Car Free with Kids

The greening of movie rentals

Being without a car for the past year has meant that we've experimented with different ways to rent movies. We don't have cable television (by choice) and movies are by far the better part of any screen viewing we do at home.

In the old days, I'd pick up a video (as I still call them, although they usually are DVDs or Blu-rays) as part of errand running or we'd go and get one when we felt like it. The latter is a great example of the kind of car journey we intentionally gave up when we jettisoned our car.

During the past year we basically gave up the spur of the moment movie rental, knowing that we had to fit this activity into the running of other errands or - in the warmer months - the route taken on one of our bike rides. This worked out quite well overall. We took to borrowing more films from the library, something we'd already been in the habit of doing.

And then a friend pointed us to Zip.ca. The irony of this is quite sweet, given that we work with technology and the internet for a living, while this friend is decidedly low-tech in nature. I liked the idea of creating a list of preferred films and having them show up randomly in the mail to be viewed at our leisure. Returning them in a pre-paid envelope via the nearest post office or mailbox made it even more attractive. Somebody was still burning up some carbon to get these slices of entertainment to us, but it seemed like a more efficient delivery method overall.

Since then our almost 12-year old son has stepped in with his iPod and its ability to download and play movies. The two-inch screen was never going to cut it for family viewing, of course, but thanks to his inquisitive nature and well honed search skills, he quickly realized that a modest investment in an AV cable would allow us to watch movies on his iPod on our television. So now, we think we've found just about the greenest way to indulge our family's cinematic habit. Did I mention that our television and DVD player are powered with green electricity thanks to Bullfrog Power? But that's another post...

Patience and proximity to the LCBO

Being car free this past year has meant that there are things that we simply don't do anymore. Like nip out for juice or frozen blueberries at 10pm when I remember that one thing we "won't be able to live without" tomorrow.

You know what? Nobody has starved or gone crazy here as a result, and it's been a pleasure not to fight with myself - when it's twenty below or I'm just too tired - over whether I really "need" to go out. Being self employed, I can remember a time when getting out in the car to run an errand late in the evening was a form of relaxation or something (I'm sure that's not quite the right word for it), which I long ago realized was very sad. Having been cooped up all day with children and work, it was a release to find an excuse to head out late in the evening. I can remember it, but just don't understand it anymore.

Now when the night settles around us I'm simply happy to be at home and if something is missing from the fridge or I don't have the cash to send in with one of our children's school field trip forms, so be it. Like most things in life, it can wait, and I'm better for it.

Living within walking distance of a liquor store has also been a good thing, mind you. Sometimes kicking back is even better with a glass of something good, and having the option to walk over there before 9 o'clock most nights is not to be underestimated! We get more exercise that way too, of course.

Car free with kids for nearly a year...a review

We gave up our car nearly a year ago and we've been Vrtucar users on an as-needed (or wanted) basis in that period. Thanks to Vrtucar's meticulous record keeping, which of course is essential for their business, we have a great record of our actual car usage.

So how much have we used a car?

Well we booked a car 66 times between early April 2009 and early February 2010. That's a monthly average of 6.6 car trips. Our monthly average, which was closer to three to four car trips per month in the first five months that we used Vrtucar, was driven up in the winter months by two factors: (1) we went into the winter expecting to use a car somewhat more often as we suspected we weren't going to continue being big cyclists in the inclement months (which has turned out to be true), and (2) we decided to move house, which generated a series of unanticipated trips to our soon to be new home (which is in a small town outside of Ottawa) as well as house clearing out trips (dropping off items at charity stores or to my mother's for long term storage). In January we used a car a dozen times, which blew me away, but I know why at least.

Our total mileage (kilometreage?) was around 2,700km, giving us a monthly average of 270km. Again, that figure has been inflated due to a series of trips out to our new home. Typically, the days on which we use cars we're not using them to go very far as we're running errands around town and very occasionally visiting somewhere fun that's off the beaten track in terms of public transport. The shortest trip we ever made was just shy of 2km and the booking was for one hour. That was for a breakneck trip to the grocery store for some seriously heavy items that I realized would best be done with a car; it was the only time I've ever used Vrtucar to go to a single grocery store and absolutely nowhere else. Again, typically, we use the car for several errands or destinations to make most efficient use of a car booking and planning those trips has become second nature.

You can read more about the ways in which we typically use Vrtucar here. I have also posted about car sharing for recreational trips with friends, our experience of car availability with Vrtucar, a car sharing disaster that was really a blessing in disguise, and at least one experience of booking a car at the last minute for an emergency.

We gave up our car for a lot of different reasons, the biggest being that we wanted to become very intentional and thoughtful about how often and when we used a car. Yes, we want to reduce our impact on the planet and yes, I know that one family reducing its carbon footprint in this way is only an ever-so-small drop in the bucket. There are other ways that we're trying to make a difference, and they all add up to an only slightly bigger ever-so-small drop in the bucket, but it's all worth doing in our book.

So, have we driven less?

Absolutely. In the seven years that we owned our last car, which was used for a combination of recreational outings, shopping and other generally local trips, with seasonal trips to Montreal or an Ontario cottage or campsite thrown in (we've never used our car for commuting to work), we put an average of 6,000 to 8,000km on the car each year. Clocking in at around 3,000km for our first year of living car-free has definitely been an improvement. It also sets a benchmark that we can now measure ourselves against going forward.

There is a lot that we just don't do now that we don't have a car parked at the ready in our driveway, and we feel good about that. We've taken a big step towards realizing something important to us, which is about reducing our total impact on the planet. We accept that we will have an impact, but we want to control that impact as much as possible and not to take up as many resources for things which aren't really necessary. We're a work in progress, but we like where we've been going.

This blog will be changing gears. As I noted above, we've found a new place to call home in a small town outside of Ottawa and that will mean a series of big changes for us. More on that another time, but here's a taste.

Why Jamie Oliver is one of my heroes

If you have 18 minutes to spare, I highly recommend Jamie Oliver's TED Prize wish: Teach Every Child About Food. The young, irreverent chef from the UK has been deep into school meals and helping people in the UK and the US to learn about food and make healthy eating a central goal in their lives for quite a few years now, and this recently filmed summary of his view of the food crisis we all face is great viewing.

When children dream of gardening

I wrote very recently about my dream of front yard vegetable gardens popping up across our city and last summer I posted about our family's small inner city garden and what we were growing and eating. The garden is something that gets us through winter, if only in memory.

Gardening is deep in the consciousness of our six year old - he has that primeval love of dirt that most children have, and loves nothing better than to sit in a patch of earth to unwind at the end of his day. He also helps out with the tasks associated with tending our garden, though there is nothing unusual or extraordinary about the effort he makes. He simply likes to be in the garden and be outdoors.

With his personality in mind, I ordered a copy of Peter Brown's delightful children's book The Curious Garden from our library about a young boy who discovers a few bedraggled plants in the smoggy, industrial city in which he lives and nurtures them until they take over city, transforming it into a huge community garden. In doing so he helps to bring the city's residents outdoors where they connect with the earth and with each other. It's a wonderful tale which I knew I would love, but I was somewhat unprepared for my son's reaction to it. We've read the book six or seven times over the past two evenings and when I'm not reading it to him he spends ages with it in his lap, soaking up the pictures and comparing the first and last illustrations in the book, which provide a wonderful map to the city - one in its smogged-up industrial state, the other in its lush and green state. I can see we'll need to find a copy to purchase.

When I see a child falling in love with this kind of story it gives me such great hope; children know what they want from the communities they live in and we should be better at delivering those things. Green spaces, time and places in which to explore, safe and locally grown food, a healthy planet.

Spring fever on wheels

Winter in Ottawa this year has been kind of weird. We haven't had a whole lot of snow, especially in recent weeks. There is snow on the ground, but not the mounds of fresh stuff that kids like to play in. And the roads right now are very dry. So, it was time to hop on the bikes for a bit of recreational cycling today.

Hopping off the bike to kick a snowbank only adds to the fun.

Scaling snowbanks with a bike is pretty interesting too.

Skidding on patches of icy snow is pretty cool.

And, of course, no bike outing is complete without a quick on-the-road repair.

Portland's Bicycle Plan for 2030

Portland, Oregon has a bicycle plan. Already known as a centre for acting on sustainabile living ideas and as a bike-friendly place, Portland has a vision for how it should look in 2030, and bicycles feature very large. I'm wishing I lived in Portland right now, but that would be too easy. I'm wishing Ottawa's mayor, city council and leaders could adopt the thinking of Mayor Sam Adams of Portland, who says in the Executive Summary to the 2030 plan:

"Our intentions are to be as sustainable a city as possible. That means socially, that means environmentally and that means economically. The bike is great on all three of those factors. You just can't get a better transportation return on your investment than you get with promoting bicycling."

That's a very strong statement. That's a statement that gets me really excited.

Hey Ottawa - we could do this too. We already have some great infrastructure in parts of the city on which to build and a cycling culture. Surely we can do what Portland is doing and do so with success?

Putting bikes front and centre in our transport planning would be good for our health and general wellbeing, our productivity, our economic performance, our efforts to tackle climate change and much more. Can we do it?

Well, Ottawa has a cycling plan and has recently allocated something like $16.7 million in the preliminary budget for implementing the plan (I'm not clear on how much of this 20-year plan would be covered by the 2010 budget). I know that the local group Citizens for Safe Cycling have responded favourably to this and you can read more about it here. These are good things, very good things. What I don't see, is a much of a vision for Ottawa.

There is a vision statment buried in the plan, but it's kind of uninspired. I guess that's what I'm griping about, the passion, clarity and vision that seems oddly absent from everything Ottawa does at the government level. I've no doubt that Ottawa is full of folks passionate about cycling who want Ottawa to become a leader in sustainable transport, but I just don't see those voices translated into what comes out of the city. Why is that?

My fear is that without a strong vision, we won't achieve these goals or grow and expand on our goals. So, how do we build that vision?

Front yard farming

There's a growing trend back to growing food at home and we joined in last year with our front-side-and-back-garden food growing. There are so many good reasons for growing your own food, not the least of which is understanding the cycles of fruits and vegetables and where they come from. Food safety, eating locally, saving money, enjoying the fruits of your own labour, teaching children about food and its provenance - these are all good reasons for growing (at least some of) our own food.

We've got plans to expand on our small inner-city suburban garden quite substantially, but that's another post that I'm not quite ready for yet. In the meantime, there is a really nice post on the Tiny Farm Blog about front yard farming that is great fun and sheds a bit of light on this trend.

I'd love to see neighbourhoods across Ottawa start sprouting front yard gardens. We're a bit of a conservative town and I don't see the advanced trends here that you might see in a place like Portland, Oregon, but I believe it will come.

If you are new to this and looking for a great way to kickstart the 2010 growing season, check out Seedy Saturday. This annual seed exchange and sale at Ron Kolbus Centre at Britannia Bay in West Ottawa is an amazing place to source seeds (particularly heirloom and organic) and gardening information. This year it takes place Sat, March 6th from 10am to 3pm. Seedy Saturdays and Seedy Sundays take place across Canada each spring; you can find a complete list here.

Winter Walk to School Day in Ontario

Wednesday, February 10th will be Winter Walk to School Day across Ontario. Is your school registered? Are you planning to walk? And if you or others at your school can't walk to school for some reason, can you arrange for a walking activity during the day? Active & Safe Routes to School suggests an outing on foot to a local skating rink or park.

Because 2,000 pounds isn't enough of an advantage?

What is it about getting behind the wheel of a car that makes people feel that they must go, go, go? That they must have the right of way? As in, "get out of my way!"

Even though we don't own a car, I'm still a driver thanks to our occasional Vrtucar usage, and I was a regular driver until just last year. I've been behind the wheel plenty. And I know there is an urge to GO, keep moving, no matter what, although I've always been conscious of that urge and generally been good at taming it. But some people, man, they just got the urge and no control over it!

This sad reality was - pardon the pun - driven home for me tonight when I went racing off to Scouts with our older son. After an evening spent on homework and tidying, we suddenly realized that he was half an hour late. Oops! We weren't going to bail on the evening entirely because his group is going on a winter camping trip next weekend and we knew they'd be doing some prep for that tonight. So off we raced, around the corner and up the hill. The hill in question is very short; it runs less than half a block, a half block along which three houses sit closely together, so you get the idea. No sooner had we started up the hill than some fool in a Mini Cooper (cute car) came up behind us and started honking at us. As in, "get out of my way!"

Whoa! It's winter and the streets are already half as narrow as they normally are. The sides of the roads are sloped with ice. The road we were occupying has no sidewalk and is naturally quite narrow. And tonight there was a car parked on one half of it, partway up the hill. So, it was us or the car. Gee, we were there first. And we were running full out. This Mini Cooper driver couldn't wait the 3.5 seconds it was going to take us to clear the hill and "get out of his way"!

I did what any self-respecting mother would do and swung round with a fist in the air, calling "piss off!" or something like that. Right in front of my eleven year old. And am I ashamed? No bloody way. This prompted Mr. Mini Cooper to honk more and rev past us. Nice. Very nice. Definitely someone who should have legal rights to be behind the wheel of car.

I'm not jumping to any big conclusions here, but I suspect that Mr. Mini Cooper was a youngish fella (or gal). Not sure, about that, but fairly certain. But it's not as though such infractions are the exclusive domain of youngsters.

I remember one winter a couple of years back when I was trudging (not running this time) up the very same hill with my then four year old. We were walking to school, pretty much at a four year old's pace, but not too slowly. When I heard the car behind me, I fought the urge to ditch both of us in the snowbank, which is frankly my usual reaction. I thought "no, we were here first, it's a short stretch of road and we've every right to get to the stop sign as reasonably quickly as we can". This driver squeezed past us anyway, within mere inches (which really angers me; when the roads are icy and snowy, all you need is one slip and a pedestrian can easily end up under the wheels of your car when you're that close). This driver then promptly drove the remaining 20 feet to the stop sign, crossed over the road, and parked immediately on the other side. When she got out, I was somewhat taken aback that she was an older woman (ie my mother's age, likely somebody's grandmother). She looked right by us and hurried on foot, back across the road to the church, where she must have been attending a meeting or club.

I called out to her what I'd like to say to all drivers right now: "What is it about getting behind the wheel of the car that makes you think you should go first?" She didn't answer.