Why not resolve to drive less in 2025?
No comments on this post because I refuse to write in the twitter-contorted "I don't hate all pancakes" mode in this post.
Why not try to drive less in 2025?
I started driving less because I wanted to. I own a car; I use it primarily to buy canned goods in bulk and to visit my mother-in-law on the other side of the city. I started commuting by bike because I wanted to commute as quickly as possible in a way that didn't involve a car.
Before that I tried other ways of not using a car. I rode the bus; I rode the train; I rode a little electric seated scooter I bought from a coworker. I did this all in Los Angeles, the place you apparently can't live without a car. I got my groceries on my way home and carried them in my backpack. I visited my friends and my partner by bus and scooter and train. I carried what I needed and planned my day around these transit times. I did it all with a disability which requires me to exercise in highly planned, careful ways.
I chose my workplace partially because I could get there without a car. I made decisions about where to meet my friends and which places to spend my free evenings based on where I could get to without a car. Nobody was weird about it. It totally worked out.
But I also gained access to new places when I stopped driving. I can go downtown without paying for parking. I can visit the beach without planning (or paying for parking). I found new places to hang out and eat and get coffee because I wasn't separated from the world around me by metal and glass (or by the need to find and pay for parking).
I save many hundreds of dollars a month by driving my car less. I'm still paying for that car insurance, but I'm paying for a fuck ton less gas. I'm healthier and stronger. I feel safer in my neighborhood, because I've been all around it on foot and two wheels. I have new hobbies and skills. I feel more useful. I'm happier.
If you think: I can't get rid of my car because of [X limitation specific to your life that it is impossible for me to debate you about]: I'm not asking you to get rid of your car! I'm simply suggesting that you drive less. I didn't get rid of my car. I just barely drive it now. There are some trips I drive for, and many more that I don't.
And really: if you are a person in your 20s or 30s living in a major American city, without dependents, with a job that pays you well enough to choose where you'll live - as many of the people who read my blog are - then you are specifically the type of person I am talking to. And if you work from home, then I'm talking to you the most. I started driving less when I was 29, unmarried, living in Los Angeles, with enough cash to control certain aspects of my life. I was feeling all torn up about the future and about the shape of my city and about how much I hated driving. And I was taking the train downtown all the time, and I was seeing so many people more tied-down by kids and clock-in times than I was, all making it work without a car. I started thinking: god, so many people in this city live without a car. If you've got the motivation, and you've got a white collar job, and you've got no kids, you can absolutely figure out how to drive less. Not never: less. I guarantee that it's within your power. All those people worse off than you are doing it every day.
You just need that motivation. So take some! It's gonna be January, which is, apparently, the month of motivation. You don't need to go cold turkey. Just start looking at some maps - rental maps, transit maps, whatever - and start thinking about the ways your life could flex and change. (And if you need even more motivation, imagine spending most of your gas money on your hobbies instead.) It's worth leaning toward a better life as far as you can, even if you can't go all the way.