Do the math and then find out where the money can go. X to pay off debt, y for savings and z for a family trip to disney, or a cruise. Suddenly, having a car doesnt make sense when there are alternatives.

Instead, we have rental agencies trying to out-gouge each other and politicians who slap extra fees and taxes on car rentals while keeping bridges toll-free. Zipcar is convenient, but not always reliable, and weekend prices are insane.

As long as cars are a fact of life outside of the city, we need reasonable ways to access them.

“A Real Auto Bailout: Escape Your Car, Brett Arends”, WSJ December 22, 2008

http://sec.online.wsj.com/article/SB122996650443826683.html

. . . American Automobile Association figured its members paid about $7,800 a year on average to own and maintain their cars . . .

$7,800 pays for a lot of car rentals, taxis, and limousine services.

Cycling can be much more convenient and enjoyable in many if not most instances in many urban areas especially when it has become a habit just like driving cars although, it can become so easy getting around by bike that many people may get too lazy to walk since they can expend up to four times less energy or go up to four times faster for a given distance, or up to four times further in a given time.

Parents inevitably teach their kids values, whether explicitly or not, through their actions. One of the great things about our system is that parents have nearly complete authority to teach their kids whatever substantive values they wish. Motorist parents can teach their kids that the streets are dangerous places, don’t enter them except in a motor vehicle, by words, deeds or both. I have seen many parents, motorists and otherwise, very overtly teach kids their kids that lesson, over and over.

I have different values, and I’m teaching those values to my kids. Teaching is more effective (and poses less of a risk of didacticism or sanctimony) when the kid is shown something concrete that illustrates the point rather than just being handed a statement in the abstract. If we come upon a traffic or environmental situation that illustrates my values, you bet I’m going to seize that “teachable moment”–in my view, that’s my job as a parent. One thing I never tell my kids is that we are categorically better than motorists because we use bikes. No sanctimony here.

For me it was pretty much a no-brainer, and I think it was because I grew up seeing my dad living just fine in the city without a car for forty years.

Other than business, travel or bulk shopping, the only reason I can think of why any New Yorker would want to have a car is as a status symbol, their mark of entry into the middle class. I just don’t know why they can’t look at all the obviously middle-class people on the bus and subway and realize that you can be car-free and people will still recognize you as middle-class.

One way to justify going car-free is to point out all the hidden fixed costs of owning a car – gas per trip is just the tip of the iceberg. If you don’t need a car everyday or everyweek, it’s really hard to justify owning. Loan payments, insurance, parking, registration/emissions fees, tickets, etc all add up to a lot of dough.

That said, it’s an emotional topic for a lot of people. The easiest thing to do is let a car gracefully decline until it finally dies and not buy a new one.

Can’t cycling and walking just be its own reward? Couldn’t a driver just as easily point out to an injured biker on the side of the road and say to his kids, “See, that’s why we’re in a car.” Is this a livable streets version of the “Scared Straight” program?

Being car-free is great. In fact, I love it. But being sanctimony-free is also a nice quality.

1) Do the research necessary to find fun bike-accessible events and destinations that kids will enjoy.

2) Learn how to bicycle with kids in the city safely.

3) Let kids know that your willingness to allow them to bike on the road is a measure of your confidence in their maturity, but that they need to reciprocate by deferring unquestioningly to all your safety-related instructions. Never channel your “road rage” at a motorist toward the kids.

4) Try to get other families involved.

5) Compose and sing fun biking songs or play interlocutory trivia games (for kids not too old to be distracted by such things while riding) during the trip–as families in cars used to do before cars and kids came equipped with DVD players and DS’s.

6) Let the kids have at least occasional veto power over whether to bike; just make sure to offer biking as the default option whenever possible. Don’t insist on biking in the rain or bitter cold (or, even fair weather, at least for routine trips); accede to kids’ ill-timed proposals to bike in the rain or bitter cold with good cheer; and accept that there will be aborted trips that must be completed by carrying the bikes onto the subway, a (cargo-accessible) taxi, or even by locking the bikes up in a remote spot to be picked up by the adult the next day.

7) Make one-way trips possible by learning how to ferry a second empty bike while riding your own.

Use the money saved by biking and not driving or using transit to buy a guilt-free treat.

9) Make stops at the site of traffic collisions or fouled/polluted areas and explain to kids that one of the reasons for biking is that it is important for everyone to avoid contributing to these problems.