It's interesting that we are talking about transportation this week. I say that because I've had to struggle with this issue a lot lately. Here is my (sad) story:

Three weeks ago, I got in a car accident. I was driving my '06 Corolla east on 3rd St., out past the mall, on my way to Brown Co. State Park for some hiking one Saturday morning, when a girl came from a side street on my right (the south side of the street), and tried to make a left turn to go west on 3rd. St. Well, when she did that, she either looked and didn't see me or didn't bother looking at all, because she pulled right in front of me. I barely had enough time to register what was about to happen before I hit her. Fortunately, we were both able to walk away from the accident. I don't know about her, but I ended up going to the emergency room right afterward, where they X-ray'd my back and neck and found nothing amiss, so they sent me home with some pain pills and told me to expect some soreness over the next few days. A couple days later, though, I was back in the ER with the worst headache I've ever had, and that's when they told me I probably had a concussion. Since then, I've been dealing with some back issues; it doesn't hurt too bad, but it's enough that I'm going through some physical therapy to try and get rid of it.

My car, on the other hand, did not fare so well:

The damage doesn't actually look that bad, but apparently it was bad enough for the insurance companies to total it. So now I am sans vehicular transportation, and this is where the dilemma occurs.

Among the many issues I'm trying to sort through is whether I even need a car at all. In the fourteen months I lived in Bloomington before the crash, I put probably no more than 3,500 miles on my car. That makes me wonder if I could survive without a car at all. While I would love to say "yes," I think the answer is no. As our reading this week attest, a great many of us in the States are addicted to our cars, and I think I might be one of them. Even though Bloomington is a pretty bike-friendly city (as the awards it has garnered will attest), there are times that I definitely want to drive instead of bike places. That's only going to get worse as winter sets in, because I'm a winter wuss.

My second decision is whether to buy new or used. Once again, while I know that the planet would probably thank me if I bought a used car, I'm really leaning towards new. I have a hard time justifying buying a used car with sixty or seventy thousand miles on it when I can take the insurance money and add a small interest-free loan from...*sigh*...my mother to finance a new car.

Not sustainable of me, I know. But to bring this story back to our readings, I think my story illustrates a couple of points about our attitude towards cars. One is that we feel like we can't live without them. With how little I drive these days, it's hard justifying buying any car, but I would much rather have one for the convenience of not having to wait for a bus in the snow or being able to drive when I'm just too lazy to bike or walk somewhere. Besides, I don't know where I'm going to be living after graduation, and while I'm planning on looking for something close to public transportation or some other way to get to work, I can't guarantee that that's going to happen. So better to error on the side of caution and get a car, I think.

Second is my preference for a new car. As Americans, I think we're conditioned to want the new, shiny toy as opposed to the pre-owned, less-shiny toy. This is one of the things that makes ours a not-so-sustainable society. It's analogous to the stigma against public transportation noted in the Wheeler readings this week, where riding the bus is considered a sign that someone just doesn't have the money to own a car: "Oh...you bought a used car?...You poor thing." Our attitudes towards public transportation and new cars seem to be pretty much the same, as they are both status symbols.

All that being said, regardless of what I end up with, I'm planning on making my auto purchase as "nice" to the environment as possible. The cars I've been test-driving have all been compacts that average nearly 40 mpg on the highway. Gas mileage is probably the one thing I won't compromise on with this purchase. So see, I'm not a completely horrible person.

(http://green.autoblog.com/2011/10/19/banning-hybrids-from-hov-lanes-slows-down-everyone/)

A couple of links to recent news articles seem relevant to this week's readings. Here is an NPR story about how more roads generally lead to more traffic. I think both Wheeler and Roseland hinted at this connection. And here you can read about how California's recent banning of hybrids from carpool lanes throughout the state actually slowed down all traffic, instead of speeding up traffic in the carpool lanes, which was the intent. Once again, our readings this week discuss how such decisions can impact the way we plan and use our transportation system. In this case, it seems like the state's decision created some unintended negative side effects.

Ta.