What if you didn't drive your car for a week?

[greeneyedgirlfl 0]

I only live 4 miles from work, but to use public transport I would have to catch two separate buses and spend an hour and a half in transit.

Orlando's public transit is only effective in two places, downtown and at the attractions.

I wish we had effective public transit; I would love to use my car for emergencies only...

[*JG* 2]

I could; but then I couldn't go to work either.

Now that would be challenging.

Is it completely impossible??

what if I have two cars and don't drive one of them for a week?

You would work well in a communist society Amby.

We have one car and we try and share it as best we can. My hubby works overnight hours where the bus service has stopped or hasn't started again when he goes to work/gets off. I am able to get rides home with my mom and dad if I walk over to where she works and hang around for a while. Getting to work without the car is the impossible part for me. Public transportation where I live is spotty and never seems to go where I actually need to go....work being one of those places. It's 10 miles through some pretty dicey neighborhoods for me to get home, if I owned a decent bicycle. I would probably be murdered if I attempted to walk it. And, the seasons make it impossible for me to ride or walk that far a fair amount of the year.

When hubby can ride the bus, we will carpool and he'll ride it there or home. I do catch rides as much as I can. We make far fewer trips then we used to and actually contemplate if things are even worth the trip or not. I buy from the internet whenever possible. We are definately cutting down.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

Now that I think about it, I could walk to work - there are sidewalks throughout.

According to google maps, the walk would take about 3 hours. So I'd have to leave work at about 6am

** that.

Ride a bike! It'll give you an ####### you can bounce pennies off of!

Let me think about that......uh, no.

[Marilyn. 340]

yikes, I would even consider riding a bike around here

[Imua 0]

I don't drive. Does that count?

Join the club sis!

Me too - don't even have a license!!!

I NYC - still in Honolulu, which has a great bus system and the best walking weather ON EARTH, I got by without a car too. Nothing like walking along the road in 75 degree sunny tradewind weather while people are sitting in gridlock... It's hard in some(most) places in the US though, which is why they would have to drag me from NYC kicking and screaming.

[natty bumppo 297]

been there .. done that ... got quite a few t-shirts to prove it ...

what is so difficult about not driving?

[dalegg 143]

I'm a man and Carl's Jr is too far away so I would starve to death.

[Marilyn. 340]

if you want to take the bus in LA you have to leave at least 2 hours or more earlier depending on where you want to go .....

[jundp 191]

it would be here, aside from the heat and the humidity (it's somewhat cool here today and its 80f with 80% humidity) which would make you turn up to work sweating like a pig, there are NO sidewalks, at all. it would be highly dangerous to do that here, sadly. i miss sidewalks

Ah, the deep south. I lived in Mandeville, NOLA, and Hammond for most of my life....though NOLA did have the streetcar which I took to work daily.

We conserve already in many aspects of our life. It wouldn't be a crisis to not drive for a week, but with 3 kids to get to sports, choir, band, football games, etc. it's not really doable in our family.

oh cool. i'm in ms on the gulf coast. we pretty much have no public transport unless you want to go to a military base or a casino and of course you have to wait 2 hours in the heat for one to maybe turn up. imagine the smell on the bus!

My sis lived in Bay St. Louis and we still have family in Gulfport. Yeah, public transport definitely not good there.

I'm lucky that we're in Seattle and I really only live about 4 miles from work. I could walk or ride a bike if the weather was nice. It takes longer to ride the bus than to walk

But as I said because the kids have to get to 3 different places all within 15 minutes after school is out, I drive. P and I walk to the video store or the grocery store or whatever though pretty often.

[SpiritAlight 1]

Well, I can see that some people have no public transportation, others will take too long to get to work, others would pay more for groceries close to home, others want me to pick them up and deliver where they need to be if they are not themselves going to drive. (Yes, you A.J.; that last one. Hahaha.)

And so...

Hmmmmm...

The thing is, is everything is possible.

Get it?!

I have lived in large cities, I have lived in small towns, I have lived on a rural island with deer, otters, and eagles for neighbours.

Hey, I have even lived on the ocean.

When I needed to I found a way.

I have had cars, motorcycles, scooters, and bicycles, oh and boats!

And I have shared all of the above...mine and others.

Oh, and I have walked...a lot.

I'm far from "perfect", and yet, I am being the best person I can be in each given day and with each given situation.

There are such things are car coops, and if people actually learnt to live communally, in other words stop being so damn individualistic and autonomous, this planet/soceity would just work better. We are a social creature; not a solitary one. When the idea of gated communities came up and fences around homes, etc., etc., we stopped living as people were intended to live.

Yeah yeah you may think my ideas sound crazy.

There are not only not crazy, they are the salvation of our environment and therefore our very assses! Capiche?

If you truly believe something cannot be done...

then you are right.

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

When I needed to I found a way.

I don't need to not-drive. Gas prices aren't a problem.

[SpiritAlight 1]

When I needed to I found a way.

I don't need to not-drive. Gas prices aren't a problem.

Oh yeah, thanks for the reminder.

The other thing I wanted to say is my idea is not based on saving money due to gas prices (although that is always a good thing),

or to cut emissions (also a great thing),

the idea was way bigger.

And being that my brain is now officially fried, it will have to wait until the morning to be coherent.

Bon nuit!

[Scott & Lai 12]

what is so difficult about not driving?

Have you been reading the replies?

[NickD 202]

$4.30 a gallon gas is cheaper for me especially when driving down to Milwaukee or Chicago, because instead of driving at 1-3 mph in traffic jams and only getting about 3-4 mpg, could drive at 55 mph and get 36-42 mpg. It has taken me close to four hours just to drive those 27 miles between O'Hare and downtown Chicago.

Hybrid vehicles would do no better, works on the assumption that instead of wasting energy stepping on your brakes, electrical braking is done to store some of that wasted heat energy to charge a battery for the next traffic light, there is no braking when you creep along at 1-3 mph. That battery is stone dead.

Traditionally, a gallon of gas would weigh six pounds and contain 120,000 BTU's of energy, with cracking, oxygenated, MBTE's added, and worse, ethanol, a gallon of that high priced stuff may only contain from 90,000 to 106,000 BTU's of energy. With anti-EPA Bush, now have over 155 different blends of gasoline, so you don't know what in the hell you are getting. The more dense the population you live in, in general, the worse gas you are getting stuck with. Prefer buying what I call country gasoline that is more like the gas we use to get. So we are getting a double screwing. EPA has never listed improvements in emissions with these different blends, but plenty of reports on MBTE's as being highly cancerous.

In a vehicle like my Cadillac, can enjoy 31 mpg cruising at 55 mph, but when I forgot to refill the tank and had to fill up in the city, only got 17 mpg, so really wasn't paying four bucks a gallon for that #######, more like 8 bucks a gallon. EPA doesn't screw around with aviation gas, better not, but that is running more like six bucks a gallon.

The people pushing ethanol didn't count on the price of a bushel of corn going from a $1.50 to over 8 bucks due to the demand, you may have noticed the price of diary products and meat has skyrocketed due to this. This was done without first consulting the vehicle manufacturers to warn of potential vehicle problems with highly corrosive ethanol being added to gas. Topped off my 88 Supra Turbo with ethanol without thinking last year, wouldn't start this year, a $450.00 fuel pump melted with ethanol in the fuel, while I sent photos to my senator, governor, and congressman, that particular letter was ignored by all three, do they really want my vote next election? Old saying, alcohol and gas to not mix, and that certainly holds true for ethanol, it's mixed with a lower octane fuel, and you can just get the lower octane fuel that results in detonation that can ruin your engine. I got a tank full of that ####### with my five speed, only way I could get home without that constant clanking was to use either 3rd or 4th gear, forget about 5th, too much engine loading. With real country gas, that problem went away, but the fuel economy was terrible, less than half of normal.

If you know your BTU energy content of electricity and natural gas, both of which are produced domestically and don't have a damned thing to do with OPEC, the price per BTU is keeping pace with the price of gasoline, someone is getting rich. Yet another letter left unanswered from my three representatives, can only conclude they are on the take.

Ever ask why this country could build a brand new interstate system on a nickel a gallon fuel tax, but can't even clear the snow today with more than 50 cents a gallon fuel tax? Something is very amiss, if you ask this question, won't get an answer either. And if going to school is the law with no other means to get there except to drive your kids, or paying a good percentage of your paycheck to go to work, why aren't these expenses tax deductible? So the IRS is also part of this screwing the public scheme.

For those that voted for less government regulation, you got it, energy costs as well as Wall Street is not regulated anymore, hope you are happy. Tried watching the debate last night, SOS, word for word repeat of the first one with the same loaded questions, afraid we are in for even more BS. Either of the candidates are hitting the nail on the head, when the problems are so obvious. But we have more important issues at hand, football and the baseball playoffs, do either of those put money in your pocket?

[w¡n9Nµ7 §£@¥€r 123]

... my idea is not based on saving money due to gas prices (although that is always a good thing),

or to cut emissions (also a great thing),

the idea was way bigger.

I can't wait to hear this!