Slower Traffic

“Be the change” is often cited as an admonishment to do good work in the world. Though my motivations aren’t entirely unselfish, I like to think there’s a little bit of Gandhi in my life without a car. I want to see fewer cars on the road. Therefore, I don’t own one. It may seem like a small thing, subtracting one car from the vast American traffic picture, but small increments can add up to long-term change.

On Easter weekend, I rented a car for the first time in 2026. For three days, I rejoined the American Car Culture. As usual, it was fun while it lasted, and I was glad when it was over.

A winter that began with a great World Series ended last week with a great World Baseball Classic. The tarps came off the boat; the bicycle came out of the shed. The light is back, the ice is gone, and though we haven’t seen the last of cold or snow, there’s no stopping it now. Hope Springs eternal. The daylight lets me take the bike to work, slinging it on the Community Connector bus in the morning and then riding it home. It’s a good way to unwind at the end of the work

When I stopped owning cars, I began to see and feel how non-drivers navigate their days. And I became, almost without meaning to, an advocate for things like public transportation and pedestrian downtowns. But it was only after doing some research that I began to sense that I was part of a movement, small but growing, a pushback against the ubiquity of the car culture and the damage it has wrought.

In February I have boat dreams. My own small bit of foolishness is up on stands, covered with snow in a parking lot, awaiting the inevitable spring melt and the weeks of scraping, sanding and screwing things into place that precede the too-short sailing season. I daydream of a small anchorage and a beer in the cockpit and a baseball game on the radio. Sometimes I have nightmares about running the boat aground somewhere, often on a beach thick with trees. But as I gaze at the

When I stopped owning cars, I became, almost without meaning to, an advocate for public transportation, bicycling, and pedestrian-friendly communities. Only after I began to do some research did I realize that I was part of a movement, small but growing, a pushback against the ubiquity of the car culture and the damage it has wrought. I discovered a whole body of literature on the theme of relinquishing cars and reducing the harm that they do.