Freedom from the automobile

It was cold and bright on the April evening in 1989 when we held the vigil for prince William Sound at Lighthouse Point. A fresh wind was blowing in from the north, linking us with our friends far away in Alaska, and driving huge clouds across the sky. Toward the end of the ceremony a great shimmering rainbow arched across Monterey Bay. It seemed to be a sign that our prayers for Prince William Sound and the sanctity of all life on planet Earth were being heard.

Many of us signed the Pledge for a World Beyond Oil, and committed ourselves to reducing our use of oil products in every way possible, starting with a one-day-per-week abstinence from the automobile.

For me, the life-smothering oil spill in pristine Prince William Sound was a turning point. I realized that if we (us, the U.S.) did not drastically reduce our gluttonous use of petroleum products, someday we would look out (if we could see through the smog) on a beautiful, blue biologically dead ocean. Something more had to be done to prevent that from happening.

Part of the “more” for me was to ditch the automobile. I couldn't in good conscience keep using so much of the poisonous corporate product. I began the transition (still in progress) from car to bus, train, bike and foot power. It wasn't always “convenient”, but gradually it became fun, a game and a challenge. The more I rode my bike around town, the more I enjoyed it for its own sake. I'd forgotten that as a kid I'd always enjoyed bike riding (even to the tune of several hundred miles in the Canadian Rockies when I was 19). I'd forgotton how much more pleasant it was to be out in the open, with the sun and the wind, than stuffed in a rigid position inside a huge mass of steel and rubber. I could hear the birds sing, stop and smell the roses, and search out routes on auto-free streets. And how easy it was to park! Gradually I learned to adjust my schedule to leave enough time to get there by bike, or by bus, or by a combination. That was the hardest, being so conditioned for the split-second, last-minute I've-just-barely-got-time-to-get-there mentality of the auto user.

When I rode the bus, I began to feel part of a larger community again, a community that included people of all classes, ages, colors and physical conditions, instead of just a voyeur staring out through my mobile fortress at a world detached from my own reality. Seeking out carpools, when using the car was a necessity, had the side benefit of greater sociability. Exercise classes faded into the past, since I was getting enought naturally on foot and by bike without setting aside extra time for that special purpose. Under the prodding of my two sons (both of whom have completely ditched the car), we began to use the Caltrain for trips to San Francisco, and became familiar with the San Francisco transit system. We calculated it was cheaper to go there by transit than by car, and being able to read and relax on the train easily made up for the longer trip.

My husband has been biking to UCSC for 25 years [41 years as of 2007—ed]. When I began to let go of the car, our car mileage really started to drop, since I had been the primary user. We bought baskets for our bikes so that we could do bicycle grocery shopping (and enjoy the bicyclist's discount at Beckmann's Bakery). I got a light so that could ride safely at night on occasion.

Last year our auto mileage dropped to 5000, and we got a reduced rate from our insurance company (below 7500 miles the rates drop). Our car needed servicing only once. Now we're aiming for 2500 miles per year, with the Persion Gulf oil “war” giving even greater impetus to our resolve. Now I think of our car as something to use only if absolutely necessary.

It is easy to belittle the significance of the amount of oil consumption and atmospheric pollutant reduced by one person's decision to cut back auto-dependence, but cumulatively, if enough people began to reduce their use of the automobile by lowering the average annual mileage of 12,000 to 15,000 miles by even a third, there is no question that it would make a difference. A single-occupant auto uses over 1000 calories per passenger-kilometer compared to 570 for a transit bus, 62 for walking, and 22 for bicycling. A nine-mile commute by bicycle uses 350 calories of energy compared with over 18,000 calories for the same trip in the average American car. A single-occupant auto emits over 900 grams of carbon monoxide for 100 passenger-kilometers compared with 300 for a car pool, 200 for a transit bus, 2 for light rail, and zero for bicycling or walking. The statistics go on, and all show the devastating consequences of our dependence on the single-occupant automobile.

The other day I learned that one of my uncles, a train buff who went under the pen name of E.M. Frimbo, thought of a car as a “rolling sneeze” and a “little slice of selfishness”. Right on! When we use only cars to carry ourselves about on the earth, we are implicitly claiming that an extraordinary array of resources, at great cost to the health and viability of the planet, should be devoted to our own personal mobility. At the end of the 19th century the personal auto seemed like a good idea, a great liberation for the human animal. But now we are learning that the price for that illusory liberation is so high that we may lose everything wlse we value unless we can curb our auto addictions. Freedom from the car is now my goal.

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