Is it possible to live without a car?

Ludi

Most farmers in the US buy their food at the store in town.

benzoil

I agree with both Revi and nocar on this. That's why I moved out here from Chicago. The problem is that not everyone out here has enough land to farm. Even in rural Michigan there used to be light manufacturing jobs aplenty. The result is lots of doublewides and little brick ranch houses on marginal one acre lots. These aren't Yuppies commuting into downtown. These are working class people for the most part. Most are living paycheck to paycheck as it is. Only in a near instant collapse will they be able to stay ahead of bankruptcy without a way to get to their distant jobs.

In any case, I don't endorse the situation, but it will take some insane shocks to the system before it changes. Relocalization will be a cast iron b*tch for many. Me? I'm going to sell them eggs since they can't drive to WalMart anymore.

Note: There was a great article (linked to from PO.com) last year or late 2005 about how the rural poor would be the first ones affected by high gas prices. I can't find it this morning. (There's a short piece from the Christian Science Monitor, but that's not it).

Edit: Found it! Running On Fumes
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shabbadoo · Coal Joined: Sep 11, 2007 Posts: 3

my first post,

well, as stated, it possible to live without a car but it is a matter of trade offs, what do you want to lose in order to be free of the car?

With children, transport is a bear without a car ; and centering your life between a job location and place to shop that are both within easy walking distance locks me into very high rent and or crime. (I suspect it is similar to most people) So I guess I could trade in the one car and have no commute but I think I would still rather have lower rent and crime.

Without the cars imagine the lowered services, specifically police ambulance and firefighting service that will simply disappear. With the kids still young, I am not looking forward to that...

I think young children really throw many of the plans I have seen for AFTER a big curve.

dinopello

skyemoor

gwmss15

Do these EXURB areas of USA citys not have rail services that where built 100 plus years ago. if they dont do they have express buses that head into the inner city or to nearest metro station. Do any of these rurul area have intercity train services and bus services connecting them to the city.

eg Regional centre 1 at 4.50am 200km
small town 1 5.15am
small town 2 5.30am 150km
small town 3 5.50am
small town 4 6.10am
large town 1 6.30am 70km
outer suburb 1 6.45am 50km
suburban interchange 7.00am 30km
inner suburb 1 7.10am
inner suburb 2 7.15am
inner city station 7.25am 5km
central station 7.40am 0km

this is a common inter city commuter train time table

does the usa and its large citys have this kind of service to country areas upto to 200km away?

Would Americans who live in EXURB areas take a commuter train like this to the city for work each day.

if they wont what is stopping them from using regional commuter trains to get to work instead of driving in.

benzoil · Last edited by benzoil on Wed Sep 12, 2007 11:59 am; edited 1 time in total

gwmss15-
In a word: no. Of the major cities in the US only Chicago and the Washington, DC to Boston metro corridor have adequate interurban rail. Even then sprawl has outpaced the rail lines by a large margin.

CNN/Money reports that Kendall, Illinois was one of the top 10 growing areas in the country. Why? They just extended a commuter rail line further out into the cornfields. All it did was turn more farmland into tract homes! Ugh.

(edited for typo)
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skyemoor

There are train networks in many US cities, though for the most part they are at capacity at this time. Many large US cities have little to no train service (Atlanta, LA, Seattle, etc).

See the city information for commuter transportation mode; the ones with the worst car-dependence are at the bottom and middle of the list,
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BlisteredWhippet · Intermediate Crude Joined: Feb 08, 2005 Posts: 849

smallpoxgirl · Moderator Joined: Nov 08, 2004 Posts: 5733

Of course it's possible, but there are big trade offs.

You could:

1. Live in some urban hell hole and pretend that an armada of 18 wheelers aren't bringing you every conceivable necessity of life. The reality is that living at 300,000 times the population density the land can support and pretending its not a problem because somebody else is doing all the driving to bring you the things you need, that's just unrealistic.

2. You could live in a rural area, but you'd have to be willing to accept the standard of living that the land can provide. If you're happy making $5000 per year, you could probably make that in most rural areas off biking around doing odd jobs.

Around here, not only do a lot of people drive 30 miles to work, many of them, myself included, periodically travel hundreds of miles away to find work. As gasoline becomes more expensive, there will be a lot more people settling for the standard of living that the local area can provide. There will also be a lot more people sharing transport. Right now the only public transit between where I live and the nearest town (17,000 population) is a van that runs twice a week. It picks you up in the morning and drops you back off in the evening. It's not that hard to imagine the gasoline usage dropping 75% or even 90% from people carpooling or van pooling.
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TheDude

The tiny rural town where I grew up had only one gas station, which closed in the late 80s because the owner refused to upgrade to DEQ standards; so everyone had to drive 9 miles to get gas at a keylock station (on the sly, since Oregon law forbids you from pumping your own gas). Farming was entirely dependent on gas top to bottom, combines, trucks for hauling grain, pickups to get around in. No one was about to switch back to teams of oxen - where the hell do you get an ox? If someone had one it would take years to breed a team of them. Horses were around though. But where do you get all the saddlerly, yokes, etc? This takes a bit of doing. My town used to be on a branch line of the railroad but that was shut down years ago, and now is dependent on trucking for goods.
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Revi · Fusion Joined: Apr 25, 2005 Posts: 3255 Location: Maine

I think we'll all find out whether it's possible to live without a car. I think that the average person will not have a car, or if they do they won't be able to afford to drive it within 5 years. If Mexico's oil production falls off a cliff, and Venezuela's oil gets sold to China we are going to be down by 2-4 million barrels per day very soon. We'll all get into a third world way of life. We'll ride a scooter around and use trucks only when we're hauling things around. The age of driving around in huge pickups to get a jug of milk and a movie are going to be over. Fugeddaboudit.

We may be able to get around in something like this:

www.sunnev.com

dinopello

nocar · Intermediate Crude Joined: Nov 05, 2004 Posts: 680

A common solution in many rural areas in Sweden some decades ago (when there still were quite a number of car-less household) were grocery stores or butchers in vans. The vans had regular routes, and once a week it stopped close to your home. You could call the day before if you wanted something extra, and the grocer or meat-man would bring it.

I think we must distinguish between cars for personal individual transport of healthy people (=cars in the usual sense), and cars/trucks for transport of goods, fire fighting, and ambulances, etc. In a well-organised society, I am sure the first type is dispensable without loss of quality of life. (Unless your biggest enjoyment of life is car-driving of course - I have met such people)

Also the transport of goods certainly can be reduced - for example dairies used to be small and local, and the milk did not travel far from the farmer to the dairie and then back to local consumers. Now everything is centralised and I think there are only a couple of dairies left in all of Sweden. Similar with meat and eggs.

Schools used to be small and local - then they were centralised, especially at the secondary school level due to the need for specialised teaching so rural teens must make long daily commutes in school buses - today, with the internet it is entirely possible give specialized, advanced education at a distance, even overseas.

I think all of us can give additional examples where travel/transport can be reduced without quality losses.

nocar

shabbadoo · Coal Joined: Sep 11, 2007 Posts: 3

smallpoxgirl said
"Of course it's possible, but there are big trade offs.

You could:

1. Live in some urban hell hole and pretend that an armada of 18 wheelers aren't bringing you every conceivable necessity of life. The reality is that living at 300,000 times the population density the land can support and pretending its not a problem because somebody else is doing all the driving to bring you the things you need, that's just unrealistic.

2. You could live in a rural area, but you'd have to be willing to accept the standard of living that the land can provide. If you're happy making $5000 per year, you could probably make that in most rural areas off biking around doing odd jobs."

First off smallpox, sweet cow,

second I agree there would have to be some trade offs. As gas prices go up fewer will be able to get gas and will have to live close to jobs, this will reduce the radius of ones job search right? and even career options too right? Which means less income.

And food prices of shipped-in goods will go up and some foods will be totally unavailable, not just coconuts and winter strawberries but everything.

If it is a long slow decline, the rich will be insulated but we all will be paying more for less, on everything; healthcare products are all from or packaged in, oil products so even that will decline in quality and/or availability. Cars transport all of these things as well and that transport across thousands of miles will compound the cost and reduce the availability even more.

SO HUGE decrease quality of life for city dwellers, in the country even fewer jobs than in the city, and even fewer items shipped in...

Unless we build thousands of nuke plants and charge up our battery powered cars and trucks and tractors - like on Buck Rogers!

That would rock, and then we would finally have flying cars too. SO I guess this peak oil thing is a win win!