You've somehow found this shitty internet website. Congratulations space cowboy!
So, despite the core message here, I don't actually hate cars… yes, you’ve been click-baited! I mean - I get a little sentimental when I see an old Ford Bronco in a stunning cream and blue stripe suit. And I for sure don't hate drivers! My own mother is a driver in fact.
Some might say I had a "radical conversion experience" when I moved to Manhattan with my car from Nashville in 2020 and started watching the Not Just Bikes YouTube channel in my apartment alone in between Billy Joel piano & martini sessions in the buff.
Twice per week I went out and moved my car for an hour to avoid a ticket while the street sweepers would kick up a cloud of dust everywhere. Sometimes, re-parking my car would last over an hour, and I recall crying to the heavens for help because I was so stressed. Eventually, I found a street that was lightly ticketed and gave up moving my car. When I eventually tried to move it, I realized the catalytic converter had been stolen, several slices of pizza had somehow wound up in the engine block, and there were plants magically growing out of the wheels. It was totaled. I had it towed to a junkyard and never looked back. I entered into a new life - a life of multi-modal optionality. What in the darn hell is multi-modal optionality, you ask? It's fucking heaven. It's freedom. It's the way we were meant to live…
If I'm going Webster mode, I'd say it’s the ability for people to get where they're going by multiple affordable, timely, and safe means of transportation. i.e., walking, biking, bussing, training, car-ing, boating, or twerking. 🤓
The other day I did it all. I rode my bike to the train. 🚲
I took the train into the city. 🚇
I took a Citi-Bike uptown. 🚲
I walked from bar to bar and had too much to drink. 🍻🤢
And finally, I took a cab back to Brooklyn. 🚖
Now that's 👆 a beautiful thing.
Whenever I go back to the motherland (Nashville), I get somewhat salty when confronted with the utter lack of pedestrian friendliness. I feel my mental health scores plummet to rookie numbers. It turns out that walking around a lot is good as hell for your brain. Let's get those rookie numbers up, people of America! ✊
This whole status quo that says "cars are the default and ONLY means of transportation" propagated and lobbied by the auto industry is simply unacceptable. Those slimy Henry Ford Philistines have incepted this into our collective consciousnesses over the last century. Come on people. That's not true freedom (though they've marketed it as such). Democracy is about optionality. Fuck. Cars.
Politicians. City planners. It’s 2024. We don’t need flying cars, though admittedly that would be pretty rad. We need options! Our cities are WAYYYY too congested with these massive polluting death machines. Don't even get me started on carflation (just google the size of a pickup in the 80s versus a pickup in 2024).
I’m clearly not a fan of driving. I'm way too ADD for it. Cycling holds my attention much better, thank you. And I know there are a TON of people out there who will drive for the rest of their lives. I think that’s perfectly fine. But I know scores of citizens who would happily switch over to an alternate means of transportation to increase their health and wealth IF it was safe and available... why isn't that the case?
Give. Us. Options.