[Note: This article was written for the October 2007 Urban Alliance for Sustainability Newsletter, available at www.uas.coop.]
These days it seems I just can’t get enough walking. Sure, I take BART, MUNI, AC Transit, CalTrain, you name it. And, of course, I’m an avid cyclist. I may not ride centuries, and my bike is only on the rack at the office a few times a week, but I do rely on my bike for regular transportation — errands like shopping, trips to visit friends, get exercise and just have fun. What I’ve been obsessing about lately, though, want to rap about here, though, is the exact opposite of vehicular transport of any kind. No rails, electric wires or wheels, just two legs. The original form of human locomotion. Let’s call it the pedestrian lane.
Ever since I was granted a license by the DMV of NJ when I was 17, I’ve been fortunate enough to have the luxury of personalized transport, and I have had my fair share of cars. Back in high school, my first car was a Ford hatchback, affectionately called the “Bitchin’ Escort” and lovingly detailed with many a sticker. My second car was more austere and could carry more gear — a semi-futuristic Chevy Cavalier wagon. My third and last car was the first and only car I have ever truly loved – a 1985 Mercedes 300TD diesel beauty. A tank-wagon with the pickup of a slug and the highway momentum of a cruiseship. I knew I loved that car the day after I drove it home…parking in the driveway, vacuuming the interior, loving washing and buffing the exterior. Rarely have I felt so much pride in an inatimate object and never have I felt so much an American. And yet, despite the thousands of miles I ran my Filly on waste vegetable oil, the love affiar was soon over.
Even though I owned and regularly operated automobiles since the time I was legally able to do so, I quickly began to question my participation in this rite of passage. The first cracks in my automotive armor arose sometime during my second year of college. Principles of Ecology 201 introduced me to the concept of habitat fragmentation, one of the most devestating impacts humans have had upon the rest of the biosphere. Our network of highways, biways and rural routes has so interupted the normal migratory and feeding patterns of larger species as to seriously affect population levels and impact nearly all species. Shortly thereafter, the argument against cars was reframed when I came across a study comparing the energetic efficiency of walking to riding in a car. I’ve since searched high and low for this study with no luck. The basic premise, however is an exercise in true accounting: given the cost in time and energy required to power a vehicle — the “true” cost — it was calculated that time spent walking between points A and B was quicker than driving. Specifics aside, I needed little convicing from that point on. I graduated with a degree in Biological Sciences, a minor in Natural Resource Management, and strong desire to sell my car at the soonest opportunity.
That opportunity did not arise for some time. After graduation and my subsequent retreat from urban and suburban life, nearly a decade spent living in a rural community ill-equipped with public transit required a car. However, soon after I landed in San Francisco, the dust on my windshield began piling up along with the parking tickets, and I put out the word that Filly was for sale. She went quick, and to friends, commencing a return to a car-free existence. In fact, this was a lifestyle I had never before experienced — before my driving days my life’s activities were still centered around cars and I was always shuttled to and fro by my parents or grandparents or friends.
Charting out this new territory, I encountered my own stages of automotive withdrawl. My first reaction to carlessness was elation — Pure Joy. It has been said before by wiser persons than I that more possesions make for less time and less happiness. I would consider automobiles the extreme emobodiment of this principle: 2000 lbs of steel encompassing dozens of interconnected mechanical systems that require regular maintenance. By letting go of that psychological and financial burden, fresh mental vistas opened up beyond the chattels of car concerns. To this day I am thankful for one less constellation of stress in my life, and am very wary of getting back on the car owner treadmill.
My second major reaction was indignation. By virtue of more foot time, I grew increasingly aware of and shocked by the extent to which cars have dictated the physical structure of our society. Everything from the urban grid to the layout of lots and shapes of buildings has catered to the overwhelming presence of autos. Moreover, to recognize just how much cars controlled my daily actions and the choices I made, well, it offended me. Walking home from the BART train, forced to navigate turns of 90 degrees after 90 degrees. To wait in quiet frustration until the major North-South corrdor of Shattuck Ave was clear enough of cars for me to pass. These all began to take their toll. Sure, on my bike I was relegated to traffic patterns — this is the law, as well as the obligation of a safe cyclist. But to be a footloose pedestrian, well, I was expected to respect, even enable, the detrimental presence of cars. My reactions, like that of jumping away from a car screeching to halt to observe a stop sign, started to form a pattern of deference that felt much more like a tacit acceptance of cars then my conscious choice to avoid them.
A few months down the road, once I started driving again — a borrowed car, or a ZipCar rental — the third stage of my carlessness settled in. Quickly I realized how much I loathed driving the physical act of driving. The rushing to and fro. The frenetic conditions. The uncertainty of other drivers. I was able to see with great clarity how much anger driving a motor vehicle engendered in my life. The familiar phenomenon of “road rage” is no conjecture. I think such swells of anger affect everyone who drives on some level. And so, ecological concerns aside, I now even question the place of such a luxury. I’m not so sure that the benefits really outweigh the toll driving takes on our mental health and our sense of community. These days I am happy to let others occupy my former space on the roads while I try to cultivate a little more calm, a lot more compassion and a few extra smiles from my fellow pedestrians.
It has been just over two years now that I gave up my car for better or worse. I think I have worked my way through all of the stages of car withdrawl, but I’m still on the auto fence, so to speak. We have a very complex relationship to our rides, after all. I can say that I am far from getting another car, but I do daydream about the freedom of a motorcycle. I miss the ability to get out of town on weekends or to spend a late night in the city without taking the dreadfully long night owl service. Most of all, though, I’m on the fence about the place cars have in my vision of the future. I don’t see them disappearing, but I do feel that our relationship with them must change. For example, why can’t we share cars with our friends or with our neighbors? On a larger scale, why can’t we centralize our lives so that we don’t need to rely vehicles for errands or commuting. While cars will be with us for some time to come, it is high time that we turned into the pedestrian lane.
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Filed under: The Urban Environment
