Transportation innate to every creature

In the days before the motor vehicle societies were built around walking distances and horse & buggy. Whatever you did to work and survive had to be within those distances. To say it was a privilege to travel or to need a license to use your legs or horse was absurd. Humans like all living creatures travel to live and live to transport themselves to their families, friends, work, to acquire provisions and to visit other villages… transportation was a natural right not a “privilege”.

As the modes of transportation developed through inventions societies spread out accordingly. Most of what a person does today to survive is beyond walking distances …. To say transportation today is a privilege is the same as saying 300 years ago that walking or riding a horse was a privilege. It’s the equivalent of forcing a person 300 years ago not to use his or her legs or horse to get to work, or to visit family, or to obtain essential provisions.

Now if these phony greenies get their way we’ll all be forced to crawl around in urban slums waiting for our “greenie” rulers to deliver us our Solyent Green for survival.

freeloader

Lori, quit bragging about how you freeload.
I quit giving free rides a long time ago; if a person does not have enough sense to contribute, then let them walk!
You on the other hand brag about saving money, so you do realize it cost money to operate a vehicle, shame on you!

A Pathetic Feature on a Pathetic Person

The Tyee never surprises me on how low it will plumb in order to get that far left view. Here's a prime example of the deluded super minority who think society can do without cars and we should live in Birkenstocks and eat crunchy granola on our communes. If you even need an explanation of the number of different requirements and lifestyles in BC that require a car then you are living in a dreamworld.

The protagonist, Lori Kidwell, clearly scams rides and probably scams most of everything else in her life in order to get by. She doesn't have to meet business clients or get anywhere on time in order to sustain her minimalistic lifestyle. Is she supposed to represent anyone normal?

Cars will always be needed in Vancouver. In fact, most people drive according to most studies. So let's stop encouraging a jihad against drivers and open up the roads.

commenters miss the point

Lori's not a freeloader.

Being dependent on transit can be a sacrifice in and of itself. There's a reason why Translink staff and Board members get a car allowance and don't have to use their own underfunded system.

Having a car may be more convenient on an individual basis, but it comes at a high, and hidden, price for us collectively.

sbvancouver...:

Lori's words:

"I am convinced that some people are meant to drive and some people are meant to be driven. I am meant to be driven. That doesn't mean that I don't have skills to bring to the road trip table though."

From the sounds of this, unless Lori is in a bus on these road trips she is contributing as much as anyone to the "high, and hidden, price" you speak of. It makes no difference who is operating the vehicle. And is there anything more annoying than being navigated by someone who doesn't drive?! haha.

What's really funny and made me laugh out loud was that on this thread I side with Bobby Peru and Alive- we've been commenting here for yrs and trust me, it's not often we agree on something!

Car Trouble

I'm into mass transit because it is affordable. It is a good habit to walk, hike, bike, and even take a cab, bus or aeroplane or ferry. The trouble with my car is that it becomes a bad habit. Try to live without a car? Don't depend on others to get you from a to b. I have managed to get into a healthy lifestyle without a car. I find it amusing when others chide Lori. I'm one your side. Fun reading and good habit.

Yes! Say no to killing machines.

The trouble is there are no more penalties for driving offences in Canada. Kill a visiting young New Zealand doctor - no, he wasn't jaywalking - and no matter the circs, quite often with $15k, so the criminal defense bar tells me, the right atty will get you off. See http://bccondos.ca/forums/viewtopic.php?p=1031#1031.

It's quite likely you'll drive away from court with a lighter wallet in the very same weapon, I mean, vehicle.

Could this have something to do with our premier's DUI conviction while on vacation in Hawaii several years ago? There were no consequences - no shame even. Then the DUI Solicitor-General in charge of public saftey, for goodness sake, had to step down mid-election.

Frankly, Biblitz has never understood how anything intended for the scrap heap has become so popular. Organized sports and religions are similar mysteries.

Stop the Insanity from the Crunchy Granola Non-Drivers

I'm sure Lori Kidwell is a well meaning person. But this feature makes her come across as weird, kooky and almost dangerous as Lynette "Sqeaky" Fromme." (Let's see who can remember who she is without a Google search).

The bicycle jihadists wage war on us drivers who absolutely need a car to get to work and transport our families. Living and moving about in Vancouver makes cars a necessity. Only 4% of trips are done by bicycle here.

There are lots of average, decent, liberal people in this town who can't or aren't physically able to ride a bike. Do I have to actually describe these groups who are all around us?

Then there are people who need to show up at work in business attire in front of clients or a boss. And they have to show up composed, not looking like they just finished a spinning class. Others need to drive about the Lower Mainland meeting clients or conducting sales. Using public transport may work for the former, but probably isn't efficient for the latter. Bikes are out of the question.

The Burrard bridge bike lane is sheer folly. Downtown offices and businesses don't have room for showers. So who could possibly be riding downtown in the morning?

And have any of these biking terrorists realized that Vancouver weather is simply miserable most of the year? Peddling through cold, driving rain isn't sensible or conducive to a good work day.

Do any members of the biking crowd have to raise a family? And can they transport them on bikes? They must shop only at the 7-11 down the street. And do they buy enough groceries to exceed a fruit basket?

When bicyclist meets a car the bicyclist usually ends up eating out of a straw and wearing a diaper for the rest of his living days. I don't care how many killer whales I gas to death, no way I'm taking a hit for the enviromentalists. And I don't care if careless drivers are a problem. You bicyclists have to learn that moral indignity is not as indignant as being a paraplegic in diapers. Don't challenge cars; it's simple physics. Who do you want to be? The mangled bicyclist underneath the front end of a SUV. Or a driver who safely steps out of his car casually sipping his latte and wondering how much his premium will rise as the ambulance siren wails.

Public transport could be an alternative except the connections are terrible and time consuming- and magnified on a rainy day. No, I don't work at the local food co-op or Leninist book store so arriving late and messy is not an option. Time is money for most of us in the 21st century.

So I wish our Mayor, who is the trojan horse hero for the bicycle al quaeda in this town, would stop making driving so troublesome and costly and pay attention to the majority of us taxpayers.

And Tyee, I get it. A human interest story about a non-car user is a laudable editorial. But, why don't you find someone who can make bicycling work with a family, going to work and taking kids to school? Then, maybe you might make a difference.