Reply to What would it ACTUALLY take for you to consider biking or taking the bus, in lieu of motoring?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Not having children. Before kids we rented an apartment in Cleveland Park (no yard, no home maintenance) and walked or took the Metro almost everywhere. What else did we have to do besides eat brunch and workout? Nothing! 
I lived for years without a car in Cleveland and Chicago as well.

I live in a fairly walkable area. I can walk to the post office, library, bank, hair salon, dentist, a few restaurants, and a small grocery store that has basics like milk and eggs.

[b]It is not practical to use the bus to shop at Target or to pick up a week of groceries for a family of 4.[/b] My kids have activities and I work full time. My office and my home are both a block from Wilson Blvd in Arlington and are less than 3 miles apart. I could take the bus except my kids need to be places at specific times and I don’t have time to wait for the bus and then walk from the bus stop to their school. Even if a bus came every 7 minutes, it only takes me 6 minutes to drive from my office to their school.

I can use my car to carpool in my fuel efficient car and plan my errands to batch them up and shop as close and local as possible - OR I could use the bus and Metro and buy everything from Amazon. I am pretty sure having shampoo shipped to my doorstep in a cardboard box is more wasteful than a shared trip to Costco with my neighbor every 3 months.

Public transit is not always automatically better. [/quote]

People actually do this, though. Many people can't drive or don't have cars, and that is what they do. Maybe "inconvenient" would be a better word.[/quote]

Some people do. Maybe they can’t afford a car or can’t drive for medical reasons. However I maintain that only using a bike or public transit is either done out of desperation or because it’s a lifestyle and how you define your personality. If biking everywhere is your hobby and exercise, great. For the rest of us with normal suburban lives with kids, I maintain that biking and public transit is not the hill to die on. Vehicle choice and usage can be part of a a bigger picture. Maybe I bike everywhere and tote my produce in cotton bags from the farmers market but I also fly to visit family in California 6 times a year or have hobbies like skiing or golfing that require massive water use for irrigation or fake snow. Is the dedicated biker who outwardly appears eco conscious really more noble than the family who drives kids 3-6 miles to sports multiple times a week but never flies for vacation and instead drives to the MD/DE beach or a State park once a year? [/quote]

Why do you think anyone would define their personality or identity by riding a bike? My DH has been a bike commuter for 12 years and, while he likes the fact it minimises his carbon footprint, it’s nothing more than a mode of transport and a way to build exercise into his long work days. I know a bunch of people who commute by bike and none of them pin their identities on riding a bike. [/quote]

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