CAR SURVEY

William S. Lear rael at zopyra.com
Tue Sep 21 15:49:31 PDT 1999


On Tuesday, September 21, 1999 at 19:19:51 (+0100) Jim heartfield writes:
>Lots of interesting contributions on the car.
>
>But in all fairness, I don't think that Alex, Bill, Carrol, Michael,
>Doug, Wojtek, Stephen or Carl should be denouncing car use without
>telling us how they get about.
>
>Wojtek makes a very closely argued case that the car is a waste of
>money. So how about it gents? Have you got rid of your car yet?
>
> Car owner? Cyclist? Public transport to work?
>Alex
>Bill
>Carrol
>Michael
>Doug
>Wojtek
>Stephen
>Carl

Car-baiting, eh Jim? Sure, I drive every day to work. I drive a pickup truck, too. The ten-plus mile ride on a bicycle through the hills of Austin in the heat is not terribly easy, nor is picking up your 11-month old child, nor running a variety of errands for extended family, nor a dozen other things.

This is not about personal habits, but the choices available, as Doug points out. Automobiles are individualized commodities which segregate people from others and waste immense amounts of energy in doing so.

When I lived in the Boston area, I had the choice of driving about 1/2 the way into Boston downtown and taking the metro from there. Vastly better, in my opinion. I was able to read War and Peace, and Boswell's history of same-sex marriages, among other things, on the daily ride to and from downtown.

Bill



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