Carfree USA Blog

Cycling Friendly Cities

2008-07-23T14:10:00.001-07:00

Archconservative Bob Novak's Hit and Run

2008-07-23T12:50:00.000-07:00

Pedestrian sent to hospital.

Bono said that the pedestrian, who was crossing the street on a "Walk" signal and was in the crosswalk, rolled off the windshield and that Novak then made a right into the service lane of K Street. “This car is speeding away. What’s going through my mind is, you just can’t hit a pedestrian and drive away,” Bono said.

The Politico

Going Carfree in England

2008-07-22T17:08:00.000-07:00

Tracy Corrigan did it.

Obesity in America

2008-07-18T10:46:00.000-07:00

Washington Post

Compare with the location of America's most walkable cities.

The Solution to High Gas Prices

2008-07-17T16:51:00.000-07:00

H.R. 6495: Transportation and Housing Options for Gas Price Relief Act of 2008

-- expand public transportation;

-- encourage pay-as-you-drive auto insurance policies that reward low-mileage drivers with lower insurance premiums;

-- reduce commuting costs by providing incentives to employers and employees to take transit, bicycle, carpool, walk, or telecommute to work;

-- help local governments create walkable, bikeable communities;

-- help Americans make smart transportation and housing choices by educating them about their options;

-- create location efficient mortgages that would make owning a home near transit more affordable.

Details here.

America's most walkable big cities

2008-07-17T13:24:00.000-07:00

MSN Real Estate With gas prices sky-high, the pedestrian friendliness of your city or neighborhood becomes a pocketbook issue. A new survey by Walk Score has ranked the largest U.S. cities by their walkability.

...

America's Most Walkable Cities

Ciclovia San Francisco Announced!

2008-07-12T10:20:00.000-07:00

San Franciscans will be dancing in the streets - literally- after Mayor Gavin Newsom's office obtained the necessary permits this week to shut down 6 miles of thoroughfare during two Sundays this summer and turn the pavement into a party zone.

Starting in the Bayview, stretching past the Giants ballpark, running up the Embarcadero and ending in Chinatown, the northbound lanes of the sweeping route will be closed to cars and opened to pedestrians from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Aug. 31 - Labor Day weekend - and again two weeks later, on Sept. 14. The idea is for people to partake of physical activity in a wide, open space not usually available to city dwellers.

This event is inspired by the Ciclovia idea from Bogota.

A recent version of this was a huge success in Portland, Ore

Now New York City is planning it's own Ciclovia.

Good ideas spread quickly. And with $5 gas, most families can't afford long summer road trips and want to enjoy life closer to home these days.

For a city trying to retain its families, Ciclovia is a great program to adopt.

Cities looking for more information about Livable City projects should visit these websites.

SFGATE

Today Show Considers Carfree Life as Money Saver

2008-07-11T13:41:00.000-07:00

Author Chris Balish says the way to put the brakes on high gas prices is to do the unthinkable: leave your car behind! In his new book, "How to Live Well Without Owning a Car," Balish argues that getting rid of the ride can actually increase your quality of life. An excerpt.

Today

Americans Moving Back to Cities

2008-07-10T10:28:00.000-07:00

Tracy McKelvey and his wife Jan lived in a similar suburb and used to commute two hours each day to their jobs in Phoenix. But, a few years ago, they traded in their three-bedroom, two-garage house in the Phoenix valley for a downtown loft.

Both McKelveys now travel to work by scooter and enjoy restaurants, cafes, sports arenas and shops within walking distance of home, taking advantage of the $2.3 billion that the country's fifth-largest city is spending to build housing, a university campus and a mass transit rail system.

"We save money on gas. It's a good feeling. I haven't sat in a traffic jam for years," Tracy McKelvey said.

Reuters

Another personal tale of going carfree, this one from Minneapolis

2008-07-09T16:43:00.000-07:00

Biking instead of driving was a liberating decision
A couple of weeks ago our second vehicle died. We had gotten a lot out of our 1991 Honda Civic, and we were probably on borrowed time. (click link for more.)

Destitute Americans Living in their Cars

2008-07-09T16:42:00.000-07:00

America is falling apart.

Drinking Man 2008 (the ecological alternative to Burning Man)

2008-07-09T13:44:00.000-07:00

This Labor Day, why spend the weekend burning things to relieve stress in a pristine desert playa?

Why drive an RV across the country just so you can stay cool in the 109-degree days that are typical in a Nevada Desert this time of year?

Why wait all year to break out of corporate chains to make an “Alternative” temporary city?

Join us for a new tradition…
Drinking Man 2008, at your local pub.

- We will ride bikes, walk, and take transit to Drinking Man as to not consume massive quantities of petroleum in our pursuit of nihilistic ‘freedom.’

- We will enjoy The City during a long peaceful weekend when the 9 to 5 artists and corporate club kids are choking on the alkaline dust kicked up by self-indulgent rolling art projects, some years in the making.

- We will salute a psychologically and ecologically sustainable lifestyle and toast the good friends who make every day a creative and wonderful experience in a real city of working people.

- We will commit to donating our spare hours over the next year to volunteering locally to make life in our city more livable for everyone who lives here. We will not just share our creativity and hard work with an elite that can pay $300 to live in a money-free wonderland, just like they do at Club Med.

- We will praise a balanced lifestyles that does not engender so much stress that it needs to be ‘burned’ off in spectacular ways at great expense to the environment.

Raise your glass with us Labor Day Weekend!

Celebrate Drinking Man! (At your local pub, in the permanent city of Freedom and Creativity!)

Entrance – Free
Food and drink are available in exchange for American currency

The Death of Exurbia: Strip Mall Vacancies

2008-07-08T09:04:00.000-07:00

The data is not good.

Bike Friendly Brooklyn?

2008-07-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

That’s because beginning in 2006, the city’s Department of Transportation (DOT) devised a plan to install 200 miles of bike lanes throughout the city within three years. This third year is the plan’s most ambitious — it is when 110 of those miles are going to be installed. Brooklyn gets its approximate fair share of the pie with 39.6 miles of new bike lanes, 22.4 of which are already completed.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle

(h/t Streetsblog)

Denmark 'world's happiest nation'

2008-07-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

BBC

Copenhagen, the most "bikey" city on Planet Earth, shows its style.
Copenhagen Style Chic

The New Ghost Towns of Suburban America

2008-07-04T11:23:00.000-07:00

"The homes all appeared to be empty, and there were no prospective buyers anywhere to be found. Surprisingly, the sales office was open ... but the woman working there had questionable English fluency. When asked how many homes had been sold in the past month she simply responded, 'Uh huh. Thank you. Yes!' and handed us some additional literature on the property."

LA Times

Oh the good news front, TDM Professional informs us that Real Estate Agents and home buyers are learning the value of WalkScore.

Bicycle Advocates Gaining Respect in DC

2008-07-03T13:08:00.000-07:00

Groups trying to promote bicycling as a viable alternative means of transportation hope to mint such feel-good sentiments into a firm commitment for expanded federal funding. Next year, Congress is slated to write a new highway bill, which is already being touted as embodying the greatest overhaul of federal transportation policy since President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed the Interstate Highway Act into law half a century ago. Bicycling advocates are hoping to build on a significant set of wins in the current highway law, written in 2005 — including new initiatives to fund “complete streets,” the term for new road projects outfitted with dedicated bike lanes — and arguing to step up federal funding to encourage bike commuting.

CQ Politics

GOP Gets $3.6 mil from Big Oil, Launches Attack Ads worth $3 Million Against Dems

2008-07-03T10:09:00.000-07:00

An arm of the Republican National Committee is poised to launch $3 million in ads attacking Democrats on energy security. The ads are due to begin on Sunday in the battleground states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

Campaign finance records indicate that through June 2, 2008, the Republican Party had received $3,652,286 from oil and gas interests. Through June 2, John McCain himself had received $791,777 from the oil industry and media reports indicate that he has since raised millions more at fundraisers held in Houston, Dallas, and elsewhere.

OpenSecrets

Turning to God for Cheap Gas

2008-07-03T09:16:00.000-07:00

The Pray at the Pump Movement, founded by Rocky Twyman, has been holding prayer vigils at gas stations across the country. On Monday, Twyman decided to take his movement from Exxon and Shell stations straight to the steps of the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Washington, D.C., hoping to encourage the oil-rich country to raise the amount of barrels they release each day from 200,000 to 1.2 million.

Conservative News Service

Detroit: We Can't Do It!

2008-07-02T13:00:00.000-07:00

We can't possibly make gas-sipping cars.

Call the whaaaambulance!

Crooks and Liars

General Motors is making a car that gets 40mpg. But so far, they only plan to sell it overseas.

The company's current market value is smaller than that of Mattel Inc., maker of Matchbox cars, and a 10th of what it was in 2000. A Merrill Lynch analyst
said yesterday that a GM ``bankruptcy is not impossible if the market continues to deteriorate.''

Cars are good for something.

2008-07-02T12:29:00.000-07:00

Cars create (temporarily) carfree Last Thursday

Try this at home, kids.

Auto Sales Continue Decline in USA

2008-07-01T11:46:00.000-07:00

NEW YORK -- June auto sales plunged, according to reports from the nation's major automakers, as Americans shunned pickups and SUVs in the face of record gas prices

CNN Money

But not to worry car-huggers, according to the US Bureau of Transit Statistics for 2006 there are still more than 250 million vehicles registered in the USA.

British solution to $9 gas? Drive less.

Good thing they built transit.

It's pretty easy to switch.

US/UK Oil Companies Declare Victory in Iraq

2008-06-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

The war for oil in Iraq is over.

US and UK oil interests won.

Iraq opened its giant oilfields to foreign firms on Monday, putting British and U.S. companies in pole position five years after U.S.-led troops invaded the country to oust Saddam Hussein.
Reuters

One can assume these foriegn companies will receive the same welcome as they get in places like Nigeria.

Reports from the Nigerian military suggest the incident at Bonny Island over the weekend may have been the result of a clash between army personnel and a group of gunmen, and that four people were killed. There has been a marked escalation in violence in the oil producing region in recent weeks with numerous clashes reported between rival militant groups. However, the minister sought to play down fears that the quantity of crude oil suspended as a result of deteriorating security is reaching a crisis point for the country, which recently lost its place as Africa's biggest oil producing nation to neighboring Angola.
Dow Jones

Luckily foreign oil companies in Iraq will be protected by US troops for the next 100 years.

Analysts Predict Big Decline in US Auto Use

2008-06-30T12:18:00.000-07:00

Bike Box!

2008-06-28T12:17:00.001-07:00