During the pandemic, bus stops within a 2 mile radius of my home were quietly discontinued, adding a layer of challenge to my resolution to drastically reduce my carbon emission output. Unless justifiable in how much emissions the journey could prevent, I am launching into 2022 with a resolution to stop driving. I am a mom in Los Angeles, CA, a place where moms are more or less expected to drive around all day, from home to school, to work, errands, shopping, hair nail and beauty appointment, and back. For my 2022 New Year’s Resolution, I’ve decided not to drive myself anywhere or consume anything that supports CO2 emissions.
Why not Drive?
After reading Peter Kalmus’ Being the Change, I understand the real implications of burning fossil fuels like there’s no tomorrow. I see that tomorrow has come, as I spend my LA summers as I never before did, trying to survive the fires and their smoke. In the past few years, I have packed up my belongings and fled my home twice. The past 2 summers have been darkened by a smokey haze that keeps us indoors, away from the strange orange light.
As the world grows warmer, fire burning areas will only increase, and more frequent “natural” disasters will affect us all. There is only one thing I alone can do about any of this. I have the adjust my lifestyle so I don’t personally contribute to this harm to our progeny and our planet. I have long felt that we were living, seemingly racing from place to place at a pace we could not sustain, in daily life and on vacation. After the vaccine allowed the pandemic isolation to ease, I saw that I could and not would not return to the race. I now view the general frenzy most exist in as a race against time and fossil fuels, a last minute panic until we are forced to change.
My photo of the pollution layer that hugs the ground in the Central Valley Thanksgiving 2021. It remained unchanged, and looked worse on our way back a few days later.
My Backstory
Over the past few years, I have been shaped by my unusual New Years resolutions to buy nothing (2014) and to stop drinking regularly (2021). When I simplified my life by cutting mindless consumption and cutting habitual alcohol consumption, I had the clarity to examine my life, and time to read to better understand how my lifestyle remained disconnected from my values.
It’s not uncommon. Most of us live divorced from our true beliefs. I just decided not to tolerate the cognitive dissonance any longer. I believe it’s this cognitive dissonance that keeps up glued to the television, social media, and the bottle of wine. When I let go of distractions and pacifiers, I had no choice but to examine myself, my life, my values, and make changes.
The 2022 Resolution
I began to formulate my New Year’s Resolution in October. Even know, with he New Year 3 weeks away, it’s still not fully formed. But so remains my resolution last year, when I quit drinking regularly. I found this to mean that I would not touch alcohol for 6 months. After that, I decided it meant I would not drink at home anymore. This rule worked well for me, but it would not work for everyone. Indeed, at first I felt like a true alcoholic (and I may still qualify, depending on your perspective). In the beginning, I did have to focus on one day at a time and learn new ways to manage emotions, disappointments and upsets. For several months, I still relied on treats and rituals to cope. But after 6 months without alcohol, it became a lifestyle, and I did not need most of the replacements. I expect that my resolution not to drive will bring about a similar transformative shift.
The view of the mountain behind my house on a not so good air quality day just after Black Friday. The Long Beach port is nearly 40 miles away, but the pollution from the barges that deliver our Christmas consumption is affecting the air quality all over LA County.
Preparing to Go Car Free
The first step to prepare for a car free life was, of course, to donate my car. My granny had given me her Toyota Corolla in college, and I kept it all of these years. For some time, I expected that I would punctuate reaching some lever of adultness by buying a new car. But this day never came. I didn’t care about having a nice interior or particularly like driving. Buying a brand new car seemed more wasteful than I could tolerate. Besides, none of them would have my Granny’s claw marks behind the steering wheel, or the red dirt of Oklahoma in the trunk.
Just before Granny gave me the car, my car had died and I decided to lead a car free life in Denton, Texas, where I went to art school. I adopted a bicycle riding life and rode to The Cupboard, the local hippy dippy grocery store. I didn’t live this lifestyle long enough to convert, unfortunately. At the time, my values still lay dormant and unrealized. I didn’t see that just because I could drive, didn’t mean I should. I am glad, thought, that the car made it possible to spend as much time as I did was Granny before she departed.
Now 36, I kept the reliable car for 16 years. It not longer opened from the inside, as the handles had broken off. It always made me chuckle, imagining a spin on the sexy lady getting out of a hot car scene in a movie using my 1999 Corolla. Sexy lady rolls down her window, reaches her (sexy) hand outside to grasp the exterior car door handle and open the door. Then she rolls up the window, and can then turn off the car. She steps out, but not before clicking the seatbelt release button several times because, you know, it gets stuck.
I had adjusted my driving habit somewhat vainly, so that I based parking on which direction best concealed the considerable scrape on the right side of the car. Granny gave it to me that way. After she skimmed the telephone pole she got herself a new car and generously donated the old one to me. I saw no reason to repair something that had no bearing on how the car ran.
The car had been parked in my father’s double garage for years. A few years ago, I decided to park my car for good when I found an incredible deal on a great apartment for our family, probably because the unit only offered one parking space. When we moved to our house, we had room in our driveway to accommodate my car, but I had vowed never to live a life where I had to jockey my car, so I continued to stored the car until my son needed the space for a drum set. I was glad for the push to donate the car to Heritage for the Blind. I had lapsed in my duty as a car owner to keep it registered, and was glad for that headache to vanish. I have not missed dealing with registration, smog checks, oil changes, mechanics and gas pumps, nor have I missed sitting in traffic.
The adjustment for me will be not borrowing the family car. Fortunately, we moved to a neighborhood where we do not need a car to grocery shop, get to my son’s school, visit the library, go to the hardware store or even get icecream. However I still have used to car from time to time to run errands.
To prepare for my car free existence, I began to research the bus stops and metro maps. I had been excited to utilize when the pandemic hit and shut everything down. Unfortunately, the pandemic provided a way to quietly retire local busy line within a 2 mile radius. The only way I could effectively get anywhere outside Sierra Madre is with a bike. The problem is, the beautiful sparkly pink bike that looked so perfect in front of the Christmas tree on my birthday last year, needed me to walk it up some of the hills in our new neighborhood. I needed a bike that could scale at least 1.5 miles of uphills from the bus stop to my house. I knew nothing about bikes, but, fortunately, I saw my cousin in law Fred, the owner of a bike touring business, over Thanksgiving. He explained, and I gathered, to the best of my ability, that I needed a smaller gear in the front than in the back. That is, the sprockets by the pedals needed to get quite small. He recommended a hybrid bike, which is something between a street bike and a mountain bike. The trick, it seems, is to find a street bike with mountain bike gears. Please, do not quote me; I am not an expert.
First, I asked my Buy Nothing Group for a bike to borrow or have. I figured I would learn something- as I still didn’t really understand how the front gears could be “small.” A neighbor about a mile and half south of me let me test out her Liv Giant bike. I found this an incredibly uncomfortable, but very good road bike. It’s initially confusing gear system was smooth and easy. Getting uphill was a comparative breeze. I did not need to walk the bike. It taught me what I needed to know. I needed a different bike. (And I am not a weakling!)
The next day, I retuned the bike to Heather, and walked home. I passed by my local thrift store and there they were – vintage bikes for $35. They were brownish green and baby blue. Was it kismet? Each has a smaller and larger front gear. Maybe this would work? I bought one, and the moment I rounded the parking lot corner and began to pedal up hill, I regretted my purchase. No, this gear was not little enough! Still, I kept messing with the adjustments (and cursing) until the steep incline forced me to walk the bike the rest of the way home.
I reached out to a man in the next town selling a Giant brand bike that appeared to have a small front sprocket in its mix. It was $250, possibly a bit overpriced, for a bike from the 90s, but it looked good, and Heather recommended Giant brand.
My hope was to ride the thrift store bike down the hill to Arcadia where Gregg lived, abandon it, and ride the “new” Giant up the 2.5 miles of hill home. Unfortunately, I came down with a cold. I decided to ask my husband to drive me, reasoning that getting the bike would save emissions if I got it sooner. Heather had said shipping delays had made it harder to get bikes. Even though I would never order a bike to be delivered to me on a barge, I figured the delay might make also be affecting the demand for used bikes.
Gregg was as friendly as he appeared, in a warm red tartan button up. He wore Wallace plaid, which my maternal lineage has been traced to. I took the bike for a spin. It seemed good, thought the brakes squealed and felt “dusty.” I asked Gregg to knock $50 off the price to fund the tune up, and he offered to split the difference, so I paid $225. I’m sure I could have found a better deal, but I saved time and my money went to a neighbor rather than, (hopefully), Jeff Bezos.
Next on the agenda, is a ride 2 miles south west to get a tune up.
The $35 bike.