Planner Confesses Love for Driving
It's hard to give up driving, even when you're professionally committed to sustainable transportation.
"Almost daily, I promote smart growth - alternative transportation choices, reduced greenhouse gases, increased housing densities. It's my business to help Canadians understand and adapt to a future that is different from the past. I am a 21st-century city planner.
Along with fellow futurists, I advocate less vehicle travel, more cycling and transit use, smaller cars and sensible energy consumption. The terms 'eco-density,' 'high-occupancy vehicles' and 'environmental footprint' are common currency. By day I'm committed to radical societal change.
But my lifestyle is suspect because I really like to drive. Mostly by myself. Pedal to the metal. Wide-open spaces. No boundaries. Zoom, zoom, zoom.
I understand the disconnect between the extravagant past and our frugal future. My lifestyle is unsustainable and I need to change my patterns. But I subtly resist the shift. Perhaps it's the curse of the baby boomers. For our generation, driving has been a lifelong love affair, one that isn't easily surrendered."
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If only people would drive purely for recreation and use sustainable transport for mandatory trips (errands/work/school/etc.), we wouldn't have the traffic problems that we presently endure every day.
Enjoying driving is not a dirty little secret. However, there's nothing enjoyable about sitting in gridlocked traffic. I began to despise driving until I decided to park my car from Monday to Friday and only bring it out of the garage for weekend trips to the beach or mountains (or even around town - outside of peak travel times, of course).