Carmageddon? The eco-joys of pedestrianism

Some say the single most impactful thing one human being can do for the eco-survival of the planet is... don't have a car.

That's me!

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Which pretty much hasn't been a problem. Living in the heart of a bustling big city, I never really missed having a car. In fact, for downtowners, cars are definitely a detriment. They cost thousands of dollars to insure, thousands more to park, and thousands to maintain. Then, if you're lucky, they won't be broken into by the penny-ante hustlers and crack whores who make the odds so interesting playing Parking Roulette in my very urban neighborhood.

Besides, these days, cars typically cost much more than the 4-bedroom Cape Cod house my parents bought in the Fifties – $14,000 – and what can you drive for that?

Probably nothing most folks would want to be seen in.

Ever hear that radio commercial for the "$49,000 Muscle Car?"

Where I come from – New Jersey – they call that a condo.

Some people think I'm pathetic for not having a car and nuts for not driving. They feel sorry for what they think I'm missing.... Right! Exploding engines! Garage extortion! Gridlock! Criminal mechanics! Road rage! Tanker spills! Commuting traffic accidents making you late for work! Not for nothing is the local expressway called the Sure-Kill Crawl-Way.

As for independence and, uh, autonomy, well, I walk everywhere I can – just me and my backpack – so the city is my gym. I also take lots of cabs, buses, subways, planes, and trains. I love travel. Locally, however, since practically everyone else I know has a car, sometimes they take me along to really neat places.

Miraculously enough, once I even got a ride to Trader Joe's, that fabulous grocery shopper's paradise. Ooooeeee, gourmet natural food, bargains galore. But mostly I've been content with the relative convenience of my own walk-anywhere center-city neighborhood over the years.

Last time I actually drove a car was 20 minutes 20 years ago on vacation, visiting the picturesque Pennsylvania mountain town of Latrobe, home of the "jade grenade," Rolling Rock beer. Since then, I've never sat behind the wheel of an automobile again.

Go figure.

Really, I was always a small-town bike-everywhere kind of kid growing up near the Jersey Shore. Oh, I had a driver's license as a teenager. But like all things, it eventually expired and after moving out of state, I didn't take the driver's test again. True, my driver's license did come in handy for cashing checks and making sure I wasn't mistaken for a terrorist with my spiky shag hairdo and intense dark gaze, but hey, you can't have everything.

My own mother could not go out of the house without my father, and was ready to die when he traveled on business. She would not even travel with him when he asked her. She did not drive – she never learned, her husband never wanted her to drive. He wanted to keep her home. Well, he won, and lost.

And so I bought a car at 17, believing I'd be different.

Going away to college, I left my car behind, having driven it only one day, disastrously, for peculiar reasons having nothing to do with commentary. There was my car parked on my parents' perfect lawn, ruining it. Growing up in the country, I was afraid to drive on city highways. I remember the day my father eventually sold my car, but kept the money.

When I got older, I wanted to drive again. A husband I had said a stranger should teach me. We got divorced but there were no lessons. A boyfriend I had said the last thing he ever taught a woman was dancing to his sister, and he hated both proms and accidents, so teach yourself.

I read about an 8-year-old boy-child who drives his stricken father to the hospital after a heart attack, and I am meanly jealous.

Once I was in love with someone who drove like a maniac. I still did not drive. I was ready to die when he traveled on business. I still did not drive. I stayed in a lot. I went just a little crazy. I still did not drive. I thought genetic defects skipped a generation. I still do not drive.

Ecological choice or personal neurosis? Who knows? Carsick, indeed. Bye for now. My bus is coming!