Today on NPR living Car Free in LA. Really..

In an email to my friends about an OpEd piece in the New York Times about "Beyond Propaganda" by someone who worked on the British Petroleum "Beyond Petroleum" ad campaign (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/14/opinion/14kenney.html?n=Top%2fOpinion%2fEditorials%20and%20Op%2dEd%2fOp%2dEd%2fContributors). I wrote the following.

Car(e)free in California hits its tenth day with limited success. It is definitely doable, but what I find living without a car collapses your world in size, in much the same way that the jet plane has expanded my world. You find fewer restaurants available for dining (I need to be able to walk to or bike ride to), meeting with people is constrained by geography. The other thing I have noted is that our world is definitely designed and structured with the car in mind. You find this when looking for bike parking, to traffic lights (in some places you have to ignore traffic signals if you ever going to get a light going your way).

Also on NPR today Morning Edition was a story on living Car Free in LA (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5649826)

How to Live Well Without Owning a Car: Save Money, Breathe Easier, and Get More Mileage Out of Life
by Chris Balish (http://www.powells.com/cgi-bin/biblio?inkey=62-1580087574-0)

It also includes a section on Car Free Dating, which as I've been going on a few dates with someone in Oakland is proving challenging since there is no direct Peninsula to East Bay path. It's a good thing she use to be an Urban Planner and has great sympathy. Sadly there is no Car Share option either.