Welcome to Slower Traffic
I stopped owning cars in 2007. At first, I decided to try it for a year. But after only a few months, the benefits – physical, financial and mental – became apparent. I haven’t owned a car since.
The decision to relinquish car ownership was a long time coming. Like most Americans, I bought into the cultural wisdom, promulgated by the automobile and advertising industries, that one must own an automobile to participate fully in American economic life. I needed a car to get to work, to haul groceries, to see friends and family, to go on road trips, to run errands, and on and on. I am here to tell you that it isn’t true.
I don’t live in New York City, or even in a major metropolitan area. I live in Bangor Maine, a city of just over 30,000 residents surrounded by small towns in a rural state. The closest city of any size is Portland, population 66,000, a two-hour bus ride away. I work at the University of Maine, to which I can travel by bus or bicycle. In the summer I keep a sailboat in Rockland, on the coast. My life is fairly normal, except that I don’t own a car.
Can everyone give up car ownership? No, but many people can, and it’s easier than one might think. This blog is intended as a conversation among people interested in alternatives to car culture and car ownership. The Covid-19 pandemic has admittedly changed some things, but Slower Traffic’s founding principle remains intact: we don’t need to buy, use, and own cars in the numbers that we do. A good conversation often begins by challenging long-held assumptions. I hope to provide a forum for that here.
HG March 2021
