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Jason Christian's avatar

We go to San Francisco a couple of times a year, typically for 3 or four days. Giants! Warriors! Valkyries!

When we got smart, we started driving down i-80 to the Vallejo Ferry Terminal. Cheap parking. Beautiful ride to the Ferry Building. Muni or Uber or Cab and NO CAR! FREEDOM!

No Eastshore Freeway. No toll plaza.

No, Muni is not RATP (Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens), but it goes everywhere and the passengers get to enjoy my favorite urban hellhole.

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meh's avatar

We do the same, and we use BART and take bikes. We either strap a backpack on the racks on the bike or use panniers with a small backpack inside for urban hiking. For all the ZOMG URBAN RIDING SCARY memes, I've not found it bad (though my DSO, who has some vision issues, is a bit more apprehensive).

We do the same for going to Sac or Reno, using Amtrak and taking bikes. Amazing runs and lots of mobility with bikes.

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Bob Egbert's avatar

Thank you for this episode. I had no idea that there was "A War on Cars" podcast. My wife & I moved into the City of Roanoke, Va. from the county to reduce our car dependence. We drive about 70% less here.

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Paul Loeb's avatar

Good conversation. I remember meeting with the folks in Copenhagen who first developed separated bike lanes. They had photos of the city in the early 60s totally dominated by cars. it looked like Los Angeles of the same period. But then steadily put in infrastructure so bikes and transit became dominant.

I think partial steps are important. For No Kings Seattle, we drove to parking near the light rail (in our Chevy Bolt), because that really did save a lot of time. But then took light rail in the main part of the trip. Even in car-dependent or partially dependent cities, you can still drastically cut down the amount people need to drive cars, even if they still own them.

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