Archive for the 'Car-free' Category

Help needed: Passenger rail advocacy

Wednesday, May 7th, 2008

Do you know of a good organization (a c3 or an advocacy c4) — in addition to the National Association of Railroad Passengers — that advocates for increased passenger rail service in the United States? Especially state initiatives. Thoughtful blogs are welcome, too.

Greyhound steps up

Saturday, April 26th, 2008

“The Dog” has a bad reputation of being the intercity tranportation mode of last resort. That’s a shame. Many countries enjoy inexpensive, efficient (if not fancy) bus transportation. And that’s an efficient use of depleting petroleum.

And oil jumped above $120 a barrel on Friday.

But Greyhound’s service stinks. Hubby was shocked that you didn’t get a […]

Life at $4 a gallon

Monday, April 21st, 2008

Within a three day period, I have spoken with two persons in completely unrelated situation (and different locales) who have made statements starting “when gas hits $4 a gallon we’ll have to . . . .” with something not-nice following.

You, dear readers, know how much I like dense urban development and reliable, efficient public transportation […]

My apartment’s real cost

Monday, April 14th, 2008

Hubby and I live in a mid-grade rental apartment in a newly-nice neighborhood very close to downtown D.C. We both walk to work. (Washington, D.C. has one of the highest rates of pedestrian commuters in the country.) We don’t own a car. Most people who don’t live in New York or Los Angeles think we […]

Atlanta people! Freedom from the car!

Wednesday, April 9th, 2008

Few friends come as good as K. (for Katharine, who’s identified herself with her blog, so I’m glad to do the same) who writes at pointedview. So I think she’ll forgive me for cribbing her whole post, addressed to metro Atlanta residents. But leave her the comments; it’s how you show the love.

Metro Atlanta residents: […]

Shared bike comes to DC

Tuesday, April 8th, 2008

Self-service shared bicycle stations, featured in European cities, comes to the United States first in Washington, D.C. (Or perhaps not; there seems to have been programs elsewhere. So it must be the automated, self-service piece.) A good idea, I think given our strong transit use and relatively flat terrain.

The stations locations, plainly, couldn’t be better […]

Megabus enters northeastern corridor

Tuesday, March 25th, 2008

Back in 2006, I first wrote about the UK-based Megabus entering the US market, and giving riders an option between the hard-worn Greyhound and the under-regulated (”is that antifreeze?”) “Chinatown” buses. (Link, to give you an idea of schedules and fares.) They’ve since moved to locations in California and Nevada, and have now announced a […]

Ethical consumption update

Thursday, March 6th, 2008

The pressure on world grain production — crop failures, diversion of biofuel production — has created huge price increases and I have a hard time imagining how millions of the world’s poorest people will manage to eat when they get priced out of the cheapest food available.

Point one: Cyclone and storm damage leaves Bangladesh’s […]

Oil touches $100

Wednesday, January 2nd, 2008

Well, after a few week of sliding prices, the forecast of a cold winter and crisis-threatened supply briefly pushed the New York price for crude oil to $100 a barrel. Ouch. Here’s a place for you to comment about your feelings: hope, worry, anger, what have you.

For what it’s worth, Hubby and I try to […]

Car sharing services merge: will it matter?

Saturday, November 3rd, 2007

The news today (link, link, link) among the car-free sort is Zipcar is buying out Flexcar. There’s some rumor that Flexcar has been troubled financially, but I read it as a loss of choice, value and quality for those in Washington, D.C. moving away from car ownership. Especially if you’re under 25, and without a […]


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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States