wishes we could spend all of our free time and more importantly, I was right. ;p

[isabel]

Apr 23, 2019 14:50:03 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

So now that everyone has said why they CAN'T do it, flip the script. What could you do to not commute by car. No negativity. Because I swear, I can't stand these posts because no one comes up with any solutions, just "blah blah blah can't."

My solution to this is to work from home, which I do at least two days a week now and I'm pushing toward three. DH also works from home usually two days per week. DH is also much more reliably taking light rail to work (though he does have to drive to the station). Overall, I feel like our impact has been reduced quite a bit since we moved because we reduced car mileage and DH is able to take public transportation. The increased days of working from home certainly helps as well.

I also have discussed carpooling with a coworker who lives down the street from our new house. It doesn't eliminate the car, but it does get one car off the road each way. I don't think we'll be able to do that daily, but I'm hoping for once a week.

[aliciabella]

I think for most people it is not possible to ever go car free. Even if people have access to trains, you have to DRIVE to get there, lol. It is 25 minutes to my train in the Philly burbs which only runs 1 train an hour. Then you have drop-off daycare, which if not in walking distance or on a bus route ( we don't even have buses) you are fucked. They are excuses but it is the fucking reality for most of us. In a country where two incomes are required for most, with limited access to: affordable daycare, housing, health insurance, public transit and good weather, it just will never happen, unfortunately.

[wawa]

Apr 25, 2019 22:12:26 GMT -5 aliciabella said:

I think for most people it is not possible to ever go car free. Even if people have access to trains, you have to DRIVE to get there, lol. It is 25 minutes to my train in the Philly burbs which only runs 1 train an hour. Then you have drop-off daycare, which if not in walking distance or on a bus route ( we don't even have buses) you are fucked. They are excuses but it is the fucking reality for most of us. In a country where two incomes are required for most, with limited access to: affordable daycare, housing, health insurance, public transit and good weather, it just will never happen, unfortunately.

I FINALLY am on a computer to reply to something in this thread. So I'm gonna babble for a bit here with all my pent up thoughts.

Yes, I agree. For most people, given the choices they've made or the limited options handed to them about where they live and what they do, going car free simply isn't possible. I do think the extra clause in there is important though. And some of those choices and options are a lot easier to adjust than others. Like, I can't unhave kids. I'm stuck with their cost and their carbon impact and their need for care. But some of these are changable to at least SERIOUSLY cut down on personal vehicle use over time. Like, transit frequency is a BIG DEAL. Increasing it would help a lot of people use more transit. Like that $2 bus I'm so excited about...there are a lot of days that I simply can't use it because I need to travel outside the times it arrives. And this is generally something that is controlled by local politics. These things can be changed. They aren't immutable. Also I mean, people do move. people change jobs. People here on this board may find themselves in positions of responsibility within companies who may be choosing new office space. Make this one of your considerations. Give it weight. That's all I'm really asking.

Also I want to say that this post isn't talking to the general population. I made this post talking to this board. We skew pretty hard toward the upper middle class with a fair amount of resources. I'm pushing on this because very few of us here (there are exceptions of course. Not trying to erase you.) truly have no other choices. We decided we needed yards and 4 bedrooms so we live a little further out. We decided we really liked the specific daycare over there because it has something special about it, so we choose that one, and have the resources and time necessary to get our kid there. etc. We are making choices, and I'm not demanding you make different ones, but I am just trying to nudge toward people making them with your eyes open to this aspect of the consequence of those choices. So much of our public policy has been set up to make cars and driving the default choice for so long that it really take a lot to even see that it was a decision at all.

There are people with a lot less resources and a lot fewer choices. But a lot of the time those people also don't actually have a reliable vehicle, and the cost of car ownership is a real burden to them rather than just a minor line item in the budget. How much easier would it be for my lower income neighbors to ride that bus if it showed up more often? So I mean, this is all cute that I'm gonna save the planet with my sporadic bus ridership, but also it's a benefit to people who HAVE to ride that bus if I take my privileged ass and show up to public meetings and send emails and make noise about increasing transit funding and services. The fact that I don't really see a way around MH and I driving vehicles to work most days for the near future because of our choices over the past 15 years doesn't change that it's important shit and we should keep chipping away at it.

[msmerymac]

So before my borough got a grocery co-op (I love my co-op, that's why I talk about it all the time) there were people who live near me who didn't have cars and would grocery shop at the 24 hour CVS. Or else take the bus to Giant (a local supermarket), which is a good 15 minutes by bus (5-7 by car, depending on which one you go to because there's one in each direction), and then haul groceries home, often with kids as well.

I mentioned this to someone once and their response was, "Pfft, everyone has a car. No one who lives in X town doesn't have a car, and if they do it's because of their own choices." 

[aurora]

Apr 26, 2019 8:19:35 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

So before my borough got a grocery co-op (I love my co-op, that's why I talk about it all the time) there were people who live near me who didn't have cars and would grocery shop at the 24 hour CVS. Or else take the bus to Giant (a local supermarket), which is a good 15 minutes by bus (5-7 by car, depending on which one you go to because there's one in each direction), and then haul groceries home, often with kids as well.

I mentioned this to someone once and their response was, "Pfft, everyone has a car. No one who lives in X town doesn't have a car, and if they do it's because of their own choices." 

Food deserts are another huge issue! Some people have so few choices.

[audette]

Apr 26, 2019 7:38:27 GMT -5 wawa said:

Apr 25, 2019 22:12:26 GMT -5 aliciabella said:

I think for most people it is not possible to ever go car free. Even if people have access to trains, you have to DRIVE to get there, lol. It is 25 minutes to my train in the Philly burbs which only runs 1 train an hour. Then you have drop-off daycare, which if not in walking distance or on a bus route ( we don't even have buses) you are fucked. They are excuses but it is the fucking reality for most of us. In a country where two incomes are required for most, with limited access to: affordable daycare, housing, health insurance, public transit and good weather, it just will never happen, unfortunately.

I FINALLY am on a computer to reply to something in this thread. So I'm gonna babble for a bit here with all my pent up thoughts.

Yes, I agree. For most people, given the choices they've made or the limited options handed to them about where they live and what they do, going car free simply isn't possible. I do think the extra clause in there is important though. And some of those choices and options are a lot easier to adjust than others.

<big giant snip to reduce length>

The fact that I don't really see a way around MH and I driving vehicles to work most days for the near future because of our choices over the past 15 years doesn't change that it's important shit and we should keep chipping away at it.

I think this is the crux. When I first started reading this thread, I was passed off, because it felt to me like people were getting shamed for being in a situation where they had few options about car use. And I responded angrily.

But,it mulled over in my mind after I stepped away, and I came back to the thread with the idea of trying to consider ways we could alter our future decisions to make us less car dependent, and less fossil fuel dependent. Maybe there is little I can do today, but if our life situations change, we may be able to take advantage of that change and modify bigger things that impact our vehicle dependence. Or, even just making sure we re-evaluate and examine our current use, and see if we can do better.

It isn't necessarily about how much I am doing this moment, but keeping focus on what can I work on to improve, and both big and small changes can reap benefits for me, and for my community.

[aurora]

And to wawa's post, that's what gets me, too, that so many of us here (most of whom have some privilege in at least some ways, which is not to say that we're all in the same place by any means) talk about our cars as though they're a given, but refuse to acknowledge that we made choices to get to the point we're in. Almost everyone here has a car. We're not going to judge you for talking about the choices you made to buy and drive that car! I absolutely drive my car! I just don't pretend that there were no choices involved and that I have absolutely no agency in the matter.

I will, however, judge you if you flat out refuse to use reusable shopping bags (asking for plastic each time) for the expressly stated reason that you think reusable bags make your car look cluttered. That's across my judge limit line.