The growing car-free movement
Hey, I like my car. It gives me the freedom to travel where and when I want, and most Americans feel exactly the same way. Without being tied down to a bus or train schedule you’re able to roam as you wish, without any grubby co-passengers staring at your or listening in on your conversations.
But what if you could have a lifestyle with the same freedom as a car, without needing a car? Many people already do, and they do it by traveling with their bike.
I read a cool post on the EcoSpace site about the worldwide car-free movement, where they talked about the weekly car-free day in Bogota, Columbia. All the city streets are shut every Sunday, and people walk, cycle or skate everywhere to go about their business. What a fantastic idea! I imagine that on the weekdays the streets are choked with buses, taxis, diesel fumes and horn blasts, but every Sunday it’s just the hum of cycle tires, a few bells, and that’s it. Maybe it’s completely different than that but what a place a city like that would be! Portland, Oregon is going to experiment with something similar with a single day this June, shutting down several miles of streets for 6 hours. It’s a great start but more cities in the US and Europe could easily follow suit.
I’m only just now coming around to the idea of cycle commuting to work (and I’ll be doing it regularly during the summer to save up to £90 - nearly $200 - a month!), and I’m sure if I lived in London or New York or any other urban setting I’d have just a bike to get around. Car repair and maintenance cost enough, plus the regular fill-ups add more and more to the cost - never mind that barrels of oil are setting new price records every few weeks!
So if you’ve got a bike, get on it! See where it takes you.
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