The anniversary got here and went unnoticed, however I simply realized that it’s now been over a 12 months since I dropped my automobile off at a dealership, handed over the keys, title and registration and started my carfree life. This doesn’t actually really feel like a momentous event to me, however maybe that nonchalance is all of the extra cause I ought to do some reflecting. So…what have I discovered this 12 months?
First, a little bit of background. Whereas I used to be all the time energetic on my bike as a type of transportation and leisure ranging from a younger age, I’ll truthfully say I had some fairly huge blinders on when it got here to my very own automobile dissipate till fairly not too long ago. It’s outstanding — and fairly embarrassing — to me that I used to drive so casually, at the same time as I used to be extraordinarily anxious concerning the local weather disaster and thought I used to be being pretty accountable. Automobile dependency simply wasn’t one thing I observed. (I suppose my story reveals how a lot individuals can change in a brief time period.)
If I attempt to hint again my journey to enlightenment about automobile tradition, I believe I can level to a couple waves of realization. One of many first certainly one of these happened once I was engaged on a story about parking on the College of Oregon (UO) for the Eugene Weekly newspaper — my first-ever foray into transportation reporting. My preliminary angle for this story got here from the attitude of disgruntled college students and workers who had been bored with paying exorbitant parking charges on campus. However I assumed it may also be fascinating to search out out what some transportation school needed to say concerning the state of affairs.
I’ll all the time bear in mind my dialog with Marc Schlossberg, the notable professor of metropolis and regional planning at UO who very kindly schooled me on parking and transportation coverage and altered my life eternally. I nonetheless have the notes from our dialog on my pc —listed here are a couple of pertinent quotes I jotted down, my mouth agape as a brand new world unfolded earlier than me:
“The existence of a lot parking makes it inconceivable for different choices to be viable…a metropolis the place strolling, biking or transit is most handy and comfy and having ubiquitous parking in all places are mutually unique realities…the UO campus is the primary expertise lots of people have in an setting the place they’ll’t discover a parking area, and it’s all the time an actual shock. If we’re actually interested by problems with social justice, cohesion, financial equality, local weather change, public well being disaster round automobile crashes, we’ve to do one thing.”
I’m astounded these notes — how did I not know these items? His name to motion was very inspiring to me. By my reporting, I began to develop into interested by different features of infrastructure, and adopted a bunch of metropolis planning individuals on Twitter. Lastly I launched into my first carfree experiment in March 2021, once I was nonetheless dwelling in Eugene. My purpose was to cease driving for a month. It was rather a lot simpler than I assumed it could be, and I spotted then that I needed to essentially restructure my life so I might stay carfree. From then on, it was solely a matter of time.
After the extraordinary local weather despair I felt throughout and after the warmth dome occasion in the summertime of 2021 and my transfer to Portland a couple of months later, I used to be fully finished with automobile possession. Biking was my primary type of transportation by that time anyway, and I felt a pit of guilt in my abdomen each time I began the engine of my automobile.
The primary cause I didn’t promote it ahead of February of final 12 months is as a result of I used to be procrastinating coping with the logistics (cleansing it out, discovering the paperwork, selecting the place to promote it). However I used to be just a little scared, too. What if I wanted it? I knew there was no approach I might be ok with driving my very own automobile ever once more, nevertheless, regardless of the doable downsides that I feared may up later. Like Shannon Johnson requested in her nice Household Biking column this week, “how does your mode of transportation…align along with your values and priorities?” For me, driving a automobile didn’t. (I used to be additionally bored with throwing away cash on insurance coverage each month for a automobile I by no means used.)
So I bought it! And I can say with 100% certainty that there hasn’t been a single second of remorse all 12 months.
The large takeaway I wish to inform individuals is that regardless that I don’t drive and nearly all of my friends do, my life is just about…unremarkable. Clearly, my job is especially well-suited to getting round on different modes of transportation, so I’ve a leg up there. However I do numerous different issues, too. I see my mates who stay in numerous neighborhoods throughout the town, purchase an excessive amount of stuff at Dealer Joe’s by chance, transfer homes…and I’ve been in a position to do all of that by bike, no drawback.
In fact, I’m not saying that it’s all the time simple: individuals who don’t drive face a structural drawback in the case of getting round Portland, and that should change. However probably the most troubling issues to me has been experiencing individuals making the belief that the issues I’ve to do are much less necessary than the issues they need to do as a result of I journey my bike or stroll to get there, they usually use an enormous, heavy machine. In comparison with numerous issues individuals face, it is a small one, but it surely’s a bit annoying.
Once I inform individuals I don’t drive, I typically discover myself reducing their potential defensive feedback off on the cross earlier than they’ve even stated something. (I’ve even finished it on this article.) I’ve heard these arguments sufficient instances to realize it’s simpler to only have some justifying remarks prepared proper off the bat. I would say issues like, “I’m fortunate as a result of I’ve the privilege to not want to drive a automobile…lots of people aren’t so fortunate,” or “We stay in a car-dependent society, no one must be shamed for driving. It’s the buildings we have to change, not the person.”
To some extent, these items are true. I don’t suppose disgrace is the very best influencing device. However my purpose for the subsequent section of my carfree life is to cease making a lot of these justifications. There are lots of people who’ve the identical benefits as I do who couldn’t be bothered to consider their automobile use — I’d know, as a result of it wasn’t very way back that I used to be a kind of individuals. If we’re ever going to get wherever with our transportation and local weather targets, this has to alter.
So, I’m blissful I’ve been carfree for a 12 months, and it’s definitely been nice for me in numerous methods: I save some huge cash, I get rather more train and whereas I nonetheless really feel fixed local weather dread, I don’t really feel almost as a lot cognitive dissonance, which has been enormously useful. However I’m not asking for kudos. Lots of people have by no means had their very own automobile as a result of they’ll’t afford it or are bodily unable to drive one. I stay a fairly regular — even thrilling! — life, simply and not using a automobile. Imagine it or not, it’s doable.
Taylor has been BikePortland’s workers author since November 2021. She has additionally written for Avenue Roots and Eugene Weekly. Contact her at taylorgriggswriter@gmail.com
