Drive less, he said

The following commentary kicked off the May 14, 2009, episode of ‘Serf City’ radio, which airs Thursdays at 6:30 pm on CFMH 107.3 FM. Listen to the commentary plus an interview with cyclist Joe Godin here.

By Mark Leger

We finally got rid of our second car this week – nearly three years after we realized we didn’t need two because we lived uptown and could walk almost anywhere for mostly everything we need. The truth is, though, we still used the second car a lot. I teach in Fredericton. I’m a student at UNB. We shop a lot at the Superstore and on the east side. Our families live in Rothesay and Hampton. We have a cottage in Brown’s Flat.

It’s also not a very bike or pedestrian friendly city. It sprawls east-west and is hilly north-south – really, really, hilly. You should trying biking to UNB from uptown, if you don’t know what I mean. The public transit system is ok, but certainly not like big-city Toronto or Montreal, where you can hop onto subways and buses at every turn.

Nonetheless, there is a world-wide movement afoot to reduce and possibly eliminate the use of cars. Last night I was reading the spring edition of This Magazine, a national culture and current affairs magazine based in Toronto. The cover story, called “Traffic Jamming,” is about how cities are trying to curb car use.