A few days before the oil rig spill, I wrote an OP on envisioning a car-free Chicago and got my ass

handed to me here on DU.

I wrote it out of the belief that we must break our addiction to oil.

I'm still abit bruised from that OP, but I'll survive it.

I still stand behind the view of envisioning a car free Chicago, and this oil disaster reinforces my belief that we must break our addiction to oil.

As Earth bleeds from a gaping gusher that's turning the Gulf into a toxic sludge pool.

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However there's almost too much rural area to cover in these parts.

and the enormous distances out here will require some form of internal combustion engine unless we get really, really good at either batteries or small fuel cells and hydrogen generation to run them.

My own best guess is that biodiesel of some variety will have to do the job, probably from some high oil crop grown mostly for that purpose. That will mean a lot less arable land will be devoted to growing corn to feed cattle, so our diets are likely to change because of it.

Urban/suburban transportation will likely be electric, just deposit coins when you park at the mass transit station to finish your commute into the city, plug in your car to recharge, and go. However, coal fired electrical plants also carry a host of problems, not the least of which are the greenhouse gases they pump into our air.

I don't think we'll ever lose personal transportation. I also don't think we'll go back to horses, nor should we want to. Just think of the smell in August from their waste in the roads. However, I do think we'll adapt several technologies to fit whatever needs we have.

It would be wonderful to be in the city without that pinkish grey cloud over everything, though, causing shortness of breath and coughing.

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Hyperbole...

sludge pool.

Non-hyperbolic

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We take the car out maybe once or twice a week, take the el or bus (and on rare occasion a cab) the rest of the time. It's definitely possible to go carless in Chicago (my son lives in Hyde Park and has no car: manages to get all over the city). I can do daily errands for just about anything by walking. But if you, say, live downtown and want to go up to Jefferson Park or somewhere for a meal or down south (we went to an opening at the Ren at the U of C tonight), it's kind of nice to just zip down and drive. You could not own a car and just hop a zip car every once in a while.

Personally, I do not drive at all any more, because I can't take all the buses and cabs jumping out at me, and the traffic. So I depend on Mr. Frazzled if I want to go out of walking or public transit zones.

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Buses too.

ten minutes from their house and you get a bus to rosemont and the blue line to downtown, but their house is in the neighborhood farthest to the east in elk grove, the rest of the town needs cars to get to the el

There is wonderful muralist here in San Francisco who depicted her vision of the city in the future...

http://www.monacaron.com/galleries/msr8/welcome.html

Thanks for posting that link. I spent some time looking through her works. Very forward thinking no doubt.

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Another part of that mural shows the annual labor parade on Market St. from the 30s-50s.

http://www.monacaron.com/galleries/msr3/welcome.html

as my screeny gives hint. She's a very talented artist that captures the vibe of the rank and file marching in solidarity.

Bookmarked so I can spend some time looking through her online portfolio.

Thanks again for posting the links.

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naysayers.

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I keep seeing in Rick Steve's Europe all these traffic free zones where no cars are allowed, only pedestrians. It looks live heaven.

How cool is that? I wish America would pull it's head out of it's ass and be that forward thinking.

Enjoy being able to cross a street without having your head on a swivel while in Europe!

Thanks for adding.

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there are so many bikes, trams, and people walking around that you cant really see the cars!

and turn the spaces into public parks. It's great to walk down the street and not have both parked cars and moving cars next to you. It is great to walk down the street and have an open space between you and the traffic.

with bikes and roller bladers in chicago...

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i will be back home this summer and my buddy vlad and i love riding in the critical mass rallies

I'm signed up for a large bicycle event coming up this early summer. Thousands of bike riders ride across the city in one big long pro-bike protest. Thing of beauty to witness.

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I arrive in chicago the second of july is that too late?

and so much harder to dream.

I've been talking, in my personal life, about public and greener transportation for years. One on one, most people agree with you.

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Oh wait, I can take my dad's pickup truck, thats not a car....er ah to hell with it I will just smoke a joint on the lakefront bike path either on foot or on bike...

driving. The bike path or foot path on foot is a better and safer solution.

you can smell many a car crusing LSD and smoking reefer, I have been doing it for 15 years without doing a single problem. The French govt. did a test which showed that the legal alcohol limit, .05, raises the risk of deadly accident by 4 times whereas extremely stoned people only raise the risk of deadly accident by 2 times. in other words smoking cannabis and driving is less risky than driving with legal alcohol levels in your blood. If alcohol people can risk my life more than 4 times greater in an .08 state like illinois then i sure as hell have a right to raise the risk by 2 times with my joints.

granted the bike is the safest, unless I am looking at all those beautiful ladies jogging, biking, and roller blading from montrose all the way down to the aquarium (whats up south siders??? dont you work out?? the trail is so much more dead starting at about 30th street, oh well at least you can speed bike all the way down to 71st

but it is so hard hard to do so with all those beautiful, fit women jogging, biking, and roller blading in bikini tops, short shorts and mini skirts!

that I have also envisioned a car-free city where I live. My town is a LOT smaller than Chicagoland with only 30,000 people, but I have outlined a plan that I think could be workable in my town to make it car-free.

I'll go find your post and maybe comment further there. In the meantime, don't get discouraged at the naysayers. The hardest element of making something happen is convincing naysayers that it will work.

Your reply is so true, I normally don't let em get to me that way.

I posted that OP as an idea or an attempt to get people to look forward.
My take on the replies from that OP - Many here had never apparently considered the notion of car-free living. Hearing that for the first time seemed like an affront to their senses. Perhaps I'm a bit harsh with that conclusion.

But like your reply said, I should know to expect naysayers when suggesting anything forward thinking or any new idea(even if car-free ain't a new idea). But, since the oil spill, Du'ers have changed. This oil spill has opened alot of eyes.

Reading through the positive replies in this OP, it's like I never posted that first OP.

There's an entirely different vibe here now. Honestly, I think people are ready to listen.

Thanks for that very encouraging reply.

I hope one day we all can live your vision for your smaller town. Our larger cities are becoming a mess of stopngo rush hours that seem to last sunrise til sunset. If a person approaches Chicagoland in a car, coming from the country, as one approaches the city it's easy to see a gigantic gray cloud of air pollution hoving over the city like a dome.

We as a species, have to change that.
Peace
UY

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Driving one on a public thoroughfare ought to be a felony.

Welcome to the car haters of DU.

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How else can you live here that long and never get a single parking ticket?


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It can be done.

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I feel VERY lucky to live in an old-school, densely-packed, 19th-century-vintage city with good mass transit infrastructure. I get to work in, at worst, half an hour on the Blue Line train, and I get to read the whole time.

Most Americans don't -- and in many ways, that's a political problem, because there is no fucking excuse for metropolitan-area development that doesn't take that need into consideration and just relies on the fiction that the individual-car culture that ruled from the 40s to the 70s would be the law of the land forever.

I feel VERY lucky to be physically-abled enough to do a lot of walking. (My dirty little secret, though: I never learned to ride a bike. I have terrible balance and I grew up in a part of the country with few paved roads, no sidewalks, and virtually no horizontal land, so bikes were just not part of the culture so I never overcame the difficulties. I CAN ride a horse, though...that was literally way more practical there.) Most of my friends ride bikes around, though, and I envy them and support them in that all the way.

But still. Many people are not physically able to do any of the above. They shouldn't be shut-ins either. Again, good mass transit would help those people as well.

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