ScaleDown Radio, November 10, 2008
Today was…an interesting show 
At 11:50 I called Mark to find out where he was, as I never go this late without hearing from him. It turned out that he had an emergency and completely forgot about me. No worries, Mark. Everything’s under control.
So, I didn’t actually know what the heck I was going to talk about until 3 minutes to 12:00, when Cassandra Caverhill (CJAM’s Program Director and Volunteer Coordinator) let me know that she too was undergoing a self-imposed car-free episode in her life.
Who says there isn’t a god?
So Cassie and I kibbitzed about the hurdles we have to cross to live a car-free lifestyle. A strong bond was developed between the two of us as we shared the social stigma we are being tormented with. Also - our family and friends think we’re nuts! Great to have the company in this doghouse, Cassie!
As well, later in the show, keeping the alt-trans groove that we’ve established, we got Tom Lucier on the phone to talk with him. Those of you who don’t know Tom, he’s one of the guys behind Phog Lounge on University Ave and he is also the brain behind “The Big Walk” which took, at its peak, about 30 - 35 Windsorites on a stroll around their town designed to reacquaint them with the city they call home. I went on the walk with Tom and the gang and came away with so many little nooks and crannies that I had no clue existed. It is amazing what happens when you get out of your steel and glass time-capsule (your car) and start to walk around your community. If you haven’t done it yet, I highly recommend it.
Music:
Enjoy!
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ScaleDown Radio is broadcast live every Monday from noon until 1:00 on CJAM 91.5 FM, redefining radio in Windsor and Detroit.
Tags: Alternative Transportation, independant retail, pedestrian, ScaleDown Radio, walkable
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Welcome you two to the dog house! I’ve been there for twenty years! When you tell people that you haven’t owned a car for X amounts of years, they gasp, stutter, their eyes wildly scanning the horizon and fear and dread come over them! They, and believe me, can’t phantom a world without a car, they have no paradigm or a foundation on which to believe that someone, anyone living today can get by without a car. They also think that you were a drunk once and lost your license for a reason for not owning a car. They will not believe you, they will think that you are mentally unstable and at the worst crazy.
All of my friends in the Detroit area think I’m absolutely crazy but then I tell them that I have ten minute walk to work, their eyes glaze as if imagining a distant time past, a paradise or an Eden. I have to explain to them what public transit is, what a bus is, that I can meet most of my daily needs in a twenty minute walk radius. And the sprawl of their lives lived comes smashing into them, the time wasted in just getting anywhere slams them like a bunker buster bomb. Is anything convenient if you have to drive to get it, with a $15,000 plus investment or chattel, and then have no choice in doing so? What choice is that?
The above can be said by Windsorites, as you are finding out!
As one good American friend said to me, ” don’t let Bush and Homeland Security hear this, you will be deemed an economic terrorist by the state for spreading rumours of a false paradise, an alternate life that isn’t the Amurican dream. The Christian right will come after you as a heretic for spreading blasphemy!”
Walk!?! You actually walk? In the core of city! Day and night? What about THOSE OTHER people on the street, the great unwashed that you have to navigate around, you know … those sub -humans, those pedestrians, poor people, you actually walk through those that are economically challenged, you’re not economically challenged, so why do you do this? Buy a car! Be like us! See! We’re all complaining about gas prices, the time it takes to commute or drive anywhere, sizing each other up as to what kind of car each other owns, that gives a dollar and cents view of your financial power in our society. Penis and breast envy come to the fore! Or in my thinking, your brain and mind are smaller than mine and your bank account is running on empty!
When you don’t own a car, a city as it is and you knew it with a car, become totally different. Time and space (distance) become a factor of your lives, the rhythms of a city have to become known, opening and closings of businesses, bus schedules and time to get wherever becomes a big factor, especially for medical or dental appointments. What route gets me the closest, how far to and from the bus stop are major questions.
Without the convenience of a car, with the ability to just get up and drive when it strikes you, life now has to be planned. I plan shopping trips by area, saving ideas of things that I need are in a certain area of this city, so that I only need one bus out and back, pick up what I need in a clustered area and get back on the bus, next day go the other way, rather than driving on a whim hither and yawn.
Frustrating? Yes! Hard? Yes! Sometimes screaming in the dark at the time needed to do something that was easier once. But then it hits you, the questioning of really needing something or that thing at the time it hit you, the easiness of instant gratification fulfilled, ebbs with time, finding out that you really didn’t need it then but just wanted it because you can go out and get it now, kicks in.
Let’s go shopping! (out of boredom or the lack of nothing better to do) For what? I don’t know? Just, let’s go shopping! Takes on a whole new meaning when not owning a car.
The weather is another element that makes not owning a car, a little harder. You’ve planned this shopping trip but it is raining beyond a level of acceptance, the bus stop close you is unsheltered, can you time it so that you can be there just before the bus arrives, only to arrive and see the tail lights of the bus go by, can you stand and wait for the next one in the rain or just turn and go home, leaving the shopping trip for another day.
Questioning everything and planning, time and distance, the element of changing weather, the rhythms of a city all come into play when not owning a car. If you have decided not to own a car, then you will have to adapt or die (cave in and buy a car.) Car withdrawal is just like withdrawal from an addiction, it hurts, it makes you scream and rail against the gods, it will make you reason to the depth of your being on your choice, and as you both said above, everyone thinks you’re nuts!
The counsellor is in!
Windsor a COMMUNITY where you LIVE, WORK, and PLAY!
Mayor and council this is the city we all want.
I am so envious of people like Urbanrat, Cassandra, and Chris. Not because they has given up the car, I don’t know if I have the guts to jump into the deep-end and totally give up my car, but because they have managed to rearrange their lives to achieve the COMMUNITY-LIVE-WORK-PLAY balance I hope to accomplish in my life.
They are years ahead of all of us. They don’t waste their time zigzagging across town each day. They are not disconnected from their communities like we are. They actually have time to spend with family and friends, experience nature, and for recreation.
Do they work less then we do? Are they more organized than we are? Where do they find the extra time we lack? I think, they simply managed to eliminate the time we waste commuting each day.
Here is an idea that could make the transition to car freedom easier.
Windsor lets share a car.
Time to start Windsor CarShare. Car sharing is an alternative to owning a car. Allowing members short-term use of a vehicle when needed. Members are then charged for the time and mileage of each trip. In one program, members estimated they saved an average of $154 per month on transportation costs.
The lifestyle changes it produces are the big benefits to car sharing though.
These include:
- reduced vehicle ownership,
- Decreased vehicle miles traveled,
- Increase use of public transit and other alternative modes of transportation, and
- Increase awareness of transportation costs.
With Windsor being a major University and College town the market exists, all we need is the will. Windsor lets share a car!
Link to more info on car sharing -
http://www.carsharing.net/
Edwin, this is an idea that our city will eventually need. I would be one of your first customers (in 12 months, after the documentary is done
With our laid-off big three employees are still bringing in a pretty good wage with EI and SUB, they can still (sort of) maintain the ownership of their vehicles. But that won’t last forever.
After that, folks may begin to look at ideas such as car-sharing, public transportation and bike riding a little differently. Keep your fingers crossed!
Edwin, don’t be envious, its damn hard work having to plan every adventure. I just can’t get up at eight at night and join friends for a drink or a gathering across town without thinking how am I going to get there, get home if I stay to late, do I have the cash for a taxi, is someone there heading my way home.
You are very conscious of your day to day living without a car. As for nature, I live in the core, the river is close by but I don’t like the passivity of it, its boring but has the future potential of being a real person place, if only the city would let things happen down there.
I am disconnected in this community Edwin, given the area and sprawl of this city, there are places I don’t have time to wonder into, just to look or participate in, getting anywhere in this city without a car is a logistical nightmare that you get tired of fighting, so you just don’t go and direct your time and energy to something else. I have no intention of ever going to the Golden Palace on the east side by bus, it is just to f**king far to travel for any event. It might as well be in Puce or Emeryville!
BUT, in my community of the core, I know a lot of the merchants, restaurant owners and sales staff by name. Over the years, I’ve been invited to weddings, parties and stuff. If I don’t pop in to a store for a few days or weeks, I’m always asked where you’ve been and a catch up chat ensues. Waving to everyone you know as you walk down the street and good morning etc., is a real sense of a community to me. The street is were its at.
I can afford a car, that has never been a question, I have come to hate driving, in this city or any other city, owning a car is easy, driving everywhere is what is stupid and I see the frustrations of drivers faces every day. I have always wondered if those with high blood pressure were to stop driving everyday, would they live longer if they didn’t have to drive everywhere, would they be less obese.
My community is small from the Kildare House in the east to the Dominion House in west and half way to Tecumseh south on Ouellette, that is the max for walking and have come to love it. Erie Street, Ottawa Street especially Canada Salvage! Wyandotte east or west for the variety of foods that I can purchase and get a quick lesson on how to cook it or prepare it.
Oh, to those in the big box stores and malls, I shop online to get the other stuff I need and shipped to my door.
Edwin stated: “I don’t know if I have the guts to jump into the deep-end and totally give up my car,” I ask, have you seriously thought about it, sat down with yourself and unveil your driving needs and patterns, do you need a car for everything? In my reasoning you have boxed yourself in to less choice rather than more. The car owns you!
When all are driving home after a day or a shift of work and are tense and still have mucho minutes in car and all other traffic, I take a decompressing fifteen minutes or so, stop and do some shopping and home. Those easy minutes are precious for putting the day into perspective good or bad, the walk, the street, knowing that you are intwined and when I arrive home, I’m home, the day is past me and the time ahead is mine. No rushing, no fighting the other idiots trying to do the same thing, a couple of traffic lights and that’s it.
I’m old enough to remember a time when Windsor boasted a bustling downtown where you could get everything you needed within walking distance. Back in the day, the area around Ouellette and Wyandotte boasted a Toronto Dominion Bank, a Commerce bank [now called CIBC], a Dominion grocery store, a Boots drug store, a couple of clothing stores, and the Vanity theater. A few blocks down on Ouellette toward the river was Whittington’s bookstore, Sam the Record Man, a Thrifty’s clothing store, the old Kresge’s and Coles books. The old Norwich block boasted Southshore books, the Imperial tavern and a couple of first-class restaurants. All of these businesses disappeared over a short period of time.