I drive so infrequently that twice recently, my car battery needed a jump because it didn't stay charged. This is not a boast about my carbon footprint, a term coined by fossil fuel companies to persuade us that we as individuals are to blame for the climate crisis, and not the economic systems larger than us. I actually like certain types of driving—in fact, this time next week, I'll be on a much-anticipated 2,500-mile solo road trip to North Dakota that will eat up all the virtuous mileage I bank the rest of the year.
But both by necessity and inclination, I live in a place where it’s possible to walk, bike or take the bus to nearly everything you need or want. My husband doesn't drive, and so we must live in one of maybe 10 or 12 U.S. cities where people don’t require cars. Believe me, it’s not a hardship to live in a walkable American city—although one activist who works to reduce parking lot size around the country told me recently that his car-free life in Portland means he's more "willing to put up with a lot of pain points or inconveniences than an average person." That said, large swaths of Portland were designed at a human scale, not that of an F-150 pickup. They’re walkable and bikeable mostly because the central, denser part of the city was established before automobiles. Our house, built in 1900, even has an iron ring at the curb to tie up horses. The 60-unit apartment building under construction next door to us will not have parking. The bus stop outside its future front door was once part of a streetcar line.
Cars are useful and I do love my Subaru. I take great pleasure in saving up my short car trips for the occasional “big errand loop.” That’s when I pick up the dry cleaning and hit the hardware store and mail a package and go through the car wash and grab lunch in farther flung neighborhoods than I normally frequent. Even better if the sunroof is open.
I also run a lot of errands on foot. Most days, I walk six miles, or about 12,000 steps. I understand that this is not possible for everyone. I'm healthy and mobile, unencumbered by little ones who can't walk far, and I live in a safe, relatively flat part of a city with temperate weather where people generally (but not always!) assume that pedestrians and bicyclists will share the road. I take none of it for granted, especially in a landscape built for cars.
A few years ago on vacation in Los Angeles, I became frustrated with all the freeway time. While stuck in traffic on the 405, Chris and I wondered if it was possible in a notoriously car-centric city to do a day of sightseeing on foot. And it was! The next day we walked from our place in Silver Lake to a bus stop that took us to the subway, which we took downtown. Then we took another bus to the arts district, and then a streetcar back to the subway, which took us directly to the movies on Sunset Boulevard. A bus went almost directly to our rental apartment, but we were tired after a long day of walking and public transportation and it wasn't scheduled to arrive for 15 or 20 minutes. We called a Lyft, which got into a fender bender right in front of the cinema. So we waited for the bus, completing a full circle of a day without a car.
I think often about all we saw from the windows of the bus that day, all the L.A. stories we wouldn't have seen on the freeway—the crumbling but beautiful downtown buildings and the desperation of Skid Row. Inside the bus, we traveled with people we would have been less likely to encounter from the isolation of an automobile. Our day provided a more comprehensive, nuanced view of the city beyond the Getty Museum and the Griffith Observatory and the Santa Monica pier and all the other tourist attractions of the town.
Hoofing it isn't always efficient, but neither is sitting in traffic. And perhaps we ought to reconsider what it means to be "efficient." What do you miss out on when you always travel from point A to point B solo in your car? A walk is a moderate workout without the gym—although I walk or ride a bike to the gym, too. (Yes, I’ve driven there when I’m late. But I never let the rain get in the way of a good walk.) As a pedestrian, I connect with the elements, which is a reminder of my relationship with the forces shaping weather and our environment. I say hello to the cheerful guy selling Street Roots in front of Grand Central bakery, and I avoid eye contact with the young people who ask me to sign petitions. The neighborhood crows know me by my gait and follow me for their mealworm snack. I literally stop to smell the roses. And I get to pet so many dogs!
This spring I was in Houston, a town as sprawling and car-centric as Los Angeles, if not more. I was staying about a mile from the hotel hosting the Society of Environmental Journalists conference. There was a city bus I could take, but I mostly walked to the conference. It was along a major thoroughfare with surprisingly good sidewalks, yet lengthy waits to cross the wide, car-friendly boulevards.
One day at the conference, I joined a group on a field trip 60 miles west to the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge. As we sat in the coach in traffic on a 14-lane highway on a Saturday afternoon, one of the tour organizers told us that the endless sprawl we saw outside the window would be our view for an hour until we arrived at what was left of the southern prairies. A full hour! When we arrived, it was far too late in the day to see any prairie chickens. So back we went to Houston, again through the sprawl. I settled in for a nap.
I have visited Houston just once before, in 2006 when I was offered a job writing about transportation for the newspaper there, the Chronicle. I turned it down because all I could see was sprawl, and I lacked the imagination at the time to envision how to make a career out of writing about transportation and urban planning. (In hindsight, I would have loved the job, and probably the city, too, even with all that humidity and sprawl.)
This time, I was determined to see some of the city on foot—a resolve that may not have held up in the full humidity of a Houston summer. I had no obligations on my final day before catching my flight, so I took the bus down Westheimer Road to Montrose, bought an iced coffee, and then sucked it down while I walked 1.3 miles to the Museum of Fine Art. I had planned to stop midway at the Rothko Chapel, but it was Sunday and it was closed for a private event. I paused on an overpass above I-69 to film traffic. (That’s what you see in the video at the top of this edition of the newsletter.)
At the museum, I wandered the sun-dappled sculpture garden. It was too nice of a day to spend inside, so I bought some gelato and found some shade. A man at the table next to me lived nearby, and we drifted in and out of lazy conversation about the city. It was the last of the pleasant spring days before the heat of summer moved in, he told me. The art, the ice cream, the conversation, the ease of getting to the museum and back on the bus…it all made for a perfect afternoon.
The bus cost $1.25 each way. I suppose I could have rented a car for the conference and then driven to the museum and parked and walked around, and then driven myself to the airport. All of this is to say that there is no one way to get around, but when you can, why not walk?
Love,
Erika
THE NEWS
All the links…
Not all is well on the city bus. As American cities struggle to recover from the pandemic, Denver’s problems spill over onto its buses. In Portland, the metro transit agency is offering $7,000 bonuses to new hires. Tell your bus drivers thank you!
Not all is well on transit in Los Angeles, either.
But could a comedian on Tiktok help popularize public transportation in car-dominant cities?
Listen while walking! This episode of the podcast “The War on Cars” is based on a Ray Bradbury short story about a dystopian Los Angeles where walking is a countercultural act.
Less parking could mean more housing. For Stateline, I wrote about how housing could become more affordable if we do away with minimum parking mandates for homes and businesses.
We’ve got to stop requiring parking everywhere. For even more on the scourge of empty parking lots.
Slow runners unite! Let’s hear it for the persistence of us back-of-the-pack runners! This is by Danielle Friedman, a fellow slow poke whose book “Let’s Get Physical” is a delightful look at the evolution of women’s fitness.
Got knee pain? A recent study suggests walking is the answer.