I’m continuing on to Day 6 and beyond – is anyone else ready to post a comment or blog about your car-free experience? Juan posted a teaser, but I’m still waiting for an update.

The garden is finally bursting forth! The tomatoes are fruiting and outgrowing their cages. The zucchini are finally getting bigger than 4-5 inches. The bean plants are growing new sets of leaves.

I dug a few carrots for dinner tonight. I didn’t realize digging carrots would be so hard! The soil around them has gotten pretty well compacted, so they didn’t want to come out. Next time, I’m making sure they’re in nice, loose soil.

I’ve decided that yes, I am going to match Shetha’s five car-free days, even though she didn’t ask me to. That will take me through Wednesday, August 4 (11 days total).

I’m still not matching Family on Bikes’s eight months. But I am pondering why I can’t or won’t, and will write about that later, maybe at the end of the challenge.

Day 3 was pretty uneventful as far as transportation went. I didn’t need to go anywhere; the only problem was when I needed to mail something and couldn’t find any stamps.  If I’d had access to the car, I might have jumped in and gone to the post office to buy stamps and put the envelope in the mail. As it was, I found a way to print the postage I needed online, and got the envelope into the mailbox before the mail carrier arrived.

Why didn’t I just bike to the post office? It’s at the bottom of a big hill. I suppose I could have biked to a different (but further away) post office, or I could have bought stamps at Fred Meyer, but that didn’t occur to me at the time. And the hill? I’m not just being lazy. I’ve never been able to get up that hill without walking my bike and half-dying.

Right now, however, I’m pondering a ride down that very hill. You see, I’m adding people to the challenge! Yes, Aaron Walker chimed in and went car-free yesterday, so that brings me to six car-free days (through this Friday). And Shetha, although she didn’t actually say “I’m joining in, match me!” is in the middle of five car-free days of her own. And I’m thinking about matching her just for the heck of it. But that means I have to take my daughter to the summer camp bus by bike on Monday. The bus stop isn’t far, but it’s at the bottom of that hill, and we’d have to take her gear (not really a big deal).

Really, I don’t see why I can’t do it. Do you?

But I don’t often ride from home to the store and back. I could, very easily, most of the time. But the car still tends to be my default choice.  So this car-free challenge is good for me, too — it forces me to make a different choice.

P.S.: Yes, those are plastic bags peeking out. I forgot the reusable ones.

Thank you to John Metta, Jessica Weissman, Kathy Baxter, Juan Roman Magdaraog and Melody Murray! Please remember to leave a comment about your experience or post your own blog entry.

I was surprised that many people who responded said that they were already car-free all or most of the time.  I guess that makes sense, given that you’re actually reading this blog!

I’m scheduled to start tomorrow; five days will take me through Thursday.  Tomorrow I was thinking about taking the family to an event called Trek in the Park, where live actors re-enact an episode of the original Star Trek Series. It’s a free event, but attending would cost us $14 in bus fares round trip (or 15 miles on bikes, which I don’t think is doable for us). So, we have to decide whether it is worth it.

I’ll keep you updated.

ONE MORE! Adding Aaron Walker to the mix for 6 total days.

A friend from Maine said, only half-jokingly, that she was afraid to take the bus. But I managed to convince her and a few other friends that we could get to the Great America amusement park, in Santa Clara, entirely via public transportation. A bus, BART, and two more buses later, we had done it, and without spending all day on the bus!

Another friend and I managed to attend the Rocky Horror Picture Show in Berkeley every Saturday night, using the college shuttle to get there and the bus to get back.  However, the bus we needed to get back stopped running at some point during the night, and didn’t start again until after 4:00 a.m.  So we would walk down to the local 24-hour IHOP after the show. There, we ate pancakes and drank coffee until we were ill from lack of sleep and over-caffeination, and then caught the first bus home. On Sundays, we slept until the college food service’s late afternoon dinner.

I also accepted rides from friends and family, borrowed a friend’s motor scooter, and occasionally took a cab to the airport or train station. I didn’t bike. One time, I borrowed a friend’s bike and attempted to go to Taco Bell. There were no bike lanes, and the streets were crowded with cars. One tire turned out to be low, but I didn’t have any way to fill it. I didn’t try biking again, and didn’t even consider buying my own bike.

Even though I was mostly getting around when and where I needed to, there were times when I chafed at my perceived lack of independence. I couldn’t just pick up and go whenever and wherever I wanted to. I was dependent on bus and shuttle schedules or on other people. Nighttime travel was especially challenging, since many buses didn’t run at night, and I also had safety concerns (or at least I’d been told I should be concerned).

A car was THE way to be independent. So I finally bought a car the summer after my sophomore year (and promptly went into debt buying gas).

I still struggle with this. If I don’t use the car, I can’t go wherever I want, whenever I want, as quickly as I want to. That’s a fact. It’s also a fact that most people just lived with before automobiles became ubiquitous. So it’s not impossible to live with this fact. I just need a little motivation.

Won’t you help me out with that? I’m looking for a few people to commit to one car-free day. And I’ll match each of your car-free days. Even if a hundred people sign up. But I’m just one little-known blogger of many bloggers, so my goal is to get at least SEVEN people to commit to one car-free day.

Please go to my previous post to sign up.

Photo by THE Holy Hand Grenade on Flickr, used via Creative Commons.

And there’s no reason I can’t be doing other errands this way, too. Too hot? I can go early in the morning. Too cold? Probably not going to happen right now. Too rainy? Errands can probably wait, or I can take a bus.  Too little time? That’s a tough one sometimes, but I don’t have so much going on during the summer.

But does it really matter now? After all, the oil spill in the Gulf has been capped! We can all go back to business as usual, and just blame BP forevermore, right?

NO. Let’s not waste this opportunity.

We drill ever-deeper in the ocean for oil, even though the oil companies know it’s risky, because we can’t maintain our current lifestyles without it. And if we don’t change our lifestyles, it’s just going to happen again.

And the U.S. isn’t the only place that’s ever been affected by an oil spill like this. The people of the Niger Delta have been living with the effects of oil spills for years, but without the outrage that’s been directed at BP over the Deepwater Horizon spill.

In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta’s network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico… (The Guardian, May 30, 2010)

And yes, this is one of the places our oil comes from.

With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of all the crude the United States imports and is the world capital of oil pollution. Life expectancy in its rural communities, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 years over the past two generations. Locals blame the oil that pollutes their land and can scarcely believe the contrast with the steps taken by BP and the US government to try to stop the Gulf oil leak and to protect the Louisiana shoreline from pollution.

This is NOT OK. Are you mad yet? Are you ready to make a change?  Here’s a challenge for you.

Give me one day. Go car-free for one day of your choice. And I’ll match it! I will do one car-free day for each person who commits to doing a car-free day. My goal is to get at least seven of you to do this, so that I can do a car-free week.

Are there any rules to this? Just DON’T DRIVE A CAR. Walk, bike, ride a bus.  Should you accept rides from others? That’s up to you. For me, I’d feel like I was cheating if I, for instance, asked my husband to drive me somewhere. My intent is to do everything I would normally do without using the car, so I will have to take kids places, go shopping, etc., by bike. If my husband still wants to drive,that’s up to him, but I won’t ask him to take me places or use the car to do things for me.

But for you, car-pooling or ride-sharing might be an excellent strategy, especially if you need to get to work. You decide.

I would like everyone who participates to report back in some way. You can do so by leaving a comment here or on my Facebook page, or by blogging about the challenge on your own blog.

I’d like to do this the week of July 25-31 (with additional days if more people sign up).  You can choose the same day as someone else. You can choose a day that’s not within that timeframe, but please sign up before July 25 so that I know how many days I have to commit to. And don’t tell me you’re going to do it on December 25. Pick something in the near future.

Leave a comment with your name and the date of your car-free day to sign up.  Yes, you need to pick a date. And tell your friends!

ADDENDUM: If you’re already car-free, you obviously don’t need to play.  And no, I won’t be matching Family on Bikes, who have been on a bike trip for two years and counting and will be car-free for at least another eight months!

I heard about it because BikePortland mentioned on Twitter that Jack Bogdanski of Jack Bog’s Blog had made note of the piece. He called the report “sad, funny, or both,” chastising the CCC because they weren’t investigating why racial and ethnic minorities “don’t have job opportunities, or health care, or good schools.” And BikePortland rightly noted that the CCC is a cycling advocacy group; that’s what they DO.

It’s not like the Oregon Food Bank is spending donor money to research cycling among minorities. It’s an organization focused specifically on cycling.  And isn’t this better than spending money only on, say, recreational cycling, which benefits an even smaller group of people?

Also, strangely enough, riding bikes can help people with economic concerns as well.

To have a job, or to attend school, one has to have transportation. A bike is a great way to have transportation and to be independent of both the price of gasoline and the vagaries of Tri-Met budget cuts and fare increases.  That’s the biggest reason why I ride a bike to work. I’m not doing it to be cool. I’m doing it because we really can’t afford to have another car and the accompanying expense of gas and insurance. It helps that I also know it’s the right thing to do for our future. But I don’t know if I’d be that strong if it weren’t also economically necessary.

So, having a bike opens up one’s job opportunities, and can also help one save money in order to get ahead. What are the barriers, then? According to BikePortland, the CCC found that “three main themes emerged as barriers to biking: the cost of bikes and their upkeep, concerns about safety, and the logistics of riding (where to do it, what the rules are, and so on).”

Which brings us to geography. I’ve pointed out before that not so many people cycle out where I live.  Many people of racial and ethnic minorities have been pushed into outlying areas of Portland, where rents are cheaper, and that is exactly where bicycle infrastructure is lacking as well.  Check out the map – my neighborhood is one of the outlined areas.

So yes, we do have both geographical and racial/ethnic inequities in our bicycling system in Portland. And yes, that is important.  Hopefully the city will be able to scrape together money to build up the infrastructure in East Portland and other underserved areas; we are slated for at least one bicycle boulevard/traffic calming project at this time, and we have an East Portland Action Plan Bicycle Subcommittee that’s working with the city on infrastructure and bicycling activities (I’ve been loosely involved with this).

What do you think? If you’re not in Portland, is it like this where you live?

Today was the second day of 30 Days of Biking.  I rode my bike to work as usual yesterday, but not today. Today’s weather included wind (with high wind warnings), rain, hail, sunshine, and temperatures in the low 40s.  This morning was awful, and I rode the bus to work (while also missing a connection and having to wait 10 minutes without an umbrella, but whatever).

The rain held off long enough for me to pick up the girls and walk home, and then cleared up again after dinner so that we could take a short ride. And I do mean short! We just went around the block (which is actually several blocks long), maybe half a mile or so. But it counts — 30 Days of Biking doesn’t require you to commute or go car-free, just ride a bike at least once a day.

And then the setting sun blazed out when we got home.

30 Days of Biking is being organized by Patrick Stephenson and a few others, and is happening April 1 to April 30. They’re based in Minnesota, but people in other areas are joining up, too.  All you have to do is ride your bike once a day, and tweet about it using the hashtag #30daysofbiking.  Yes, it’s a Twitter thing, but I don’t see any reason why non-Tweeters can’t still ride.

Rides of any length count. You don’t have to commute by bike or go completely car-free.  Just ride once a day.

What’s the point? The organizers just want to get more people out enjoying their bikes.  But I’ve got some other great reasons.

1. Exercise. We all need it. The USDA recommends 60 minutes of exercise daily to maintain good health! You can use your bicycle to get at least 10-15 minutes of that done, right?
2. Stress relief. Riding a bike is fun. It will cheer you up, and you will want to do it more! Also, exercise is an excellent stress reliever. Exercise actually reduces stress hormones like cortisol.
3. Family/friends time. Bicycling is a great activity to do with other people, and kids love it. You can ride around the neighborhood, or to a destination, like a park.
4. It’s good for the environment. If you can replace even one car trip a week with a bike trip, you’ll be helping to reduce emissions of pollutants and greenhouse gases. Riding to work is a great choice, but this could also be a trip to the store, or dropping the kids off at school, or going to visit family and friends by bike.
5. Saving energy. Most of our energy for driving cars and for powering our homes and businesses comes from fossil fuels, which are a finite, non-renewable resource. So again, if you can replace even one car trip a week with a bike trip, you’ll help save fuel resources for when we really need them.
6. Meeting your neighbors. When you’re not inside a glass and metal box, you can easily wave to people, say hello, even stop and chat.  Bicycling fosters interaction with others! Or, you can ride on by if you’re feeling introverted. The choice is yours.
7. It’s easy. Seriously. You’re not up for bike commute challenges? That’s fine! You can do this one. Bike once a day. Around the block is enough.

So, who’s in? Go to http://30daysofbiking.com to find out more; send an @reply to @patiomensch on Twitter to officially sign up. Or just leave a comment here if you don’t tweet.  I’ll do some check-in posts in April so that everyone can share their experiences. Or, blog about it yourself and I will link to your post(s). And…go!