Here in the PNW I’d take hourly Amtrak service in 5 years over high speed rail in 20. We should push for both, of course, but if we can drastically improve regular rail for a fraction of the price and in so doing build the constituency for HSR, we absolutely should.
It’s hard to overstate the impact cars have on childhood. As a parent I’m not worried about some rando snatching my kid, I’m worried about someone hitting them with a car. There are so many places in the US where it is unsafe to walk, and there’s a reason why our traffic deaths are going up while the rest of the world’s are going down.
I’m active in trying to make my city a place where kids can have the freedom to explore and grow, but it definitely feels like a “planting a tree the shade of which you will never know” situation.
Starting later this month, it will be legal to set speed limits below 20mph in Washington state, so maybe in a few years we’ll start to see autoluw streets. https://www.theurbanist.org/2025/05/19/governor-signs-washingtons-first-in-the-nation-shared-streets-law/
I think that in car-dependent societies line the USA, knowing how to drive is an important skill. That being said, driving has a lot of costs that aren’t always obvious (such as the chance that you will hit someone) and it’s totally reasonable not to drive.
If you don’t want to drive, and can make life work without a car, you shouldn’t drive. How much effort this will take really depends on where you are, but for most people it is possible. I’ve lived car free in San Francisco, Anchorage AK, and a small city in the Pacific Northwest. Currently I share a car with my partner but only drive it once a month or so. My transportation preference has impacted where I live, where I work, and what I do for fun, but those impacts have been greatly outweighed by the benefits (health, disposable income, mental wellbeing).
Ultimately, as others have said, a lot is going to depend on where you live and how much you’re willing to do to make a car free life work, but I’d suggest structuring it as a decision for now, not forever. You can always say “I’m not going to plan on driving again any time soon” and you can always change your mind. Framing it as a permanent thing might not be helpful, since you could decide not to drive then decide to buy a car in a few years if your living situation necessitates it but I’d recommend thinking about it in terms of what makes sense for you in the foreseeable future rather than some sort of pledge or identity or whatever.
Whatever you choose, as someone who shares the road with others, I greatly appreciate your introspection.
So if you take someone in the United States, driving an average of 25,000 km per year, they are generating something like 2,750 g of microplastics. If that same person mountain bikes 25 km per week for a year (1,300 km) they are generating something like 46 g of microplastics. I’m all for making mountain biking more environmentally friendly, but it looks like a rounding error on our microplastic emissions when looking at other sources. Combined with giving people more reason to protect nature, I’d guess it’s a net positive. Here in the US, wet need to fix our land use and transportation, as car dependency is not compatible with a livable planet.
I agree that at a national level the NEC should absolutely be the priority, and that is where I would hope my federal taxes go. However, as Amtrak Cascades is a state-supported route which is primarily paid for by Washington and Oregon, I don’t see the problem with pushing those states to invest more of their transportation budgets in those routes.