I\u2019m thinking about cars a lot lately because I\u2019m in them a lot lately. When I\u2019m not in one, I\u2019m dreading the next time I\u2019ll have to be in one. I\u2019m tired of automobiles. I\u2019m worried about gas prices (again.) The love affair is fading, but breaking up is hard to do. <\/p>\n
I drive a very nice car that takes me places and plays my music and feeds me news, holds my coffee cup, warms or cools me, and does everything a car can do to help a person get around, but there isn\u2019t a car special enough to make me fall in love with driving again.<\/p>\n
No offense to my perfectly fine vehicle, but I dream of a walking life – some modified version of the olden days when there was a central business district and houses began right there at the edge of town. A person could walk to accomplish most daily errands. For longer trips, there was a family car, but it wasn\u2019t in use all day, every day.<\/p>\n
The love affair with my car evolved the way most do in the good old U.S.A. It seemed so natural at first, the car seducing the teenager, promising new adventures as soon as the driver\u2019s license came in the mail. For a brief moment, as grown-ups, we defined ourselves by what we drove. (Okay some still do) but over the past decade or so, something\u2019s changed for me and driving doesn\u2019t resemble freedom in the slightest. What feels free is NOT driving. <\/p>\n
Some people believe a time is coming when people will look back at single-person car occupancy as a quaint and uninformed period in our history. Will our descendants laugh at us for turning our lives into such car-centered productions? Will they wonder how we ever thought it could work? Before we can get out of our cars, we’ll need additional forms of mass transportation that can function without creating a new blight on our imperiled landscape. Maybe they’re being designed right this minute and we just don’t know about them yet. <\/p>\n
If so, the future will perhaps include mandatory controls about who can drive alone in a car and when, because most drivers won\u2019t let go voluntarily. Giving up the right to drive is such a fraught topic, it\u2019s likely to include a bitter battle. I wonder if my granddaughter\u2019s generation will define \u201cfreedom\u201d without including owning a car. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"