And what have we learned after 52 weeks?
I mean, I was already doing this for several years. I just was not taking so many notes about it because it did not feel necessary to me.
The whole thing — writing about living in a mid-sized city without the burden of a car — got started like most things: on a whim. Some random stranger on the Internet thought he was coming to educate me about how it is not possible to be car-free in New England because it snows in the winter.
I could’ve simply responded to his idiotic remark by explaining that I had made it through more than one or two winters already, thank you very much, but what I know is that for every person willing to leave a not-so-thought-out comment, there are many, many silent lurkers who would also benefit from schooling. And I’m sure not all of those lurkers are set on trolling. They just do not know.
Instead of posting the occasional tweet about some transportation-related thing, I compiled my thoughts each week only slightly more organized than I would in my actual diary (where I rarely write about my commute because that’s not what I need to think out loud about with an audience of me).
I was writing none of this for me. I already knew the basics: how to dress for the weather, how to ride the bus, how to assume that nobody driving is paying any attention and that no amount of hi-vis clothing would lure them away from their bullshit habits whether those are texting or only looking left before turning right on red.
I knew that unless there was some kind of major disruption, the trains and buses would serve me just fine.
I’d been vocal for awhile, telling people — organizations, really — that the reason I did not attend their event was because it was held at a place and/or at a time when those using public transportation could not attend. No, I will not just take a cab. I haven’t been shy about letting businesses and non-profits know that it’s unacceptable to post long driving and parking directions, while not so much as mentioning the location of their bike rack or the nearest bus lines.
I was not writing this for others who were biking or walking, taking the bus or the train regularly. While you all were reading and sharing the posts (thank you!), the intended audience was those who rarely, if ever, move around outside of a private motor vehicle.
Before I had freed myself of car ownership, I struggled to imagine how someone could get around without one — even though I knew that many of my neighbors were surviving. That’s the advantage of living in an urban area: not having the ability to pretend as if nobody can live without a car. It happens right there in front of you.
I knew how people could get their kids to school. I live near a school. Kids walk there.
I knew how people could get to work. Our transit systems are unfortunately designed as if a 9-5 work commute is the only thing someone might want a bus for. I knew people who took the bus to and from work. The bus stops are right there.
I was curious how someone could go to the woods for a hike or get their groceries. How do you have a social life? Date? Participate in your workplace’s equivalent of Secret Santa?
I tried, over this year, to demystify this for those who are lacking in imagination and experience.
If people can visualize something, it erodes one more of their lazy excuses for not doing that thing. I hope that judgment does burn a little. If I had understood how absolutely fine it is to get around car-free, I likely would have sold my car years earlier.
From December 2021 – December 2022, I wrote about walking home alone at night, traveling on often unshoveled and unsalted sidewalks during winter, the total fuckup with CTtransit service during the summer, and the communication fuckup by CTrail when it reduced train service also during travel season.
I wrote about the absolutely depraved way motorists behave. I wrote about how glib leaders are despite their inaction when it comes to reducing street violence.
I wrote about running into friends during commutes, traveling to sportsball and the theater by bus, schlepping plants on the train.
Additionally, I was writing about staycation travel via train and bus.
T
his is not something I expected many people to be reading, but week after week, you all returned in numbers, including on holidays when there is usually a dip in readership. I guess this was more interesting than forcing yourself to talk to Great Aunt Maude over turkey.
I know part of this is because I do not sugarcoat. Sometimes biking is a complete joy, and sometimes it feels like being about to die on the top of a hill that you took because that road had less car traffic to contend with. Sometimes walking to work means finding cool art and petting (with your eyes) a bitey-looking dachshund, and sometimes it means getting cussed out for daring attempt to use a marked crosswalk at an elementary school. It’s the delight of people at the bus stop, utterly thrilled that bus fares continue to be suspended, and it’s passing shrine-after-shrine marking the sites where people were needlessly killed by lousy road and vehicle design.
The 52 weeks are up.
The question is always: what next?
I won’t be doing weekly diary entries, but I will publish shorter focused pieces, as needed.
I’m also changing the weekly guessing game to only monthly, dropping the Sense Hartford series, and aiming to write about more local topics once I’m not so tied to certain weekly commitments. I’ve also been doing a biweekly column elsewhere and want to make sure that nothing I’m doing here or there is half-assed. The next few weeks will probably be light because I am in planning mode and because I deserve a damn break.
Here is everything from the Car-Free Diaries series:
- Week 52 (December 7, 2022)
- Week 51 (November 30, 2022)
- Week 50 (November 15, 2022)
- Week 49 (November 8, 2022)
- Week 48 (November 2, 2022)
- Week 47 (October 25, 2022)
- Week 46 (October 18, 2022)
- Week 45 (October 11, 2022)
- Week 44 (October 4, 2022)
- Week 43 (September 27, 2022)
- Week 42 (September 20, 2022)
- Week 41 (September 13, 2022)
- Week 40 (September 6, 2022)
- Week 39 (August 30, 2022)
- Week 38 (August 23, 2022)
- Week 37 (August 16, 2022)
- Week 36 (August 9, 2022)
- Week 35 (August 2, 2022)
- Week 34 (July 26, 2022)
- Week 33 (July 19, 2022)
- Week 32 (July 13, 2022)
- Week 31 (July 5, 2022)
- Week 30 (June 28, 2022)
- Week 29 (June 21, 2022)
- Week 28 (June 14, 2022)
- Week 27 (June 7, 2022)
- Week 26 (May 31, 2022)
- Week 25 (May 24, 2022)
- Week 24 (May 17, 2022)
- Week 23 (May 10, 2022)
- Week 22 (May 3, 2022)
- Week 21 (April 26, 2022)
- Week 20 (April 19, 2022)
- Week 19 (April 12, 2022)
- Week 18 (April 5, 2022)
- Week 17 (March 29, 2022)
- Week 16 (March 23, 2022)
- Week 15 (March 16, 2022)
- Week 14 (March 8, 2022)
- Week 13 (March 2, 2022)
- Week 12 (February 23, 2022)
- Week 11 (February 16, 2022)
- Week 10 (February 8, 2022)
- Week 9 (February 2, 2022)
- Week 8 (January 26, 2022)
- Week 7 (January 19, 2022)
- Week 6 (January 12, 2022)
- Week 5 (January 5, 2022)
- Week 4 (December 29, 2021)
- Week 3 (December 22, 2021)
- Week 2 (December 15, 2021)
- Week 1 (December 8, 2021)
Richard
“Some random stranger on the Internet thought he was coming to educate me about how it is not possible to be car-free in New England because it snows in the winter.”
Folks can be so strange even if they are not a stranger. They just don’t get it more times than not. Now I know this isn’t New England but its close enough. Before coming to Hartford in 1978 I lived way up in the Catskill mountains in a town called West Hurley about 10 miles or so outside of Woodstock NY. I lived in the last cabin going up the mountain. I never drove a car so I wonder how I ever got to town to buy supplies that were needed, or did I become a skeleton in the winter months and only ate twigs and shriveled up berries that I could find. I certainly didn’t trap squirrels for dinner. I remember that it snowed and snowed, it even snowed in my cabin. I never have let snow trouble me if I needed to get somewhere, rain either. Stranger must be a softie. When I came to Hartford, I was amazed at the buses that could get us anywhere we needed to go. Walk I don’t mind walking at all in fact I would rather walk in the winter than in summer’s heat. It’s the jerks who do not shovel their sidewalks, who think that if they do it once then it’s over.
I have really enjoyed these Car Free Diaries and I do hope that a lot of folks will learn something about how some of us can get from here to there without helping in the destruction of the planet. I can be done, and we know it can as we do it.
Kerri Ana Provost
I am familiar with that area of New York!
I feel like a broken record offering up the quote about how there’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. And I would edit that to say that there is bad weather, but it’s on maybe 3-5 days of the year, so explain to me why someone who is able-bodied and living within a couple miles of their destinations can’t or won’t walk/bike/bus the other 360 days of the year? What are people trying to prove walking around in cold weather without wearing a hat or having their ankles exposed? (I’m not talking about those who are unhoused or living in extreme poverty. . . and so sad I have to clarify that before a concern troll shows up. . . I’m talking about those who are middle class or wealthier, but can’t bother to attire themselves as if they live in the northeast)
I’ve appreciated your comments, Richard. It helps add perspective, should someone accuse me of being able to do what I do because I’m young. Age is subjective anyway. But you were doing these things much longer and without benefit of cell phones. Just had to figure it out.