Finding rentals that are within a mile of a train station is a pretty advanced logistical exercise, especially when they’re mostly closed on Sundays (don’t rental franchises see the potential?), but it’s been worth it to me to save time, money, and stress on that “escape.”

Incidentally, I’d love to see a nationwide car-free travel guide. There are plenty of places where you don’t need a car, but information is scarce.

However, there are a lot of places you can get to and enjoy by public transportation. My family and I have had many fun weekends away without a car in places like Ocean Grove NJ, Saratoga Springs NY, and Norwalk, CT. I’ve found these two books to be very helpful:

Heavenly Weekends: Travel Without A Car
Day Hiker (the seventh book on the page)

Amazon is also showing that Frommer’s has released a competitor to Heavenly Weekends called Great Escapes From NYC Without Wheels. Has anyone seen it?

What you’ll find as soon as you leave the cocoon of Manhattan’s political/media/corporate elite is that, in fact, New York City is no longer being taken seriously by leading policy makers in other world cities when it comes to issues of climate change, transportation policy, urban environmentalism and smart growth.

Mayor Bloomberg (and, yes, the NY Times) have been extraordinarily slow to wake up to these issues. It will likely be seen as the major failing of his otherwise stellar mayoralty and the enormous missed opportunity of the early-2000′s development boom. NYC has fallen way behind its global competitors and, as the countdown clock in the Mayor’s bullpen shows, we are now racing to catch up.

Question for you: With the exception of the horrible evils of foie gras, do you really see promoting NYC restaurants is the same as promoting SUV’s on NYC streets?

The Times doesn’t advertise cigarettes anymore and here’s some news for you: Cars are the new cigarettes. “Serious” media outlets will come around to this position soon enough. Til then, I hope Streetsblog and other less “serious” outlets will continue to be “over the top.”

It’s one thing to say that car trends and maybe even the Auto Shows are worth reporting on, but they definitely aren’t newsworthy enought to merit a special section and full-time bloggers. That’s clearly the influence of advertisers.

Another point that’s been made in the past is that the Times has a large readership of wealthy suburbanites who may take Metro-North to work, but will drive their Lexuses to the Danbury Mall on the weekends. I think the auto coverage caters to these people more than to the Upper East Side alternate-side calendar-checkers.

Also, I don’t think it’s fair to abhor the entire auto section and coverage of the auto show. Even as someone who doesn’t own or want a car and would like to see fewer people drive, cars are a newsworthy topic. Not only do a lot of people still drive, but the auto industry is still a very important part of most industrialized economies, and cars are interesting from aesthetic, engineering, technological and scientific points of view as well.

As New York becomes visibly less dependent on and concerned with automobiles, word will get out whether auto company marketing departments like it or not.

On a side note, ever notice how the auto ads always show people driving through congestion-free cities? It’s ironic that they glorify driving in the places where driving makes the least amount of sense. Are suburban multi-lane arterials not as exciting?!

That said, auto advertising should bear Surgeon General’s warnings like cigarette ads.