I gave up my car about a week ago. It's still there, and still runs but I parked it in the garage and closed the door. It will still come out on the weekends, to run up to the shops for a big fortnightly cupboard filler, and the odd family outing, but when it comes to the nine to five Monday to Friday run, it's been permanently decommissioned.
And my decision is entirely based on economics. The price of petrol, and the shear volume of traffic snaking its way down Parramatta Road in the mornings have both become overwhelming. And after years working from home, there's nothing I hate more than wasting time in traffic. This week's petrol budget was spent on pannier bags, and tune up for my once mighty push bike, which is now regaining it's former glory as my principal mode of transport during the week.
About 15 years ago I used to ride my bike to school. I mostly stuck to the back roads, and occasionally rode along the footpath when the roads were too busy. It was about 10 Km round trip and kept me reasonably fit through my adolescence.
About 5 years ago I tried again to ride my bike to work along a similar route. However, thanks to a series of changes to the Sydney road system, it had become very dangerous to commute by bike from the inner west into the city. The roads were much busier, and the pavements were in a terrible condition. There were a few snippets of token bike tracks, but most were full of parked cars, and the drivers didn't seem all that interested in sharing the road with a lonely pushbike.
However, in the last five years there have been a couple of important changes which have made riding to work safer, quicker and far less expensive than any alternative. For a start, the councils in my area, and those in between where I live and the city, have finally got their acts together and created a series of connected, usable bike paths. Rather than snaking my way through the back streets, and on and off major roads, I now have access to a more or less clear run from my place of residence to the city. Rather than spending almost an hour getting frustrated with traffic, and spending on parking and petrol, it takes me about 45 minutes from door to door, with the added bonus of giving me a great regular workout.
The reason I'm telling you all this is because it's a great microcosm of the different factors which need to come into play for us to become more sensible about the way we run our businesses, and live our lives.
First up we need the infrastructure, and the only way that's going to get built is if we manage to elect governments willing to invest in carbon neutral forms of transport, energy creation and agricultural production. In this case the connected, safe and usable bike paths.
Second we need price signals to be allowed to actually guide us in the right direction. This is why the government should NOT intervene to ease the effect of rising oil prices, and not only stop subsidising dirty industries but also integrate their real cost into the cost of supply. Using photovoltaic cells on you roof to generate energy is actually much cheaper to the economy overall, but currently more expensive to the consumer, leading to widespread market failure ie - we opt for the more expensive option at a greater cost to the community. Once carbon trading is introduced, petrol will also probably become far more expensive to the consumer, but this extra cost merely reflects what the real cost should always have been, so we need to stop crying for subsidies, and start thinking about how we need to work our way around these costs.
Third - we need to think globally and act individually. Ultimately we can bitch and moan all we want to, but that's not going to make a fig of difference. Like it or not, dirty power, dirty agriculture, and dirty transport are all going to get more expensive - and if that's the extra impetus we need to change the way we run our lives and do business, then so be it.
And the best part of it all is: the carbon neutral option is also the sexy thighs option - so hop on your bike and get cycling.