#carfree — Public Fediverse posts

@crazyeddie @aworkinglibrary
It is probably about car dependency, car-centered areas. Like in the US where in many towns without a car one would struggle to do anything: getting to the grocery store, getting back from the store, reaching the other river bank as many bridges are motor vehicles only.

People can’t live without cars in such places. Even food banks have huge lines of cars, four "lanes". Some homeless people drive cars as well. Imagine the closest grocery store being 1 hour walking distance away, and the weather may be extremely hot/cold.

Many such areas don’t even have sidewalks or anything for walking at all. At the same time so called "jay-walking" is prohibited by law. The term "jaywalking" actually was invented by the cars lobby in the early 20th century. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaywalking
Moving around by walking is extremely inconvenient, dangerous, taking ridiculous amounts of time, basically incompatible with everyday activities.

Also the parking lots, roads, intersections take up huge chunks of the city. Consider how much longer it takes to walk somewhere compared to what it could be without all these. Urban areas could look very different if they were human-centered and Points Of Interest were packed tightly.

And the bigger the city, the more space car infrastructure takes up. More lanes, wider intersections, parking lots can have up to many thousands spots, highways, freeways, interchanges of ridiculous sizes and shapes.

The topic is huge, what I mentioned is just the tip. Think of what you see around every day. Also all the noise. And danger it brings to everyone, not just drivers. The number of so called "accidents", another convenient term for the horrible things that happen everyday.

The areas which are pedestrian-friendly, bicycle friendly, have public transportation tend to have happier residents, more attraction points, more small businesses, more street life, way better air quality, less noise among other benefits.
Also social connections and interaction happen there and not on a 4-lane highway.

#Cars #Car #City #Urban #Streets
#Cities #CarFree #Roads #CarDependancy #StreetLife #Safety #Bycicles #Walking #UrbanSprawl #OneMoreLane #InducedTraffic #PublicTransport #PublicTransit #Access #PublicTransportation #Accessibility #Accessible #PublicSpaces #Socialization #Capitalism #Subsidies #Lobbying #WordsMatter #History #CarsAreDangerous #FuckCars

Add another tally to the "things you can do on public transport."

Amazing what the bus and train drivers will let you bring on board if you wait till off peak and give them a big smile.

PS i know the Germans won't blink an eye, but Australia is so car centred it's hard for people to fathom taking the PT, let alone using it to move furniture.

#CarFree #MidCentury #LowCar #NoCar #PublicTransport

Details of #ScotGov owned #ScotRail timetable changes; good to see extra #trains on Sundays on many routes, making #CarFree leisure travel more do-able.

(But when did ScotRail remove the few other operator services from their timetables? Not helpful for full overview of #Inverness + #Aberdeen #InterCity trains and especially not for #EastLothian travellers! #Integration is much more important than hiding other services out of spite and making travel options look worse!)

https://www.scotrail.co.uk/plan-your-journey/changes-our-timetables

#TheGuardian: "Meet the #Americans who choose to live without a #car in the #US: ‘It takes some doing’"

#carFree #carCulture
#publicTransport #bikeCommuting #biking #velotaf #transportsEnCommun

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/may/08/americans-without-cars-driving-dominated-country

I published “Being the Change⁠🌍 (featuring my abandoned and ongoing changes)” at
https://www.ii.com/be-the-change/
#BeTheChange #BeingTheChange #BeKind #CarFree #Boycott #Shopping #FLOSS #Standards #Activism #Hacktivism #AsciiDoc #Markdown #Privacy #Security #Tech
#InfiniteInk
#Byℵ #ByNM

"The study suggests, among other ideas, that the trolley could be expanded beyond summer months and utilized to connect not just #Monterey and P.G. [#PacificGrove], but even more of the #MontereyPeninsula, creating a #CarFree way to get around.”— @pammarino #MontereyCountyNow https://www.montereycountynow.com/blogs/opinion_blog/expanding-trolley-service-is-just-an-idea-for-now-but-it-should-be-pursued/article_31f82d12-7b88-48be-8d01-ba2c4cb0b975.html

BTW, there are bicycle racks on trolleys too. Tips for taking your bike aboard a trolley or a large or small MST #bus: https://bikemonterey.org/monterey-salinas-transits-summer-trolley-service.html

#PublicTransit #MontereySalinasTransit #MontereyCounty #CarbonEmissions #transportation #trolleys

Can you live without a car in the mountains? Yes, with planning and a few different bikes
>>
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/bike-blog/2025/may/30/can-you-live-without-a-car-in-the-mountains-yes-with-planning-and-a-few-different-bikes
#climate #FossilFuels #pollution #RoadTrauma #harm #MobilityDesign #cycling #carfree

I just discovered a brilliant #carfree hack for travelling by #transit to cottage country north of #kingstonon . Avis rent-a-car in Kingston will leave a car at the station and the keys at the front desk for you to pick up. No need to suffer the #401highway!

Apropos of nothing, here are a couple of lovely "bodaboda" bicycle taxis from Uganda. I found these on Flickr while working today.

by Flickr/Butterfly Works
https://buff.ly/4dmrXLN

#BodaBoda #Uganda #HalfHeartedFanatic #SustainableTransport #SustainableTransportation #Bike #Cycling #CyclingLife #CommuteByBike #NotJustBikes #Urbanism #Fuckcars #Carfree #LowCar #PeopleOverCars #PedestrianFriendly #SafeStreets #TransportationJustice

New in JTLU: “A framework to include socio-demographic characteristics in potential job accessibility levels in low-car and car-free development areas in the Netherlands” by Rutger Meester, M. Baran Ulak, and Karst Geurs

https://jtlu.org/index.php/jtlu/article/view/2275

This paper proposes an analytical framework to determine potential job accessibility in car-free development areas for population groups with different socio-demographic characteristics.

#CarFree #AccessToJobs #TransportationPlanning

Even on a weekend, 4 hours of riding the bus is a significant chunk of time.

Car free living just takes more time.

I feel like I need to divorce many of my close friends who live scattered around my sprawling city.

Anyone else have this problem?

Would love to hear from you BC I would love to go car free but I think I would lose friends.
2/2

#BikeToots #Transit #Bike #CarFree

To those of you who go car free, what do you do about close social connections who live down the highway?

I have a good friend who lives:
a 20 minute drive away, or
a 2 hour transit ride away, or
a 1.5 hour bike away

Presently, I'll sometimes go see her on a weekday evening. If I went car free, that wouldn't be an option. She would have to come to me instead.

1
#CarFree #BikeToots #Bike #Transit