{"id":1750,"date":"2010-11-07T14:42:13","date_gmt":"2010-11-07T19:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/hungerrumblings\/?p=1750"},"modified":"2010-11-07T14:42:13","modified_gmt":"2010-11-07T19:42:13","slug":"strategies-for-a-car-free-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/strategies-for-a-car-free-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Strategies for a car-free life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I once met a man who not only doesn\u2019t own a car, he has never driven one, and has <em>never<\/em> had a driver\u2019s license. A peace activist, he sees this as ministry, as radical non-compliance with a warlike dominant culture. To him, a road doesn\u2019t connect a community to resources; it makes a community vulnerable to military invasion.<\/p>\n<p>This man lives in New   York City, where car-free living is\u00a0 easy. In the rest of the United   States, the default for getting where you want, when you want, at any hour of the day, is driving.<\/p>\n<p>Though I have no car, I do have a driver\u2019s license. Still, I\u2019m sure this license-free Methodist pastor and I see the world in similar ways. Without a car, you cultivate a different set of \u00a0traits and strategies. <em>Creativity, <\/em>for starters, because to get from point A to point B means considering many options, including buses and trains, a bicycle, riding with a friend, or walking. <em>Planning<\/em> is required to convert those options into an actual trip.<\/p>\n<p><em>Cooperation <\/em>is critical. When you don\u2019t have your own set of keys, you\u2019re very aware of other people\u2019s agendas. No bus goes to your destination? Well, you can\u2019t bully someone into driving you or lending you a car. Instead, you ask: how can everyone\u2019s goals be accomplished here?<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_1751\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/52\/hungerrumblings\/2010\/11\/DSC00397.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-1751\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1751\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/52\/hungerrumblings\/2010\/11\/DSC00397-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-1751\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sharing a ride in Rwanda<\/p><\/div>\n<p><em>Flexibility<\/em> comes in handy when it\u2019s time to shift plans or face the fact that you\u2019re not going anywhere, and are staying home instead. <em>Gratitude<\/em> infuses every step of the trip. If you\u2019re on a bus or a train, you\u2019re grateful it\u2019s going when and where you want it to. If you\u2019re sharing a ride, you\u2019re grateful for the driver and plans that coincided.<\/p>\n<p><em>Humility <\/em>happens when you realize how many different people and forms of transportation helped you safely reach your goal. Car owners aren\u2019t, I find, very humble. Crossing an intersection, I look into the faces of people who think they <em>do <\/em>own the road, and wish I would get out of the way. Besides tempting us to feel way more important than others, cars blind us to the system that supports driving. How many times have you heard people rail about subsidies for Amtrak or public transit\u2014overlooking the public works budget that creates and maintains city streets and traffic signals, county roads and interstate highways? Few notice this \u201cinvisible\u201d system of support; they only see the cost of their own car and their gas.<\/p>\n<p>Finally, there\u2019s <em>competence <\/em>and <em>resourcefulness. <\/em> Yesterday, my niece and I bicycled 2 miles to catch a county bus, took a long, interesting trip through farms and town and Indian reservation to a nearby city, switched to another bus, took a ferry, and rode our bikes to the island home of some friends. By the time we reversed our direction and reached home, biking against the fierce headwind that came up in the afternoon, we felt pretty clever. And grateful, of course!<\/p>\n<p>Creative, flexible, grateful, humble, ingenious\u2014I love being in the world this way. Yet not three weeks ago, visiting Chicago, it took exactly 15 minutes behind the wheel to turn me into an angry maniac honking and swearing at someone blocking her way!<\/p>\n<p>How does driving make <em>you<\/em> feel?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Anne Basye, <em>Sustaining Simplicity <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I once met a man who not only doesn\u2019t own a car, he has never driven one, and has never had a driver\u2019s license. A peace activist, he sees this as ministry, as radical non-compliance with a warlike dominant culture. To him, a road doesn\u2019t connect a community to resources; it makes a community vulnerable [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1750","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-post"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Strategies for a car-free life - ELCA World Hunger<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.elca.org\/worldhunger\/strategies-for-a-car-free-life\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Strategies for a car-free life - ELCA World Hunger\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I once met a man who not only doesn\u2019t own a car, he has never driven one, and has never had a driver\u2019s license. 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