Transportation
For three years we have belonged to a local Vermont Earth Institute (the local Northwest Earth Institute organization <www.nwei.org>) discussion group. Although everyone comes prepared by reading the advance material, we often don’t stay on topic because we are so inspired to talk about our own choices in our lives. It provides great fun in our life. Motivated by the readings and discussions, 4 of the 10 participants have purchased hybrid (cleaner burning, more fuel efficient gas/electric) cars and another one is planning on a purchase soon. We would like to have a hybrid, or other fuel efficient car, but our choice of working part-time means we have to wait for a used car. We, Ruah and Louis, have been inspired to limit our trips to Burlington to twice a week and trying to bike or walk otherwise. One evening we biked to the discussion group, feeling rather virtuous. What we hadn’t planned on is how dark it was on our return over dirt roads, so we ended up biking very slowly and walked some.
We don’t hold ourselves out to be examples in the category of transportation since we live 16 miles away from the city where we prefer to shop and where we attend Friends Meeting. If everyone tried to live the way we do, we would have many more people relying on their cars for everything they do. We, like a lot of people, were following this dream of living the good life in the country without realizing how soon the environmental consequences would begin to bother us.
Why don’t we move? Well, for one reason, we don’t commute. The QEW offices are in our home. We try to limit our trips to town by using the post office and market 5 miles away from us which we can walk or bike to. We also save a lot of trips by sending our publications to the printer electronically. We take advantage of living in the country by growing much of our food and being good stewards of the land. Another family living here would probably commute to Burlington for work and entertainment.
We have a car which gets 30 miles to the gallon and we don’t let it idle unnecessarily and we keep the car tuned up and the tires properly inflated. We have formed a small community of neighbors which allows us to share rides and tasks. We’re looking forward to the formation of a van/bus service in our area which we think is inevitable when more begin to realize how unsustainable our private-car-supported, commuter life styles are.
Some issues to consider about transportation:
- Can I use the above three to purchase food, go to the doctor, see a movie, go out to eat, etc?
- If I use a car, do I use it sparingly and is it efficient in its use of gasoline? Or can I take advantage of a shared car program?
- Do I cooperate with neighbors when running errands so we can either carpool or purchase items, mail a package, etc. for each other?
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