Shifting to Low Car Life

When I was younger I was into cars following my dad. He read Road and Track and I read European Car. I drove the Volkswagen my parents allowed me to use and then purchased one after my first year in college and enjoyed driving. In my neighborhood in Houston you didn’t necessarily need a car as the greenbelt trails were robust but it was good if you wanted to leave the area. Though I also noticed that my dad decided to take the commuter bus to work downtown every morning.

After living in Austin and finding it easier to get to the University of Texas by bus or bike, I started to drive a bit less. Then moving to San Francisco, I eventually sold my Volkswagen as I was tired of getting parking tickets for street sweeping.

In many places with good urbanism and good transit, it doesn’t make much sense to drive all the time and sometimes it doesn’t even make sense to own a car. Lots of people are finding that out here and in other major cities and are buying e-bikes or finding other ways to get around that’s not a personal car.

So I was heartened to read this piece by our friend David Zipper highlighting a dyed in the wool YouTube car guy who says the same things about a car’s place in urban areas that we would. Cars can be useful, but the ways that we facilitate their use such as parking requirements, new laws about limiting bike and bus lanes, and just the plain geometric truths of space availability in cities means that we’ve probably gone too far.