car(s)

so, i bought a car. i know, i know: they're evil, and i've been pretty preachy about the beauty of not owning one. but i have one now, and i want to share with you what I learned in 3.5 years of going without:

(1) Our cities are designed around cars. This is pretty obvious to anyone who has tried living without a car for any time whatsoever. Portland is nearly an exception to this rule, though not entirely. Our public transportation is excellent. Living in the NW of Portland, I didn't really need a car, I could walk most places and public transit was readily available and cheap. However, the majority of the people drive carsand when i was walking and riding my bike, you are painfully aware that cars will kill you if you aren't paying attention. I'm fairly serious about this. I walk down busy streets and ride my bike so defensively these days I might as well be pretending that the cars are actually out to get me.

(2) Our lives are designed around cars. Socially, we go out and see people. We meet them in places that aren't near our homes after work, between other social events, etc. What I realized in not owning a car is that because it takes sooooo long to get places on the bus, you end up doing less. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I realized that I'm such a social butterfly that this was a hard adjustment to make.

Going to the grocery store is different without a car as well. You have to go more often on foot because you can only carry two bags. This problem is compounded by my involvement in the healthcare field. The truly healthy food is in disparate places: farmers markets, whole foods, new seasons, and the co-ops; though all in the same quadrant of Portland, they aren't anywhere near each other on foot. And again the problem of carrying things emerges.

Getting out of the city is another, probably more important aspect that I was missing without a car. I like camping. I like going to the coast. I like road trips. But you can't do these things on the bike very well (unless it becomes the trip itself).

(3) Cars are expensive. Do you know how much I spent on transportation per month including bike parts and riding public transit? $60/month. Total. That is cheap. I just bought a car for $1800, that i hope isn't going to die or need repairs, that costs $30 to fill up every couple weeks, insurance is relatively cheap but still more than $60/month itself, and add the occasional oil change and we're talking at least 4 times the cost. And that doesn't even include the true cost of driving:

What would it cost to drive if the price tag of gas and cars included air pollution, road construction and maintenance; property taxes lost from land cleared for freeways; free parking paid for by taxes; noise and vibration damage to structures; protection of petroleum supply lines; sprawl and loss of transportation options; auto accidents; and congestion? A number of researchers have tried to answer this question, and John Holtzclaw of the Sierra Club profiled eight studies that, when averaged, estimated the true price of gas at $6.05 a gallon.

Which doesn't include the cost of wars (452 billion!) like Iraq, which I posted about here


(4) Gasoline is a dinosaur. I hate that I have to contribute to this. I really do. But the alternatives aren't there yet for a starving student who needs to get around. I looked into running a diesel on free vegetable oil but that seemed like more work and time than taking public transport. I think Biodiesel is trading one problem (foreign dependence on oil) for the same one (where do you think they get the fertilizer to grow the biodiesel?). I'm waiting for the Algae/Hydrogen powered car - I'll probably have a real job by then too, so I might even be able to afford it.

So, in conclusion, it might seem entirely contradictory that I now own a car. Or maybe it doesn't even seem like it. But there are tradeoffs, and if its one thing that Chinese Medicine has taught me is that things aren't inherently good or bad, they just are:

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Harmony is only in following the Way.

The Way is without form or quality,
But expresses all forms and qualities;
The Way is hidden and implicate,
But expresses all of nature;
The Way is unchanging,
But expresses all motion.

Beneath sensation and memory
The Way is the source of all the world.
How can I understand the source of the world?
By accepting.
--------------------------------------------Tao Te Ching Chapter 21