Though you can't tell from this angle, I DID have back it in.

Remember when I was a bright-eyed new-comer to the Mile-high City?

This past week, I celebrated my one-year anniversary of residence in Denver.

That got me  thinking about my move last year, from my native land of northwest Indiana back here to my beloved Centennial State. I thought about all the boxes packed. I thought about all the goodbyes said. I thought about all the miles driven. I thought about my moving truck.

I parallel-parked that moving truck like it was nobody’s business.

I know there are more important skills in life than parallel parking—dinner cooking, resume writing, and schedule managing to name a few. But we all know how satisfying it is to step out of the car and see the wheels nearly flush against  the curb.

Even we non-motoring folk know a perfect parallel parking job gives a feeling that has few equivalents.

In the course of my move-in, I had to park that thing three times, and all three times I nailed it. I felt so jolly about it I took pictures!

I can’t say why I nailed it exactly. Maybe trucks, with no deceptive trunk space, are easier to park

Eat your heart our, car-drivers.

than cars. Maybe cycling has a curious way of developing vehicle parallel parking skills. Maybe it was luck.

Or maybe, just maybe, that pristine park job was my first sign that I was in the right place—and still am a year later.

Car-freely,
Amy

My friend, Pawl, made it, and it’s full of beautiful cyclery, beautiful scenery, and general beauty.

This is what life is like on a bike. Granted, Pawl lives in Portland, where life—with its greenness (both literal and political)—can seem cheerier than some other places in the country.

It’ll make you want to embrace the coming warmth of spring. It’ll make you want to take your personal transportation into your own hands. It’ll make you want to get on your bike and ride.

So, go ahead and watch it.

Then, tell me what you think of it in a comment. You’ll be giving your feedback to Pawl too, as he’s a No Car Go follower.

Car-freely,
Amy

DISCLAIMER: Despite Pawl’s experience and finesse in cycling, I wouldn’t advise wearing headphones while riding, as he does in this film—no matter how cheery it makes life seem.

Front Porches + Back Fences = Happy Marriages?

My job involves work for the Front Porch Project, and my blog relates to work by THE BACK FENCE project. The former deals with child welfare, while the latter deals with public transit.

But they’re both dealing in the warm currency of community and togetherness.

This fact is evidenced not only by their homey names, which harken back to picket fences and lemonade stands, but also by their focus on drawing on the “tribe” mindset to make our towns and cities into places we actually want to live.

The idea is that we all want a lot of the same things, so if we just get out of our big houses and cars and talk a bit, we can make those things a reality.

The brainchild of Bill Spriggs, THE BACK FENCE is a weekly online publication, which calls itself “The Newsletter on Matters Concerning the West Corridor Light Rail in Golden, Lakewood, & Denver And an Echo Chamber For Livable Communities.”

I like Spriggs’ focus on hard news issue tempered by a community mind-set. Despite the project title, he seems to be showing us that community is not some quaint, archaic notion from Leave It to Beaver times. It’s our present, and if we know what’s best for us, our future too.

Cheers to front porches, back fences and community on all sides!

Car-freely,
Amy

Ah, the Suess memories.

I’ve been thinking a lot about dogs lately.

Mostly, I’ve been thinking about dogs, because my boyfriend just adopted one from the Denver Dumb Friends League. He’s a black lab/pointer mix, and we’re convinced he was sent from the dog gods to train us how be good dog parents.

When we’re most clueless, it feels almost like he’s talking to us, coaching us through:

• “Mornings are for walks, afternoons are for naps, and evenings are for cuddles.”
• “If you let me eat grass, odds are good I’m going to puke on your carpet.”
• “Saying goodbye when you leave for work is probably more difficult for you, you old softie, than it is for me.”

Anyway, all this dog-fulness got me thinking about the role cars play in a modern dog’s life.

Cars take dogs to the vet, the groomer, the grandparents’ house at the holidays. People load their dogs in the car to go to the park, for a hike, even out to eat. Dogs ride in cars about anywhere their owners want to go that’s farther than a mile or so from their homes.

I’m beginning to think if I ever want a dog of my own, I’ll have to get a car too.

You might say, “But, Amy, people have children without having cars.”

The big difference is: You can take human children on the bus. As far as I know, most public transit systems only allow service animals to ride.

I guess I could get a bike trailer for them to ride in or use a carshare every now and then.

Any car-free dog owners out there? I’d sure love to hear how you do it!

Car-freely,
Amy

If it makes you feel any better, this picture is freaking me out too.

And so are staff meetings, packed lunches, fluorescent lights , and panty hose.

So, this is what full-time work feels like.

During my past two years of being a spoiled, part-time, freelance brat, I’d forgotten. I’m wholly reminded now though—of all that and of the chronic time shortage that comes with a 40-hour work week.

I know I’ve been neglecting No Car Go.

It’s been more than a month since my last post.

But I’m back in the saddle, with renewed energy and all kinds of stories to tell from my daily commute. That said, you’re probably going to notice some changes around here.

Among them:

• Decreased frequency—we’re probably looking at a weekly installment.
• Shorter posts—you may like that better anyway, you gen-TV-ers.
• More errors—I swear I’ll do my best to keep them minimal, but you’ve got to break a few eggs to make an omelet. (Error #1: That expression really doesn’t apply here at all.)

I’m pretty excited to back.

Writing about how to get more out of life with less car travel feels like the right thing for me be doing with my spare time, scarce though it may be now.

Car-freely,
Amy

Is that a Call-n-Ride bus or a Westin Hotel?

In the short time since I started riding Denver’s short, green Call-n-Ride bus—which gets you from the light rail station to your final car-centric destination in the suburbs—I’ve already made three new friends!

First, there’s Clay.

He works in my office, and he commutes from the city to the suburbs by public transit too. He fielded my questions about how long the trip takes and how much it costs. He told me where to wait for the Call-n-Ride bus, which takes you from the light rail station to your office building, and he shared with me this crucial bit of information:

Most the time, you don’t have to call the Call-n-Ride to get a ride.

Then, there’s John.

The first day I used public transit to get home from work, he was standing at the Call-n-Ride stop, which is actually just a suburban street corner void of any signage or markings indicating that a short, green bus stops there every 10 minutes.We nodded hello, and I asked him if this was where the bus would come. He assured me it was, told me the bus’s ETA, and that it came with a three-minute margin of error.

John works for an RV service company and does not personally own a vehicle.

Then, there’s Dean.

John introduced me to Dean, as we boarded the Call-n-Ride bus. Dean is the bus driver. He smiled, welcomed me aboard, and asked if I had any questions.

I felt more like I was being welcomed to a five-star hotel than to a public bus.

Maybe it’s just more of the Colorado neighborliness I love, but I think this commuter community might be a really lovely bunch. And I just might be able to get used to the short bus.

Car-freely,
Amy

Arrivederci, espresso!

Were you starting to get bored with this blog? Well, listen up, ‘cause things just got a whole lot more interesting.

Here’s what my life used to be like:

1. Get up at 7 or 8 a.m., depending on the activities of the preceding evening.
2. Do some stretches and calisthenics.
3. Eat breakfast and linger over Italian-style, stove-top espresso.
4. Tool around the internet before settling into a few hours of working/writing/tooling around on the internet.
5. Go for a run or a bike ride.6. Shower.
6. Pour myself a glass of wine.
7. Call friends to make plans for dinner.

Here’s what my life is like now:

1. Get up at 5:30 or 6 a.m.
2. Feel guilty for not getting up early enough to work out.
3. Do some half-asleep stretches.
4. Shower.
5. 5. Eat cold cereal and hurry out the door.
6. Take two buses and a train, totaling 82 minutes, or alternately, beg for a ride.
7. Arrive at a destination void of much other than a post office, a Bennigan’s , and my place of employment.
8. Turn on my computer to see my desktop background of a perfect espresso shot.
9. Pour myself a glass of cheap, office-stock drip coffee.
10. Work for eight or nine hours.
11. Take two buses and a train, totaling 82 minutes, or alternately, beg for a ride.
12. Feel guilty for not having enough energy to work out.

So, I’ve gone and gotten myself a job in the suburbs. Can you believe it?

Better stay posted and see how I cope with this life curveball.

Car-freely,
Amy

Aw, com'on Mrs. G., can't we get a car?

Is that “You take the good, you take the bad …” song running through your head right now? Mine too. But that’s not the subject of today’s post.

Today’s topic is how to talk to your kids about being car-free.

Do you tell them:

• Why other kids and their families ride in cars and you don’t?
• That cars—and, in effect, the people who drive them—cause damage to the environment?
• How they should make transportation choices when they get older?
• To toughen up when it’s below zero outside?

In her article, “‘Mom, can we get the kind of car that we keep at our house?’”  in Grist, Carla Saulter tries to answer these questions.

While her discussion is interesting, she doesn’t get too far, before she asks for suggestions from her readers. Some of their ideas include:

• “Although you don’t want to judge other people, think about inviting friends to take a walk with you or pointing out the people on a local bike path. Help your children to see that there is also a community of people making choices like you have and working together.”
• “My basic parenting creed seem to apply here, as elsewhere: Be firm on rules, structure, and your own values, and then make it clear that you respect your children as individuals, and that they are allowed to be different (but after they leave home!)”
• “As much as we want to have perfect answers to totally impossible questions, I think that honest and spontaneous (albeit thoughtful) conversation is the best way to really teach children how complex these things are.”
• “Maybe you should get off the bus and onto bikes for a while to emphasize the fun side of your freedom from traveling about in steel boxes.”

The verdict:  It’s probably easier than the sex talk, but still no walk in the park.

Any other parents out there struggling with this?

Car-freely,
Amy

We go a bit faster than that.

The other morning, I rode my bike for about two miles at a speed of 15 miles per hour. Sounds like an ordinary bike trip, right? There was something different about this ride though.

A line of 20 cars or more joined me, driving at or slower than my speed.

They didn’t do it by choice, of course; there was a street-cleaning vehicle serving as pace car at the front of the pack. Still, they did it.

They did it without tailgating, honking, or yelling mean things out the window. To be fair, I don’t know what the morning commuters were saying or doing inside their vehicles. In truth though, I don’t care.

That ride was one of, if not the safest, least stressful, and most pleasant I’ve had on a city street.

Normally, a city ride for me entails holding tight as cars pass me illegally (three feet of space is the law in Colorado), maneuvering around parked cars, craning my neck to re-enter a lane, and cursing under my breath the motorists who won’t let me back into traffic.

It also often involves one or more motorist honking at me (which is physically jarring to cyclists and, therefore, dangerous for all involved), yelling rude things at me, or lecturing me at stop lights about how I shouldn’t be on the road.

Instead, we all drove the same reasonable speed, and we all got to our destination safely.

Only one or two cars needed to pass me, and they did so at a safe speed and distance from me. I even had to put the brakes on a few times in order stay in the line of traffic. Because everyone had no choice but to chill out and slow down, I not only felt safe, but I felt respected, acknowledged, even dignified.

I wonder what my life would be like if the speed limit in Denver were 20 miles per hour, a comfortable flat-land cycling speed. We wouldn’t be the first city to create such limits, you know. I’ve heard that places like Amsterdam and Copenhagen have set cyclist-sensitive speed limits in their urban centers.

Instead of expecting cyclists to speed up or get out of the way, they expect to cars to slow down.

I realize that the ubiquitous expressways, fast-paced lives, and general impatience in the United States may make laws like this seem ridiculous at first glance. But what seems more reasonable:

A. Asking someone to flex their calf muscle, press the brake, and add five minutes to their trip

or

B. Asking someone to engage nearly every muscle in their body to accelerate rapidly, weave in and out of moving and parked vehicles, and add significant percentage points to their likelihood of head trauma?

Am I being melodramatic?

I don’t think so—and if you’d been on that ride with me that morning, you probably wouldn’t think so either.

Car-freely,
Amy

Warm and sunny in the state capital and not a B-cycle to be had.

Ah, warm weather.

Since the spring-like temps hit Denver  last Friday,  I’ve  been logging spring-like bike and pedestrian miles, and I haven’t had to freeze at a bus stop or beg for a ride even once.

I know it won’t stay for long, I can’t help but feel really, really happy about it.

During one of my euphoric, sunshiny walks, I noticed a curious site: A bike rack completely empty of bikes. It was one of Denver B-cycle’s bike-share racks. According to their homepage, Denver’s B-cycles are in hibernation until March.

I’m a big fan of B-cycle, but is winter hibernation really necessary?

Here’s why I don’t think it is:

• Denver has a high-plains desert climate, which allows for much winter riding and has mercy on bikes stored outdoors.
• Chicago B-cycles don’t seem to be hibernating–and I can offer firsthand testimony that Chicago winters are more brutal than Denver winters.
• Denver B-cycle is “presented by Kaiser Permanente,” a company that posted $42.1 billion in operating revenue in 2009.

Seriously, KP?

You could decrease the number of bikes in rotation during winter months, but none at all just feels plain mean, especially during weeklong stints of 60-degree temperatures. I know you claim you’re busy testing new bike station features, but I’ll bet you could afford to keep at least a few bikes available.

Come on, Kai-Perm, old buddy, old pal. Give us our B-cycles back!

Car-freely,
Amy