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][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][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]

We're not talking about nobility. We're talking about transportation choices. Yours, mine, the OP's, whoever's.

We're also not talking about all or nothing. Maybe you could use your car for this trip but bike, walk, or bus for that trip. Or maybe you could use your car on some days but bike, walk, or Metro on other days. For people with "normal (middle-class) suburban lives with kids", cars are so much the default habit that it really takes an effort to do anything else. That's unfortunate. Sometimes there even are better, more pleasant, more convenient, cheaper non-car options, which people aren't even aware of, because cars are the default habit. Yes, we (in the suburbs) need more frequent buses, safer bike routes, and more sidewalks, but we (middle-class suburbanites) also need to change our mentality and our assumptions.[/quote]
About 150,000 of the 190,000 FCPS students ride the bus every day. So almost all families in the suburbs are using transportation options other than cars for at least half of their trips.

Instead of inventing fictional people to judge, you should focus on yourself.

[/quote]
I am not judging you. So, why do you feel judged?

Yes, school buses are the only form of public transportation that "normal middle class suburban" people routinely use.[/quote]
I never said you were judging me, did I? I said that you invented fictional people for the purpose of judging them, which is pretty sad. You should focus on your own choices.[/quote]

You are inventing fictional people who are judging - well, I don't know who. Other fictional people, I guess.[/quote]
Why are you so immature? Is it related to the fact that are online 24-7 posting about bicycles?[/quote]

You know, I was thinking about this earlier. Is it only one poster who has the habit of calling other posters on this forum "immature"? I honestly don't think I've called anybody "immature" since I was in junior high, and that was during the Carter administration. The idea that someone would call me immature, honestly, it makes me giggle. [/quote]
DP. You have proven the PPP correct. I would speculate that you are drawn to bicycles as a direct result of your stunted emotional maturity. [/quote]

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