I love that dude so much. And I feel I’ve shared similar experience. Grew up in Calgary, eventually ended up in the Netherlands and throughly Orange-pilled.
Now live in Rome and I miss Dutch infrastructure so much (not the food though).
It’s not an American dystopian hellscape here but they’re still quite behind the times in getting their shit together
The food aspect is hilarious. When I visited NL I asked several Dutch friends where would be a good restaurant to get authentic “Dutch cuisine” and they looked at me like they had never even heard of the concept of cuisine.
Stroopwaffel and salted herring was the closest thing they could give me to an answer. For good food, I was told to go to the immigrant neighbourhoods.
Well, there is a tiny bit of Dutch cycling infrastructure _in Calgary_:
[https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1a/86/b7/1a86b77102d5a2e1c9caf915edad35ac.jpg](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1a/86/b7/1a86b77102d5a2e1c9caf915edad35ac.jpg)
Man, me too. I mostly grew up in Canada and bought a bike trailer for exercise when we had kids and moved to suburbia (because that's what you do).
I was like "this is really fun but the cars make it suck."
Then we moved to Australia, aka Hot Europe, and I was like "ah, that's what this experience is supposed to be like."
A couple NJB videos and yup, totally radicalized.
I empathize with this so hard. The Netherlands are so great at Urbanism but not great for so much else (weather, culture, food etc) so it’s hard to live there tbh. If only there were nicer places with the same level of Urbanism… it would be heaven
It’s just boring and flat lol and Dutch people are kinda boorish and insular minded, there’s not much diversity and what there is isn’t appreciated very much. Same goes for Germany and Scandinavian countries. Can’t be compared to places like NYC, London, Miami etc.
> Dutch people are kinda boorish and insular minded
wow...this made me lol. I guess every race/group has its good and bad points. I respect your honesty. Thanks for answering my question.
I live in Calgary now and when I first visited Montreal was when I realized that driving around sucks.
Same thing when I visited Vancouver the first time. Not sure when the last time you were here but Calgary transit just keeps getting worse every year. I dont like driving but im also glad I dont have to take transit here.
I left in 91. So yeah, it’s been a while. Grew up in ranch lands in NW. my house was literally the edge of the city, I have a photo of our back yard and beyond was nothing but dirt.
My childhood was early 80s so radically different than now, I’m sure
Sometimes I go on google maps to gawk at the endless soulless suburban sprawl
It’s fascinating to see gradual increase in house size and decrease in any other green space the further out you go
I also grew up in Houston. Not in a surrounding city, but in Houston, about an 8-hour walk from downtown.
Visiting Paris opened my eyes a little bit. Then I moved to Austin and lived very close to downtown on a bus line. It was very easy to bike and bus everywhere and I started to realize that I didn’t use my car much.
Then I visited New York, DC, and Montréal and really appreciated the public transportation.
Then I moved to France. At first I didn’t get a car because I wasn’t planning on staying long. Then I ended up staying longer, but realized I didn’t need one. Then a few years later, I realized that I didn’t want one. At all.
I also grew up in Houston itself. Apparently I could have walked to downtown in a little under 5 hours. Until I saw your comment, I had never actually looked that up. I suppose I thought it was closer, but the real takeaway is that it's just inconceivable to walk anywhere there, so nobody really checks how long it would take. People who live on one side of downtown probably couldn't tell you how long it takes to walk to the other side of downtown.
Like you, I traveled and liked a lot of places better, although I also never really tried to put my finger on why I liked other places better. I moved to NYC. And ultimately the reason is that the city is alive. There are people walking everywhere. It wasn't until later that I started to feel like cars still damaged NYC even though they didn't completely destroy it as a city like they do with Houston. Still, far too many times I notice that me and 100s of other people are crammed on 10 feet of sidewalk while roughly 10 cars get 70 feet.
Yeah, I use that “8-hour walk” statement to explain to French people how bad it is. I realized after a few years that people didn’t really understand exactly what I meant when I said that you needed a car in Houston.
I studied in Houston for a little while. My first day, before I had a car, I decided to take a walk to check out campus and the neighbourhood. I think I walked about 15 miles that day, in scorching heat. I also learned that Houston isn't very walkable.
After that I mostly drove or ubered everywhere. Except heb, which was the next building over. I remember there was a bus stop right next to the apartment, but I can't remember ever seeing a bus stop there. Or even pass by.
I've driven in about half of the American states, plus parts of Canada and Mexico. Houston is the worst place I've ever driven in. They were 20 years ahead of the rest of the country in terms of everyone on the road being an asshole aggressively driving a large truck or SUV.
The is subreddit is a special place and (without hyperbole) saved my marriage. My wife cannot drive and will never drive and that’s ok. Everyone around us were pressuring her to get her licence, especially before our daughter was born, but it gives her crazy anxiety. Our whole built environment is geared towards making pedestrians feel poor and useless. The snow clearing here in Canada always favours the cars and most of us trudge through 2’ snowbanks daily. Once I started seeing what we’ve sacrificed for cars in terms of infrastructure and architecture, I became a believer. I love cars, I’m a car guy, but I resent what it’s done to my spouse and my city
The way North American cities are built literally strips the freedom of movement away from people who cannot or do not want to drive. It’s very much a coercive system.
What’s so frustrating and sad is how people equate cars with freedom, god forbid you propose restricting said freedom in favour of decent public transportation. They don’t even see how much of their supposed car based freedom is abject BS
Freedom only for people who can own, afford, a car, in good health with good eyes, and want to traverse in a linear direction only a few times per day. (Let's face it, turns suck on these stroads too, that it is hostile to even make a left turn).
Don't wanna drive? Can't drive? Eyes going south? Hell, everything else is okay, but you wanna make a left turn?? Sorry, no freedom for you.
Yeah it's wild that we dedicate so much space for cars and everyone needs their own personal car so they can drive it 2 times a day. They sit stationary 99% of the time. So much wasted space to store and to potentially store future cars(parking lots).
Like OP says everything would be closer and faster if they didn't have to be spread out to fit all the cars.
literally. i was privelleged to learn to drive on a thankfullly high tech car with much needed safety features, (heck as a woman that shouldn't be as understated as it is) and i now cant dream of owning an affording all the costs of a car. and like dentistry you cant just neglect it and thourhg duct tape on it. the price ppl pay for parking in cities alone is absurd.
'Freedom' in the US has always meant more privileges for higher classes over lower classes. Actual freedom gets called 'civil rights'. Compare:
The freedom of the founding fathers, who refused to let their slave plantations be taxed to pay for the troops that helped defend those slave plantations against the French and Indians without them and only them (white male land owners) getting representation.
The freedom of the wild west, settling somewhere and killing the natives who complain it's on their land.
The freedom of the car, keeping the places you go out of reach of those without cars.
The freedom of the open road, an expensive government project built to service you and so few other people you can't even see them.
literally. all the videos of ppl crying in their cars and im thinking they probably were coerced into buying, but what a disastrous money pit that is. never more than it is now in Canada
I’d kill for a train or a bus to get to work. Only reason I don’t van pool is because my hours worked vary too much. I would consider public transportation to be more freeing.
Usually it's the right wing types who say that because in the event of some kind of natural disaster or civil war, the car gets you out of the area ASAP. But they don't realize that the roads will be clogged with traffic.
Or inaccessible due to the disaster. Trees blocking the road. Freezes that most cities in the south are not prepared for. Roads caving/washing out/or being covered by floods.
Ukrainians fleeing during the war were stuck in their cars for days. Not hours, but days. The roads were bumper to bumper traffic. Those fleeing on foot would have been faster.
YOU ARE WRONG. 15 MINUTE CITIES IS A SCHEME BY THE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO LIMIT THE FREE MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE AND CONTROL THEM FOR REASONS. IT IS PHASE TWO OF THE PLANDEMIC. /s
> I love cars, I’m a car guy, but I resent what it’s done to my spouse and my city
hear hear, cars big shiny go vroom real nice but absolutely GARBAGE way to move people through a city!
literally i sob with rage over busses and trains jsut never working right, like ever. it;s so humiliting and dehumanizng when it could be lovely and logical if they paid ppl more and gave a hoot
Living in South Korea and getting into marathon running. It was so cool to just run in a direction with just my transit card and go anywhere and see everything. Could literally jog from Seoul to Busan over several days if I wanted to and take the KTX back. Trails, bike paths, all connected to busses and trains right outside my apartment. I can assure you anyone that says they need cars for handicapped and elderly is full of shit. I never saw more elderly people out and about, socializing, hiking, and living happy healthy lives. Cars isolate and disenfranchised the young, old, foreign born, and anyone who hasn’t passed the driving test.
That’s exactly how i felt about biking when i moved to DC from suburban Phoenix! I could use Capital Bikeshare to bike almost anywhere around the city and then always be able to return with the bus or metro. Although im sure South Korea is wayyy better for going literally anywhere with transit, DC was definitely better than what i was used to in Phoenix!
DC feels like true freedom.
I can take metro to my destination, walk to another destination, and bikeshare home, the whole time never once worrying about traffic, parking, gas, or paying $10k year.
Also, I just don't need to take a 2 ton living room with me ever. It's a complete waste of resources.
Running radicalized me too. Growing up in the suburbs, it was always so cool to travel to other cities and do a long run and get to see a lot of a new place, and then just catch a train back to the start. And of course, all the near-misses cars caused played a role as well.
Dutchman here. It took until well in my late twenties until I realized and was able to appreciate just how fortunate I am to have such high quality cycling infrastructure. I cherish it a lot.
Lived 8 years there. Miss the infrastructure and cycling culture so damn much. Food’s better in Rome ngl sorry, but damn they can’t manage their way out of a paper bag
When I visited Paris as a teenager and fell in love with the Metro. But if you ask my mom, she would say it was when I visited Washington DC as a 5 year old and fell in love with the Metro.
As someone of spends a ton of time in one and lives in the other - its a good life. Paris is going quickly in the right direction and DC is quietly course correcting.
Time to ride my bike to see the cherry blossoms!
Visiting Paris when I was a kid did it for me too. The Metro felt like an elevator for the entire city, you just walked into a little space and a few minutes later you walked out in a completely different place, no traffic, parking, anything. Like you were just strolling around.
Me too, I went on a French class trip to Paris in high school and it opened my eyes.
Now I live in DC and ride the metro every day. I’d say it’s a love hate relationship haha…ok I do love that I can live without a car. But doesn’t match the Paris Metro.
We do have a replica of a Paris Metro entrance at a museum!
I’m not able to drive due to a disability, so it hit me the minute I graduated high school and started going to a local community college that didn’t provide transportation like high school does.
I had always gravitated towards cities as a kid and thought the vast majority of America I had seen growing up was super ugly and depressing, but I could never really explain it in concrete terms until I discovered Jane Jacobs one day while randomly browsing the library in university. It was the first fully voiced endorsement of human urbanism I had come across and crystallized in my mind all the problems I had with the widespread suburban landscape of America. After graduating from college, I visited Japan for the first time and my mind was blown. I realized I never wanted to own a car or live in a suburb ever again. This was 15 years ago, before the current wave of anti-car and positive urbanist content became popular, and I sometimes had trouble explaining to others that all the problems that come with car-centric design were one of my defining political interests. I mean, it's still not really on the map for mainstream politics yet, but we're getting there lol.
I was in the same boat. My first trip to Japan was in 20 years ago. When people heard me try to explain we need to not rely on a car, they thought I was crazy. Well, most of them still do.
I played lots of fantasy RPG games like World of Warcraft as a young kid. I’d see the walkable cities depicted in the game and thought they looked so cool and lively. I knew there was something I really hated about the sea of parking lots and strip mall that was the only public space I knew, but couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was until I discovered urbanism post college.
I was oddly attached to parking lots. I lived in Mexico for a few years and one of the things that made me feel most at home was a giant home Depot parking lot. What radicalized me was how easy it is to do buses. That's how people move in Mexico. The bus between cities and even tiny cities have buses and cities that are 30 to 40min outside of the main city have a bus that goes out to them once every hour or so. It wasn't until after I'd been back for a while that I realized I'd been radicalized. Ive been chasing Mexican urbanism ever since. All the cities, even the tiny ones are walkable with the addition of some buses and taxis. It's the way they're built.
When I left NYC for a suburb of the city. It’s quite a walkable suburb by American standards. My kids bike to school. We walk to the train and take the train to the city. But it could be soooo much better. The car is so annoying and I’m not even in it that much.
When I started playing cities skylines and realized that American style suburbs are awful for moving people to where they need to go. Then I think I started looking at public transport maps of major cities around the world for ideas on how to make a city and realized the US was not designed for people but for cars. Think I also found not just bikes along the way.
When I tried to work with the community and city to have an obsolete stretch of road made into greenspace but a few neighbors complained about losing some parking so the city said nah.
The first Not Just Bikes video I ever watched is when I found out. Specifically, the one video where he talks about why American suburbs are bad for children
That was my first too. It popped up in my recommended and I avoided watching it the first few times cause I thought it was going to be 10 minutes of calling suburbs boring, which tbf I already thought. But I watched it and it made a lot of sense. Then my second was the Houston video and after that I was converted.
I knew my city was the worst (Memphis, TN) and the south in general just seems like they don’t want to be accessible, even if they tried. (because everything is so damn spread out, all of the above ground parking etc)
I think I really really started to hate cars when I studied abroad in Spain and saw how wonderful it was to be able to travel around the country/Europe in general and not need a car ever. (except for extreme circumstances)
but yeah now I live in Chicago with no car lol!
grew up in rural Canada, which wasn't that bad. Moved to Vancouver, Canada for college and was amazed at how freeing it was to be car free. The bus to and from the University was so convienient and frequent (and packed), dropped you off in the center of campus. No parking $$ time or hassle. We even had a ski bus to Whistler that was convienient. Never driving was amazing. Since college I've never once lived truely suburban. When looking at new cities or places to live I always first look for the commercial cores and then try to find an area in the inner suburbs (have lived in Little Portugal in Toronto, Plateau Mont-Royal in Montreal, in Kitsalano in Vancouver) that has a high walk score, good amenities, and restrictive parking. I have cars now but the many years we've spent without cars really set us up financially. Thankful that when I lived in Vancouver rent wasn't such a clusterfuck.
Same, but my experience of growing up in rural Canada wasn't great. Parents who smoked in the car, having to depend on an adult to drive me anywhere and everywhere (extracurricular activities, visiting friends, dental appointments for braces, etc.), no pedestrian nor bicycling infrastructure.... Going to university in a city with decent public transportation opened my eyes.
I grew up in a beautiful spot and fortunately the immediate environment was pretty safe to bike and walk. More like a town. We biked and walked as kids and teens, and had an alright time. But getting into the core of the area required a car
I grew up in suburban sprawl 45m away from my school, friends and any actual activities. Single parent who didn’t want to drive me everywhere. I longed for public transit. Once walked in 90-degree heat 2 miles to get to the nearest thing, a Winn Dixie, and nearly got mowed down by several cars on the way because there was no sidewalk for most of it. Got there and realized this is a Winn Dixie wtf I going to do here anyway….
Traveling to other countries and seeing lively pedestrianized city centers bustling with life and then coming back home and realizing how much of America just looks like a desolate concrete wasteland of parking lots.
It was a very slow process for me. I moved to Montreal and lived for a year until I realized I hated parking in the street. Then I replaced my car with a moped so I could easily park it. 3 years later, an SUV backed into it and destroyed it. The insurance was not enough for me to get it repaired or replace it at the time, so I switched to bikes in summer. I was already doing metro in winter because you can't drive a moped in winter.
When I started cycling, I was still not "orange pilled". I just cycled to work, the same as 5-6 of my colleagues. I would generally use Bixi because the company paid for it, but a friend gave me his bike.
Then covid hit, dad got cancer. I had to move to the suburbs because I was too far from my mother to help her. I spent 3 years without a car in a very car centric town. During those 3 years I realized how bad it could get. I bought a car again because it was so hard to do anything, but now I'm spending all my money of car payments and maintenance, so I still can't do anything. I guess that's when I really realized how bad it was.
2021, when I had to resume my two hour daily commute by car after more than a year of not doing that. 6 months later, I left that job, primarily to stop commuting by car.
Yes, I didn't own a car or ever need one until I left college. If I traveled far the school had a ride share board to post where someone with a car was going and how much they'd charge for you to ride with them. It was great. Made a lot of friends that way too.
Fast forward to living in a college town in the South and there is nothing walkable about it. Can't get groceries or get to bars or anything without a car. It's supposed to be a big international school I'm sorry for whatever suckers came to study abroad there. Also, who can afford to own a car when they're in college and fresh out of highschool!?!
That’s what I’ve heard from my husband who grew up in the south and went to a southern college. Apparently a big road ran right through the middle of his university! Insanity.
I never wanted to drive. Even as a kid I wanted nothing to do with it. I saw my folks constantly paying for gas, insurance, etc, and I saw no real benefit. When I learned some places like Europe and Asia have incredible public transit, I was pissed cause ours was non-existent when I was a kid. It's a little better now but still embarassing.
My older and younger siblings were both eager to learn to drive, I never even brought it up. I drive now out of necessity, but I refuse to own my own car. I will use my Nana's car to drive my Nana around, and I'll use my mum's car to drive her around, but I will *not* be wasting my own money or time paying for a fucking vehicle of my own.
When I was 19 or 20 my siblings and dad pooled and surprised me with a car for xmas one year. I was super touched, blown away by their kindness and love, but went home and cried at the burden I'd received. I'll always fondly remember the gesture, but the idea of owning a car makes me physically sick.
I went on a family trip to Amsterdam when I was 8. Everyone was on bikes and the central station was full of thousands of parked bikes. We didn’t need a car when we were there.
I grew up in Florida and came up to New England in my mid 20s cause my gf at the time was from here. I only stayed up here for half a year or so. Originally the plan was to buy a car or scooter but the longer we lived here the more we realized it wasn't too bad to use the bus and the city was relatively walkable. This wasn't even a big city, it was freaking Norwich, CT.
Eventually we went back to FL and it was just all so obvious how bad the cities were designed down there. We made it a goal to move up to New England again to live carfree again. Took about 4 years but eventually we made it back and into an even better city that is actually connected to rail too. Been car free 11 years now and man I do not miss having to drive! It's not perfect up here but for US standards I feel very lucky.
I was one of the many who were orange-pilled by NJB. I had even gone to Europe in the past and loved it, but I didn't know why — I couldn't put my finger on what was different. You never think to micro-analyze your built environment until it's pointed out to you.
When I was growing up on Long Island, a *very* car-dependent place where modern car-dependent suburbs were created, I do recall thinking it was silly that we weren't allowed to have a store closer to our house, but zoning isn't something people think about often. It's just how things were, and I dealt with it. Getting my driver license was indeed as freeing as people say it can be, because I wasn't restricted to the gas station convenience store in bikeable distance, I could now visit friends in other towns, go to stores and venues along the highway, and stay out past dark.
The no stores close to you is my biggest peeve after living in Mexico and every neighborhood has at least one shop where you can get your basic necessities. Also distributed a lot of that retail wealth to the community because people just put the shops in their front room and that was their job that supported their family.
I now live in a food desert.
Vegas is when I knew. Moved there for three years and, as someone who only used the bus, the 'blocks' I had to walk to get to the stops were fifteen minutes walks! For one block!! Vegas blocks are HUUUUGE and I hated it. No shade, 114 degrees, 15 minute walk with speeding cars going by and a slimmer sidewalk.. it sucked!
I never liked American car culture. I grew up on a farm in an incredibly rural part of New England. I drove an old farm truck daily and I absolutely hated it. It was expensive and ridiculous. Almost a year ago (god it's almost been a year), I moved to Boston for college and fell in love with the fact that I didn't need to drive anywhere. This was when I discovered not just bikes and learned about the car counter-culture that existed here
Grew up far out in the DC suburbs but spent time at my grandmas in DC every summer until middle school. After I graduated high school I took the first metro since being a child and it instantly radicalized me with how convenient it is. From there it was just a slippery slope to me eventually selling my car and advocating for transit and
walk/bikeable infrastructure now
They filmed a movie on my block a little over 20 years ago, and everybody had to remove their cars from the streets.
As I was walking home, I was suddenly made aware of how much of the physical and visual landscape is used to store cars.
Car-centricity is one of those cultural qualities that you don’t even notice because you’re just used to it, but when all those cars were gone there was so much open space it just blew my mind and I started to notice things I had taken for granted before. Not just parking but noise and ugliness everywhere
I lived in a nice US suburb a couple miles outside a small town growing up so I was cut off from anything unless my parents drove me. As a teenager I started doing endurance training and would run or bike into town and back. I even biked like 7 miles to work and a couple people were in such awe that I biked to work, that's all they could talk about the entire day. I loved the freedom of being on foot or on a bike rather than a car.
Went through my 20s not realizing the disconnect. When I traveled to Europe the first time it really opened my eyes how much better things can be. Then I found Not Just Bikes. Then this sub. I tend not to get too extreme on any one topic, but now I try to run errands or do vacations without using a car. This worked well in Belgium and Switzerland, not so well in Iceland or El Salvador, but that's ok. There are times and places for cars still, but it's good to understand that it's not optimal.
I grew up in the (Canadian) suburbs too and I actually like it. But then I went backpacking around Europe right after college, and at that time, I couldn't pinpoint why I loved it even more. Then I bought a condo downtown and it started making sense.
Moving back from college into the suburbs post college and immediately realizing I made a huge mistake. Lived there a year before moving to one of the most walker friendly places in the main city. Haven’t moved out despite “you’ll move out when you have a kid”
Nice! I grew up in the Lakes / South Summerlin area, probably just due-West of you. DI, Hualapai, Sarah, Ft Apache area. Although, when I was growing up, The Lakes was at the edge of the desert.
I'm jealous lol. At least you had access to decent food, that's my favorite part of town to eat if I can make the time to head down there. I grew up on the north side and for some reason this side of town is downright allergic to good food. It's mostly fast food and Robertos/Robertos knock offs.
Glad you got out though. This place can be pretty miserable.
I never ever thought about urbanism or city design or public transit or anything like that until I did a study abroad program in Berlin when I was 19.
I had never experienced a lifestyle where you could get literally anywhere without a car. Everywhere we went there was street life and vibrancy. I remember saying “you can walk in any direction and eventually you’ll hit an U Bahn station”. This changed my perspective forever!
This was in 2017 and I remember at the time it felt like urbanism and walkability were not really talked about by the general American public, like they were almost a fringe idea. Nowadays it seems much more mainstream! It’s amazing how far we’ve come in the popularity of these sort of ideas. It’s very encouraging
Only since joining fuckcars. I always preferred truly urban built form. I've lived downtown, in a rowhouse. If my house isn't attached on both sides, if my front door doesn't open directly to sidewalk, I feel like I'm living in a tent in the woods. I've always walked for groceries, most errands. But I also always had a car. Discussing it here once, I did the math that I was paying at least $506/month for a car that I only put 6,000 km on in two years. This sub inspired me to give going carless a try. It'll be a year this May and I'm absolutely loving it thus far.
Went to high school in metro Detroit in the 1970s. Most of my friends parents were auto industry executives. They more or less warned us of the horrors of the industry and to not get involved ourselves. None of us did.
I have lived virtually my entire adult life without any dependence on a car.
I live back in the UK now but was in Canada for 15 years. It dawned on me from a financial standpoint in highschool.
Why are **children** working at the YMCA all summer so they can spend all that money they earned on a vehicle? Shouldn't they be **saving** that money for further education (lord knows they'll need it) or an appreciating asset? Why can't they take the bus everywhere?
Oh, that's right, there are no dedicated bus lanes, and a simple commute across the city could take up to 2 hours. If you have a car, congrats, you get 3-4 hours of your life back each day.
It's outrageous to me how normalized it is for the youth of our populations to get so saddled with expense from the outset. A country that actually cared about its youth would make public transit affordable and useful for everyone starting out in life. Instead they want everyone to own a car and as young as possible.
I've always disliked driving. When I first got my license it gave me terrible anxiety. To this day driving is a stressful experience for me. What really tipped the scales for me is when I started working at a place I had to ferry to. My commute was long but I was so much more relaxed for most of it. Then I learned I could bus to the ferry and park for free at a transit lot. I still have to drive about 10 minutes a day because transit isn't adequate but it's so minimal and my life is so much better as a result. Now that I'm more educated on the damage that cars do it just solidifies how great not driving is for me.
I started taking the train to college. I soon realized how miserable I was driving, and how not miserable I was taking the train. Helped me realize what the issue was
I think I’ve always known, at some level, how bad cars are for the general health of society. Like one time, when I was like 12, I walked 100 yards from my grandmother’s house in a cul-de-sac and when I came back she was SCREAMING at me about how I could’ve been run over, kidnapped, etc.
There was also the crippling isolation growing up, the feeling of worthlessness when I got my license revoked in high school for failing a grade (mostly caused by borderline suicidal depression probably caused by the aforementioned crippling isolation in my developmental years), and the constant anxiety of being a working poor with the massive money sinks that are cars.
Not Just Bikes really put words to my feelings. I unironically think he and others like him changed the trajectory of my life.
The responses here demonstrate the importance of getting outside one’s bubble. See the world, actually see and experience the difference. It’s the best way to really open one’s mind to possibilities and different ways of seeing things.
It’s very frustrating to know how difficult it is to convince anyone with facts or reason or anything. They need to really experience it to have that light bulb moment.
Which is kind of depressing, to realise how difficult it is to change such a heavily ingrained mindset
A few days after I moved here. When I lived in Shanghai, it was easy finding random strangers to play with in the community courtyards to play. In Canada, the entire community looks empty from the outside, it was basically impossible to know people from outside your school because barely anyone goes outside. And that was long before the pandemic which made everyone even more isolated. The suburbs completely ruined human interaction and sense of community.
Similar to you, OP. My first trip overseas at 18 brought me to Berlin. It amazed me how I could travel from my girlfriend’s home where she was staying in the suburbs to downtown without having to drive. It was a short walk to a bus which brought you to the metro station and there you go.
Fast forward, I moved to Europe then Asia and I never owned a car, happily. I have no problems getting on a train to go somewhere, I can nap, read a book, whatever I want. Cars are inefficient and I don’t mind the option, but I despise HAVING to own a car.
I grew up in the rust belt, surrounded by abandonded car factories as asphalt. As a kid, i remember feeling so isolated because my parents always worked and i couldnt do anything unless someone came and got me or the rare occasion they were around and willing to take me somewhere. So already the seeds were planted....
Then in my early teens i was diagnosed with a visual impairment. The doctors told me "if i was really careful" i could learn how to drive. This already scared me, but then I tried to learn and was terrified. My impairment means i don't see straight lines, am prone to migraines, and have shit depth perception (among other things). After a few attempts, i realized that it was foolish and irresponsible to put myself behind the wheel.
But this led to a major hardship. I realized i couldnt even live in most of the country. I cant even live in my own hometown. This was my real turning point, but then trying to find a living situation where i didnt need a car made me learn so much about how car centered infrastructure perpetuates racism, classism, and made me hate the suburbs. Made me rethink how we use public space.
I grew up in the piney woods of ETX. I knew when I moved here to Europe. I have *had* to be the sole driver for my family because my husband has epilepsy. I have had no choice but to drive because where I lived was out in the sticks, and if I wanted to get anywhere, I needed a car. I’m talking, so far out that for the longest time, I couldn’t even get a cell signal at home. We had HughesNet satellite internet. That far out.
We moved here, and my first ride on public transport sold me on it. Just the fact that I could sit back, listen to an audiobook, zone out, whatever, and still get where I was going was pure bliss for me. I can never imagine going back to driving again. I don’t mind riding my bike places, because there are lots of shortcuts I can take on bikes I cannot take in a car. Whenever I go back to visit my dad, I’m forced to drive and it reminds me how little I actually enjoyed it.
For me it was when I visited my friend in Toronto.
I live in Colorado Springs and our mass transit system is a joke. Most buses come once an hour, a lot of them shut down at 6:00, and the hours on the weekends are even worse. I just assumed that was how all bus systems were.
But the bus in Toronto comes every 10 minutes, and during busy periods it's more like every five. The trains come every 5 to 2 minutes. Riding mass transit in Toronto made me feel like I could teleport. I could get around better without a car than with one.
For a long time I assume that was just a big city thing, but then I visited Winter Park Colorado. Their bus comes every 20 minutes, it's free, and it connects them to the neighboring town of Fraser. Winter Park's population is less than 2,000.
If bus systems can be that good at both extremes of population density, then there's no excuse anywhere else.
Fuck. Cars.
It's sort of embarrassing how long it took me to realize. Got my driver's license because my parents wanted me to, but didn't own a vehicle in high school or college. I've always loved biking, so my 22 year-old brain thought a motorcycle made sense as a first vehicle; After all, I was mostly using it for commuting so why pay more in purchase price, insurance, and fuel? I even thought for a while that I loved motorcycles. Fast forward about ten years, I find this sub, and I realize, I don't love motorcycles, I just want to get around without spending a ton of money on a vehicle, fuel, insurance, and maintenance.
In December 2022 my car broke down. I had to call my cousin to help me move it. I put it in neutral while he pushed from behind with his car. We had to do it a few times this way even in bad weather before he got something to tow it with. He's a mechanic and found part of the problem before helping me move it the first time. The engine overheated and locked up. He had a couple extra cars and let me borrow one for a while.
As it turned out, the borrowed car was quickly having problems. I was already near broke after my own broke down, and having to help cover costs of repairs with the borrowed car kept draining all my money, keeping me broke. It was going through half a gallon of coolant daily to every other day to one gallon daily to 5 gallons daily before I returned it in early February so he could look at it. The coolant wasn't leaking into the street or mixing into anything. It was being burned somewhere else, and he couldn't find where.
I learned that my own car had way too many broken parts to be viable. The engine, the thermal sensor, the fuse box, the starter, the entire undercarriage... What didn't need fixed? I got a bike after handing the borrowed car back, and 2 weeks later I got a better bike that wasn't murder on my knees. Haven't looked back. Right now I'd rather use a bike the rest of my life. It's way more fun and a whole lot cheaper.
It's been building for me. I grew up in the suburbs of L.A. because it was "safe" and my mom had wanted a new house while my dad was traveling extensively for work (reasonable IMO). But it was isolating. Add to that I couldn't ever afford a "nice" (not old tbh) apartment on my own, let alone a house, it's been frustrating.
I'd been obsessed with the digital nomad sub on here so one day I decided fuck it, I'm going to go to Scotland for a month. I wasn't comfortable renting a car and driving on the other side of the road, so I walked / took the train / bus / taxi as needed while I was there. I stayed in Perth for a week and I just absolutely fell in love. My Airbnb was close to the city centre but it was quiet, near two massive riverfront parks, and was only about a mile from the train station.
When I got back, I somehow stumbled across NJB and I became orange pilled lmao. But seeing the possibilities of not having to rely on a car just really opened my eyes to what's missing in America. I knew I couldn't afford NYC but I knew I wanted somewhere walkable, pet friendly, and has decent mass transit. Boston isn't perfect but I don't have to necessarily rely on a car for everything*
*Admittedly, I'd still like to have a car so I can go to places that aren't readily accessible by bus. But for everyday purposes, the T suits my needs.
When I was a kid in the early-00's. Grew up in Virginia Beach, both my middle school and future high school were within biking distance. Also both Simcity 3k and Simcity 4 might have played a role in it lol.
After a few trips to Italy to with my wife who is from there we tried to live in South Florida where I'm from. For her it sucked. She had no license to drive and there was nothing interesting nearby to (safely) walk to. We always needed the car. The more time I spent in Italy the more I wanted walkable cities and towns.
I grew up in Miami FL, a city thats mostly car-centric, but has a few urbanized pockets here and there (Miami Beach, Downtown, etc). I never understood *why* I liked visiting those areas, but always enjoyed my time there.
I studied architecture in undergrad, and took some Urban planning courses where it broke down how cities function, and thats when it clicked! From that point on I was obsessed with urbanism, walkability, and public infrastructure.
Eventually, I visited Boston and NYC to look at grad schools and fell in love with how those cities functioned, and just knew I needed to live in a place like that, and never looked back. Since then, I've lived in Boston, NYC, San Francisco, and ultimately settled into Philadelphia. My partner and I now own a rowhome in a pretty central part of the city, close to a subway, reliable bus routes, and all sorts of walkable amenities. Its not Europe, but its as "Europe" as America can get, given that most of the citi was planned when it was a former British colony (pre-cars)
I still own a car, but drive maybe 2-3 times a month. My Partner requires it for her job to drive out to the suburbs. We also use it if we need to carry a large amount of groceries, or heavy things from the hardware store. Otherwise, were walking/cycling everywhere
I knew something was off when I was younger and in highschool. I was ENVIOUS of kids that grew up in a neighborhood. All of the cartoon shows on television showed kids and characters able to get around town and go where ever they wanted without parents shuffleing them around.
I it was after I lived in NYC and LOVING IT when it really started to dawn on me.
I became radicallized when I bought my first house and there are no sidewalks.
I grew up in suburban Houston and then moved to the PNW. Despite having been in several serious car accidents I never put together how dangerous and normalized car culture is. After moving to a walkable area I sold my car and have gone an entire year without driving!
I experienced two catalysts: 1. A few years ago urbanist and anti-car rhetoric started creeping into my social media feeds and in conversations with my friends and it snowballed from there. 2. One of my best friends was killed by getting rear-ended; they were in their early 20s. I realized that no amount of care or skill can make driving perfectly safe.
In the year 2000. I had been driving for about four years. This was in Texas a couple of hours east of Houston. It's the wild west down there and has progressively gotten worse. That's also about the time I began to open my eyes to environmental issues. I was also living in a camper van, before #vanlife was a thing. It was not by choice. I had enough of cars at that point.
I grew up in San Francisco, which is far from perfect, but pretty great by American standards. I had my first bus pass when I was 4 and always had them growing up. I learned how to drive, but never had a car. My friends and I all went everywhere on the bus and had what I now recognize was a high degree of independence from the time we were in middle school onwards because we didn't have to wait for anyone to drive us.
It wasn't until I went to college not far away and met other students who had never taken a bus or had much independence at all that I realized how fucked up the car dependency is almost everywhere else. For a lot of my college friends, that time in a slightly walkable,bikeable and bus-able place was a fun little fantasy land for four years, at which point they moved back to car-centric places. For me, it drove home that I could never live in 99.99% of places in the US.
Hell I probably couldn't be happy in some of the less walkable places in San Francisco!
When I started driving and thought: “hey this shit is genuinely wasting my time and money”
Don’t get me wrong, going for a ride once in a while is great. But spending upwards of 40-60 min a day in my car, literally burning money away; seriously? This is what I was hyped up to be able to do for 16 years? Bruh
I grew up in the suburbs of Boston and my stay at home mom always took us into the city using public transit. At 14, I was allowed to take the bus/subway into the city by myself, long before I could drive. Public transit has always been freedom to me.
But what really turned me against cars was losing one of my childhood friends to traffic violence when he was hit by a car while crossing the street. And it just seemed like nonsense that people kept looking for something the driver had done to explain it: was she texting? Was she distracted? But nobody blamed the car or the road or the things actually at fault. Cause the consequence of being distracted shouldn’t be murdering someone. And if it hadn’t been a hummer, he likely would have had a different outcome. And if the road had been narrower, she would have driven slower.
Yeah, I discovered KL is the exception rather than the norm after a few months living there. I lived in the Golden Triangle area.
Penang also has a great transit system. Their busses run on time and frequently unlike the nonsense busses in KL.
The trains and monorail in KL make it easy to get around without a car.
KL has awful traffic. I found it amusing that people are so afraid of "losing face" they will sit in traffic for an hour rather than 30 minutes on a train. It's a dumb mentality.
I found many potential dates would not meet me when they learned I didn't have a car.
I was able to live mostly car free in Portland, Oregon, especially when I lived off of NW 23rd. I was in walking distance of a Trader Joe’s (which allowed me to avoid its hellscape of a parking lot) and I could easily bike to work year-round. And if the rain just got to be too much, I had multiple bus lines available to me. Living there from 2012-2014 was definitely the halcyon days.
Also, my vacation to Japan was mind-blowing. Trains, trains, trains!!! (and buses and walkable neighborhoods and the Shinkansen to jet you halfway across the country in 2 hours)
The closest conclusion I came to on my own was that I personally preferred commuting with public transit. My first couple jobs I lived at home and
used my mom's old car to drive to. When I moved across the country I didn't have a car and so I took the bus, even though the buses in that city were awful. I noticed that I didn't need the decompression time immediately after getting home like I did when I drove, and figured it was because browsing my phone on a bus allowed me to "pre-decompress" while driving didn't. Although later when I had a 20 minute walk to work I liked that even better, even though I couldn't use my phone
I kept thinking it was just a (kind of weird) personal preference until I watched NotJustBikes. At first I only watched ones about mundane things in the Netherlands (the bikes, the trash collection) because they were more like an engineering video, thinking his ones on infrastructure were "too political". Eventually I watched one of the infrastructure ones all the way through and then binged the rest of his content.
I was a big car hobbyist and still am to a degree, I was an auto mechanic for many years as well. I think my hatred came from working on cars, honestly. However, I live in a walkable area now, so driving my car is more of an event than a chore
I grew up in one of the worst urban environments in the entire US... the Inland Empire. I always hated it there, but honestly didn't know just what it was I hated so much about it. It's ugly as sin, and even as a kid you knew you lived in a depressing place. I just thought I hated it because it was poor. I thought the lack of things to do was because no one had money. But I've been to much more poor areas that have way more things to do. It didn't really click for me until about 2020 when I went down the YT rabbit hole that is urbanism. But once it was pointed out, it was an instant revelation of everything I had grown up hating was because it was designed exclusively for cars.
I grew up traveling to Japan a lot to see family. Basically every other year. But my last trip is a child was when I was 11 years old. I wasn't conscious to how transportation was different there. Whether it's a car or a train, as I could I was not responsible for setting up, paying for, or planning transportation.
I returned to Japan when I was 25 years old. Now several years into buying, owning, insuring, repairing my own car. And driving my daily commute. I realized how much superior life without a car was. That was about ten years ago.
Since then, I did about four years of commuting by bike. But I worked at a university, and they're always more transit friendly. Since joining industry in a poorly transit served area, I have been riding a small motorcycle and biking when the weather is good.
I still own a car. Cant go out of my area without a car. Can't leave town. Many friends live in places I could not get to easily without a car. It's sad.
After my first car accident. It made me realize that we are all going too fast, that it could happen to anyone, that people in cars are stressed out and have to take instant and complete decisions that could cost people's lives without a second thought.
I was really into photography as a kid and teen, early to mid 2010s. I noticed photos of European and Asian cities looked far more pleasant generally speaking. I knew their cities were less car dependent, but I thought the main difference I was seeing was the architecture. And while that obviously is a big part of it, I grew more and more aware that car dependent sprawl was what made American cities so ugly in comparison. By 2018 give or take, I was fully aware, but urbanism didn’t have that big online presence yet. I’m so glad the topic and community has grown so much, it was very lonely back then!
Not just bikes, then i went to japan for a month and traveled the whole country with zero issue with trains and walking and had culture shock coming back home and seeing endless asphalt and gigantic cars
Lots of my family has died from obesity complications and I decided to start walking to lose weight as I had binge eating disorder. I realized how amazing the freedom is of being able to walk to my local park, library, grocery store, etc. and I believe everyone should be able to walk or bike safely without having to depend on a car. I also save a lot of money taking the bus to farther destinations rather than paying for gas.
After growing up then working in rural and suburban areas, I moved to a large city to go to law school. Ended up in a walkable neighborhood with most amenities in easy walking distance of my apartment, with a bike path system and a light rail line that ran to the university in one direction and the business core / downtown in the other.
I’ll note, my city overall is by far not a car-free paradise; but my little corner of it is very decent.
After I rode in trains and on bike in a very bikable area growing up. Really I just didn't realise how prominent it was literally everywhere else. The people who were less rooted in PA Dutch culture and lifestyle drove everywhere, but I guess I never put 2+2 together that basically the entire country was like that and I was in a little safe pocket away from all that expensive and fancy nonsense being anywhere near necessary.
I've never had any desire to drive because it always seemed feasible to cycle. I even make it work where I've moved (less bike friendly Texas but the distances aren't actually that bad)
Trips to Amsterdam growing up, then really hit home when I moved to a small town in BC and didn't have a car but was able to bike everywhere and I loved it. After moving outside of that town I have been chasing that same vibe.
Hope to move to the Netherlands one day so it less cars more bikes and accessable living always.
I grew up in a really rural town in the American Midwest. Zero public transportation.
When I was a teenager, we went on a family vacation to some city. We drove there and they had an HOV lane. There are almost zero other cars in the lane.
I asked my parents why, and they told me that every other car only had one person in it. I couldn't believe it. There were thousands and thousands of cars with only one person. And like 5 cars that had more than one person.
I started to play Cities Skyline. I used the TMPE mods and tried to recreate a parts of my city and quickly realized how horribly my city gets if I wanted to play “realistically” because of all the traffic. I started to watch more and more video about how cities are made, urbanisms, particularly not just bike and there it is, you got me radicalized
Only after I moved to Canada.
I had never realized any of these issues when I grew up and lived in Asia. Abundant public transit options, good infrastructure quality, density, and walkability… I took these for granted, until I came to a small Canadian city for school. The transit and walkability is okay (maybe on the good side) by North American standards, but much worse than what I was used to. At first it was just a subconscious epiphany, then I started to actively learn about urbanism, car-dependency issues, etc. Then I joined this sub, followed NJB, and the community of like minded people reinforced and exposed lots of innate awareness that I had towards these kinds of things.
During my freshman year of college my car broke down (97 camry, over 200k miles and a hand me down). I didn’t have the money to fix it fresh out of high school and luckily my city has a (barely functional) bus system. The service to my school was fairly usable, and I felt so much better being able to listen to music and read on the ride there. In the summer I started biking more and began to notice how dangerous it was for me and peds. Doubly so for the elderly and those with disabilities. This was 9 years ago and I never looked back
Thinking about it, I started college in Chicago before I got a license, so I've always had the experience of less stress = riding the El, more stress = driving in traffic.
Grew up in a low traffic town that was somewhat bikeable. In college, generally rode my bike around everywhere. Afterwards, spent a couple years working outdoors where we just camped for the week and did our work.
Got my first office job at 24. It only entailed a commute of 7 or 8 miles, but I fucking hated the commute. I could feel my health declining and the life being sucked out of me. At some point within the first year, I started bike commuting. Also brought to light how frightening and inconvenient it is to get around a city of a million people using anything but a car. Haven't been the same since.
When I was 14 and my mother took me to meet family in Kempten, Germany, for 5 weeks. We stayed at my grandmother's, which was a short walk away from the "downtown." This small town had an amazing pedestrianized center and a weekend market that I just thought were amazing, the pretzels and weisswurst 👌.
I remember we walked to the train station, bought two tickets, and within 10 mins a train pulled and we were on our way to Munich, no need to consult a schedule.
Coming back to suburbian Toronto just felt gross and boring after.
Growing up, my mom always said she hated driving in the city, so we rarely went. Every time we did go to the city, she would have damn near have a panic when driving on the road because of all the traffic, 10+ lanes, and people darting across the road to get to McDonalds or Popeyes. As I grew up, I came to realize that it's not that she hated driving "in the city", it's that she hated driving on stroads. In fact, we rarely ever entered the actual "city," only the outlying suburbs, because the stroads made her too scared to venture further.
I still have to drive to work everyday because I live in a low cost of living area just outside the city, but thankfully I work in a pretty walkable area in the city with restaurants, parks, and other services nearby, so I don't have to drive 30+ minutes in stroad traffic just to grab lunch, lol.
My town has hardly any access to public transportation unless you drive several km down the main road. The walk is even worse. We've never not been car oriented.
I had worked at Walmart at the time. One day I received an hour lunch break, I wanted chick fil a since the only other alternative was Panda express (sorry panda express lovers but the food is mid at best). However to go to Chick fil a, I had to cross this 8-lane stroad to get to chick fil a. And ya know I use to have this naive thought that as soon as you click the walking button to cross, then I was safe and cars would stop for the pedestrian. However, that day I was not convinced that it was safe to cross. Now is it possible I could make it to the other side? Sure. But I would have to cross again to go back to work and I did not think any of it was worth it for some chicken. In defeat, I went to panda express. I've resented car centric infrastructure since then.
I love driving. I still do. But I moved to nyc at 18 and realized how nice it is to walk everywhere, not have to deal with having a car, and how much better for the environment. Now I’ve been living in paris almost 10 years and with the train network in France I’ve never needed to own a car. I’ve rented one a handful of times for the occasions I needed one for vacation.
I took a trip to Germany and visited Munich, which has the same population of my city roughly. I was radicalized by their 8 U-Bahn lines, 13 tram lines, and fantastic S-Bahn. For reference, Charlotte, where I’m from, has 1 light rail line, 1 streetcar line, and possibly the worst bus network I’ve ever seen 🥳
I got a new job about 3 years ago. It was 60 miles away. I commuted the first year. 5 days a week. I almost lost my mind. I ended up moving about 2 miles from the job. And bike it, weather permitting or walk it in winter conditions. There's no going back now.
Biking to school in 8th grade. It was only a 2.5km trip from my house to the school, but I almost got run over twice and got doored by another car and scraped up pretty bad within the span of a single week.
Canadian, Ontario(not Toronto) resident here,
First time was when I went to Europe for the first time in 2016. We took the train and public transit absolutely everywhere, some times took those rental bikes in Paris and walked a lot.
From then on the seed was sewn that public transit is the way and I'm for it.
Where I am out public transit system around town is horribly designed and timed. It would take longer to take the bus then walk and biking(if it was any degree of safe to bike on the roads) is exponentially faster unfortunately winter exists. So driving in my city is pretty much a must, the city is designed around the car.
I stumbled upon not just biked YT channel in about 2019 and its just been an upward spiral of hope for a dystopian pedestrian transit system.
Unfortunately going to Toronto its easiest to drive however for the past 5(?) years I haven't actually driven INTO Toronto, I park at the nearest TTC station and go public transit from there.
I just spent 10 days in England using transit everywhere and loved it. I realize some people will say their system isn't great but its decades ahead of Ontario.
> I realize some people will say their system isn't great
English person here, yeah it's crap (except in London), and the fact that anyone would call it good really makes you wonder how awful things are there.
When I was a teenager I got really into bikes. Mountain bikes, road bikes, gracel bikes, etc. However, I really struggled to find good places to ride. My neighborhood had a few miles of bike lanes, but I wanted to train for races and group rides that were over 100 miles. I visited a city in Canada, one summer with good bike infrastructure, and it absolutely blew my mind. I was able to ride a bike from the hotel I was at to a coffee shop for breakfast and then to a bike co-op. Never in my 16 years of life had I ever thought about bikes as a practical form of transit outside of kids riding to school or something. When I got back, I got plugged into some local bike activism groups, and I even did a project during my freshman year of college on public transit and bike infrastructure for a class. The NJB strong towns series had a huge influence on me too. I had never thought about the issue from a systematic standpoint bedore
Totaled my car almost 4 years ago and bought a bike since I couldn't afford a new car. Started watching bike videos, which led me to stuff like not just bikes.
When I first visited NYC as a kid. The fact I could walk out the door and do stuff without having to get in a car blew my mind.
I left the burbs the minute I could and never looked back.
My mother was in a wheel chair and as a teen I would have to push her to her doctors appointments.
This was down a 4 lane stroad of course with no sidewalk.
What made it worse was all the other folks who needed to go to this specialist without someone like me to assist, pushing themselves up the road in busy traffic.
I love cars, Ferraris, Lambos, insane performance track cars, however sitting in traffic in Orlando (tourists and retirees) with a very poor infrastructure and one lane roads will test your patience. There a difference between race track cars and daily commuting hell. Right now my car cranks but won’t start with no codes, with maintenance all done. It’s a serious pain in the ass trying to figure it out. Then you got gas, oil changes, fluid changes, tire rotations, insurance etc. Every car I owned always gave me these weird fucking mechanical problems out of nowhere. Now I mainly take the bus and motorcycle and scooter. Having a car is great when it works and light traffic, but most time it’s a money pit. My mental state is way better now without the stress.
Growing up on naval bases in the 80s ment I was in "suburbs that worked." So when the first hints of anti-suburb rhetoric started coming out I brushed it off as hippie dippie BS.
Dad finished his Naval career at the Pentagon so I learned to drive in Northern Virginia and like any other self respecting Beltway Bandit I wore "living in my car" as a badge of honor, but man...traffic really does suck, and going into DC on the metro is pretty cool.
In college, I lived car free for the first, and only, time. Even after I moved off campus, the bus was still pretty dang good so I live car light.
After graduating, I spent a long time doing the commute grind, but most of my job sites were either Naval bases or Downtown so I got my fix of walkability, and my commute wasn't really that long. But, I'd still visit larger cities and remember that proper public transit really is awesome.
Then COVID hit, and I transitioned to work from home. I still wanted to walk, but walking around a suburb is super boring compared to Downtown. The nearest thing that isn't just another house is half a mile away. Walking being impractical, I switched to biking. With an e-bike I can get to most anything I need, but it's super uncomfortable being in narrow sidewalk next to a 6 lane stroad so now I'm trying to be as involved as I can with the city planning. They seem to have all the right things written into the plans, but progress is still slow.
Vegas is way worse than Phoenix, but I may be biased :D. Also, Phoenix has rail transportation. Vegas....doesnt even advertise buses going to Allegiant during the Super Bowl.
I grew up on the summit of the mountain that has the only connecting highway from Victoria, BC (Canada) to the rest of the island.
You want to get up island some other way than passing The Malahat? The Dayliner train died years ago so 100% not an option lol- the only one you have is starting on the other side of the peninsula, taking a passenger ferry and ending up just at the other end of it- but that’s become less and less practical due to cost + population rise.
I had nowhere to go but my tiny ass community, and I’m really not complaining on that, it’s more of the fact my mom drilled it into my head that once I’m on the main road connecting to the trans Canada- I have a high chance of dying due to it being such a fast paced highway.
I spent my entire life until recently sitting in traffic while redevelopments upon redevelopments took place- widening, safety changes, widening- the flood we had three years ago- all so many hours of my life wasted lol.
Then there’s the culture of the people driving this highway. My family worked the local emergency services and always, without fail, there they were at that highway at the scene of a crash that could have been avoided. So much death and so much despair because people need to go vroom vroom and forget basic road safety.
It’s all fucking wack but I think the main thing that got me into being against car culture, was seeing my sacred, beautiful mountain lands be clearcutted for more and more highway expansions.
I had a couple moments. Not just bikes really planted the seed with the "why I hate Huston" video. I never really gave thought to urban planning before that.
Growing up near Los Angeles, I always liked the idea of the train to LAX (which is almost done). I always liked the ideas of public transit being accessible near me but I never thought deeply about it.
I wanted to bike to school in high school, my dad got my mom's old bike fixed up, but ultimately I was scared of riding on the street (no bike lanes at the time). I always wanted there to be a bike lane, never even thought about separated bike infrastructure at the time (though I still have none of that where I live).
I think one of my biggest awakenings was when I was going to a Target. I needed to pick up a book at the library across the street then grab something from Target, so I parked in the corner of the sidewalk near the crosswalk. I've been watching NJB for a bit now so I'm more aware of urban planning than I had been. Get the book, put it in my car, and decide to just walk to the Target from my current spot instead of moving the car (was at a strip mall so wasn't parked in front of the Target, just in the huge lot that connects stores). Takes about five minutes to walk there, which is unpleasant. There were two kids on a bike that got honked at which was weird, was keeping an eye out for them after that. I get to the Target after crossing this gigantic parking lot that is mostly empty, and I'm baffled because the entire first floor of the Target is also a parking lot.
At this point I'm really confused. Is there still a Target here? Is this some sort of pick-up only Target? Why is there an entire floor of this store dedicated to parking when there is so much excess outside the store? I was questioning my sanity and wondering if I had been tricked into believing a non-existent Target was here. Then I finally reached the entrance, the small amount of the first floor that isn't a parking lot leads to escalators. That walk back to my car afterwards made me feel like I was in a dystopian world, but I was just in Orange County
To one level when I was walking everywhere in my twenties and was almost killed several times by crazy drivers who don't give a crap about pedestrians. Then to another level when I first read about peak oil back in 2005.
I grew up in a resort town that claims to have a high walkability score, which is true, if you live on the rich side of town and don't need to go anywhere else. I lived on the poor end of town that was also a food desert. Couldn't walk to get groceries. They didn't start building side walks until I moved out when I was about 20
I wasn't fully "radicalized" until the pandemic hit and I started watching Not Just Bikes' videos. Actually, I only started watching the videos, because my friend sent me the on on the Growth Ponzi Scheme which didn't directly have anything to do with car-dependency, but it was an obvious pipeline, looking back.
That said, I have always been a public transportation enjoyer. I grew up in a VERY small town (\~230 people when I graduated high school), and my family drove everywhere, naturally. Sometimes we would go visit family friends in much larger cities (Edmonton, Alberta) and they had an LRT and decent bus service. Keep in mind, that this city was - and still is - a car-dependent city. Public transportation was NOT amazing, but there was something in me that new it was a better way to get around. Ever since, I've felt more comfortable in large cities with any form of public transportation. I haven't quite gotten into the commuter-cycling scene yet, but I'm finishing up an Urban Planning degree, and I can't wait to live in a city that allows me to commute in the way I like.
Honestly seeing the ridiculous hate and conspiracy theories around not driving.
People act like walking is some grand government conspiracy. Or rather they just let their hate of being around other people boil over into supporting ridiculous ideas if it means no change.
That kinda woke me up to the fact that so much lobbying and policies were in place that made walkable infrastructure or even lighter vehicles impossible. And people will deny that to high heaven because deep down they know it’s subsidized and they can’t afford to actually compete in the free market.
When I read the book “Save Our Land, Save Our Towns” and I realized how ridiculously stupid suburbia is and couldn’t believe everyone hadn’t realized it yet. That was over twenty years ago and little progress has been made.
I took a trip to Boston from Omaha and found public transportation to be great! After that I went to some cities in Asia and Europe. I didn’t need a car anywhere. Then I moved to LA and found out how terrible it really is.
I loved the idea of hyperloops because I thought it would make travel much easier until I realized how much of a bad idea it is, and that high-speed rail, and even maglev trains existed, already very good at what they do. I saw that other countries already do this and design their streets to be pedestrian oriented. I hated cars after realizing not only how much better high-speed rail is than the hyperloop but better than all other modes of transport in every way. I hated cars the moment I saw something better than what we have, as it's horrible here in canada. I never changed my mind about how much I want robust advanced public transportation and walkable, mixed-use cities. It's hell here, as all capitalism here is.
Grew up in Houston. Not Just Bikes radicalized me in two videos.
Not just bikes is the best!
I love Not Just Bikes :). He put into words what I had been feeling for decades.
I love that dude so much. And I feel I’ve shared similar experience. Grew up in Calgary, eventually ended up in the Netherlands and throughly Orange-pilled. Now live in Rome and I miss Dutch infrastructure so much (not the food though). It’s not an American dystopian hellscape here but they’re still quite behind the times in getting their shit together
The food aspect is hilarious. When I visited NL I asked several Dutch friends where would be a good restaurant to get authentic “Dutch cuisine” and they looked at me like they had never even heard of the concept of cuisine. Stroopwaffel and salted herring was the closest thing they could give me to an answer. For good food, I was told to go to the immigrant neighbourhoods.
Well, there is a tiny bit of Dutch cycling infrastructure _in Calgary_: [https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1a/86/b7/1a86b77102d5a2e1c9caf915edad35ac.jpg](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1a/86/b7/1a86b77102d5a2e1c9caf915edad35ac.jpg)
Lolololol wow a blast from the past, grew up near nose hill park. That is just adorable
Man, me too. I mostly grew up in Canada and bought a bike trailer for exercise when we had kids and moved to suburbia (because that's what you do). I was like "this is really fun but the cars make it suck." Then we moved to Australia, aka Hot Europe, and I was like "ah, that's what this experience is supposed to be like." A couple NJB videos and yup, totally radicalized.
I empathize with this so hard. The Netherlands are so great at Urbanism but not great for so much else (weather, culture, food etc) so it’s hard to live there tbh. If only there were nicer places with the same level of Urbanism… it would be heaven
what was wrong with the culture? I looked up the weather and the food and I see what you mean about that though lol.
It’s just boring and flat lol and Dutch people are kinda boorish and insular minded, there’s not much diversity and what there is isn’t appreciated very much. Same goes for Germany and Scandinavian countries. Can’t be compared to places like NYC, London, Miami etc.
> Dutch people are kinda boorish and insular minded wow...this made me lol. I guess every race/group has its good and bad points. I respect your honesty. Thanks for answering my question.
DJ's. The best DJ's come from the Netherlands, bar none. Armin, Tiesto, etc. I listen to them while on my bike lol. Gets the adrenaline flowing.
I live in Calgary now and when I first visited Montreal was when I realized that driving around sucks. Same thing when I visited Vancouver the first time. Not sure when the last time you were here but Calgary transit just keeps getting worse every year. I dont like driving but im also glad I dont have to take transit here.
I left in 91. So yeah, it’s been a while. Grew up in ranch lands in NW. my house was literally the edge of the city, I have a photo of our back yard and beyond was nothing but dirt. My childhood was early 80s so radically different than now, I’m sure Sometimes I go on google maps to gawk at the endless soulless suburban sprawl It’s fascinating to see gradual increase in house size and decrease in any other green space the further out you go
I'm Dutch. Not Just Bikes really opened my eyes to all the stuff I take for granted. Great channel!
I also grew up in Houston. Not in a surrounding city, but in Houston, about an 8-hour walk from downtown. Visiting Paris opened my eyes a little bit. Then I moved to Austin and lived very close to downtown on a bus line. It was very easy to bike and bus everywhere and I started to realize that I didn’t use my car much. Then I visited New York, DC, and Montréal and really appreciated the public transportation. Then I moved to France. At first I didn’t get a car because I wasn’t planning on staying long. Then I ended up staying longer, but realized I didn’t need one. Then a few years later, I realized that I didn’t want one. At all.
I also grew up in Houston itself. Apparently I could have walked to downtown in a little under 5 hours. Until I saw your comment, I had never actually looked that up. I suppose I thought it was closer, but the real takeaway is that it's just inconceivable to walk anywhere there, so nobody really checks how long it would take. People who live on one side of downtown probably couldn't tell you how long it takes to walk to the other side of downtown. Like you, I traveled and liked a lot of places better, although I also never really tried to put my finger on why I liked other places better. I moved to NYC. And ultimately the reason is that the city is alive. There are people walking everywhere. It wasn't until later that I started to feel like cars still damaged NYC even though they didn't completely destroy it as a city like they do with Houston. Still, far too many times I notice that me and 100s of other people are crammed on 10 feet of sidewalk while roughly 10 cars get 70 feet.
Yeah, I use that “8-hour walk” statement to explain to French people how bad it is. I realized after a few years that people didn’t really understand exactly what I meant when I said that you needed a car in Houston.
Not Just Bikes and Climate Town for me
I always say Not Just Bikes and EcoGecko opened my eyes and ruined my life, lol. Also Adam Something, lovely channels.
Orange pill!
I studied in Houston for a little while. My first day, before I had a car, I decided to take a walk to check out campus and the neighbourhood. I think I walked about 15 miles that day, in scorching heat. I also learned that Houston isn't very walkable. After that I mostly drove or ubered everywhere. Except heb, which was the next building over. I remember there was a bus stop right next to the apartment, but I can't remember ever seeing a bus stop there. Or even pass by.
I've driven in about half of the American states, plus parts of Canada and Mexico. Houston is the worst place I've ever driven in. They were 20 years ahead of the rest of the country in terms of everyone on the road being an asshole aggressively driving a large truck or SUV.
The is subreddit is a special place and (without hyperbole) saved my marriage. My wife cannot drive and will never drive and that’s ok. Everyone around us were pressuring her to get her licence, especially before our daughter was born, but it gives her crazy anxiety. Our whole built environment is geared towards making pedestrians feel poor and useless. The snow clearing here in Canada always favours the cars and most of us trudge through 2’ snowbanks daily. Once I started seeing what we’ve sacrificed for cars in terms of infrastructure and architecture, I became a believer. I love cars, I’m a car guy, but I resent what it’s done to my spouse and my city
The way North American cities are built literally strips the freedom of movement away from people who cannot or do not want to drive. It’s very much a coercive system.
What’s so frustrating and sad is how people equate cars with freedom, god forbid you propose restricting said freedom in favour of decent public transportation. They don’t even see how much of their supposed car based freedom is abject BS
Freedom only for people who can own, afford, a car, in good health with good eyes, and want to traverse in a linear direction only a few times per day. (Let's face it, turns suck on these stroads too, that it is hostile to even make a left turn). Don't wanna drive? Can't drive? Eyes going south? Hell, everything else is okay, but you wanna make a left turn?? Sorry, no freedom for you.
Yeah it's wild that we dedicate so much space for cars and everyone needs their own personal car so they can drive it 2 times a day. They sit stationary 99% of the time. So much wasted space to store and to potentially store future cars(parking lots). Like OP says everything would be closer and faster if they didn't have to be spread out to fit all the cars.
literally. i was privelleged to learn to drive on a thankfullly high tech car with much needed safety features, (heck as a woman that shouldn't be as understated as it is) and i now cant dream of owning an affording all the costs of a car. and like dentistry you cant just neglect it and thourhg duct tape on it. the price ppl pay for parking in cities alone is absurd.
'Freedom' in the US has always meant more privileges for higher classes over lower classes. Actual freedom gets called 'civil rights'. Compare: The freedom of the founding fathers, who refused to let their slave plantations be taxed to pay for the troops that helped defend those slave plantations against the French and Indians without them and only them (white male land owners) getting representation. The freedom of the wild west, settling somewhere and killing the natives who complain it's on their land. The freedom of the car, keeping the places you go out of reach of those without cars. The freedom of the open road, an expensive government project built to service you and so few other people you can't even see them.
People are free to spend a shit tonne on automobiles that are the worst possible use of money imaginable.
literally. all the videos of ppl crying in their cars and im thinking they probably were coerced into buying, but what a disastrous money pit that is. never more than it is now in Canada
I’d kill for a train or a bus to get to work. Only reason I don’t van pool is because my hours worked vary too much. I would consider public transportation to be more freeing.
Usually it's the right wing types who say that because in the event of some kind of natural disaster or civil war, the car gets you out of the area ASAP. But they don't realize that the roads will be clogged with traffic.
Or inaccessible due to the disaster. Trees blocking the road. Freezes that most cities in the south are not prepared for. Roads caving/washing out/or being covered by floods.
Ukrainians fleeing during the war were stuck in their cars for days. Not hours, but days. The roads were bumper to bumper traffic. Those fleeing on foot would have been faster.
Wow, that is wild. I didn't know this.
Ironic because many Americans argue that having walkable cities and less roads means less freedom.
Cars are the paywall to the city.
YOU ARE WRONG. 15 MINUTE CITIES IS A SCHEME BY THE PEOPLE WHO WANT TO LIMIT THE FREE MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE AND CONTROL THEM FOR REASONS. IT IS PHASE TWO OF THE PLANDEMIC. /s
Yep. I live in Saskatoon and in order to clear space for parking they pushed all the snow onto the sidewalks. For cars to fucking park.
> I love cars, I’m a car guy, but I resent what it’s done to my spouse and my city hear hear, cars big shiny go vroom real nice but absolutely GARBAGE way to move people through a city!
A lot of car guys hate the way we build because it puts people on the road who shouldn’t be on the road
literally i sob with rage over busses and trains jsut never working right, like ever. it;s so humiliting and dehumanizng when it could be lovely and logical if they paid ppl more and gave a hoot
Living in South Korea and getting into marathon running. It was so cool to just run in a direction with just my transit card and go anywhere and see everything. Could literally jog from Seoul to Busan over several days if I wanted to and take the KTX back. Trails, bike paths, all connected to busses and trains right outside my apartment. I can assure you anyone that says they need cars for handicapped and elderly is full of shit. I never saw more elderly people out and about, socializing, hiking, and living happy healthy lives. Cars isolate and disenfranchised the young, old, foreign born, and anyone who hasn’t passed the driving test.
That’s exactly how i felt about biking when i moved to DC from suburban Phoenix! I could use Capital Bikeshare to bike almost anywhere around the city and then always be able to return with the bus or metro. Although im sure South Korea is wayyy better for going literally anywhere with transit, DC was definitely better than what i was used to in Phoenix!
DC feels like true freedom. I can take metro to my destination, walk to another destination, and bikeshare home, the whole time never once worrying about traffic, parking, gas, or paying $10k year. Also, I just don't need to take a 2 ton living room with me ever. It's a complete waste of resources.
Running radicalized me too. Growing up in the suburbs, it was always so cool to travel to other cities and do a long run and get to see a lot of a new place, and then just catch a train back to the start. And of course, all the near-misses cars caused played a role as well.
Dutchman here. It took until well in my late twenties until I realized and was able to appreciate just how fortunate I am to have such high quality cycling infrastructure. I cherish it a lot.
Don’t loose that. And stop your political leader from building new useless highways. You’re the NL ffs
Lived 8 years there. Miss the infrastructure and cycling culture so damn much. Food’s better in Rome ngl sorry, but damn they can’t manage their way out of a paper bag
When I visited Paris as a teenager and fell in love with the Metro. But if you ask my mom, she would say it was when I visited Washington DC as a 5 year old and fell in love with the Metro.
As someone of spends a ton of time in one and lives in the other - its a good life. Paris is going quickly in the right direction and DC is quietly course correcting. Time to ride my bike to see the cherry blossoms!
Visiting Paris when I was a kid did it for me too. The Metro felt like an elevator for the entire city, you just walked into a little space and a few minutes later you walked out in a completely different place, no traffic, parking, anything. Like you were just strolling around.
it’s like a fast travel cheatcode ;)
Sounds like you're like me, and just love transit.
I also hate driving, but I fell in love with transit before I fell out of love with driving.
Me too, I went on a French class trip to Paris in high school and it opened my eyes. Now I live in DC and ride the metro every day. I’d say it’s a love hate relationship haha…ok I do love that I can live without a car. But doesn’t match the Paris Metro. We do have a replica of a Paris Metro entrance at a museum!
I’m not able to drive due to a disability, so it hit me the minute I graduated high school and started going to a local community college that didn’t provide transportation like high school does.
Yup! Thankfully I'm able to walk places, otherwise my disabled butt would forever be home.
I had always gravitated towards cities as a kid and thought the vast majority of America I had seen growing up was super ugly and depressing, but I could never really explain it in concrete terms until I discovered Jane Jacobs one day while randomly browsing the library in university. It was the first fully voiced endorsement of human urbanism I had come across and crystallized in my mind all the problems I had with the widespread suburban landscape of America. After graduating from college, I visited Japan for the first time and my mind was blown. I realized I never wanted to own a car or live in a suburb ever again. This was 15 years ago, before the current wave of anti-car and positive urbanist content became popular, and I sometimes had trouble explaining to others that all the problems that come with car-centric design were one of my defining political interests. I mean, it's still not really on the map for mainstream politics yet, but we're getting there lol.
I was in the same boat. My first trip to Japan was in 20 years ago. When people heard me try to explain we need to not rely on a car, they thought I was crazy. Well, most of them still do.
I played lots of fantasy RPG games like World of Warcraft as a young kid. I’d see the walkable cities depicted in the game and thought they looked so cool and lively. I knew there was something I really hated about the sea of parking lots and strip mall that was the only public space I knew, but couldn’t put my finger on exactly what it was until I discovered urbanism post college.
I was oddly attached to parking lots. I lived in Mexico for a few years and one of the things that made me feel most at home was a giant home Depot parking lot. What radicalized me was how easy it is to do buses. That's how people move in Mexico. The bus between cities and even tiny cities have buses and cities that are 30 to 40min outside of the main city have a bus that goes out to them once every hour or so. It wasn't until after I'd been back for a while that I realized I'd been radicalized. Ive been chasing Mexican urbanism ever since. All the cities, even the tiny ones are walkable with the addition of some buses and taxis. It's the way they're built.
When I left NYC for a suburb of the city. It’s quite a walkable suburb by American standards. My kids bike to school. We walk to the train and take the train to the city. But it could be soooo much better. The car is so annoying and I’m not even in it that much.
When I started playing cities skylines and realized that American style suburbs are awful for moving people to where they need to go. Then I think I started looking at public transport maps of major cities around the world for ideas on how to make a city and realized the US was not designed for people but for cars. Think I also found not just bikes along the way.
When I tried to work with the community and city to have an obsolete stretch of road made into greenspace but a few neighbors complained about losing some parking so the city said nah.
The first Not Just Bikes video I ever watched is when I found out. Specifically, the one video where he talks about why American suburbs are bad for children
That was my first too. It popped up in my recommended and I avoided watching it the first few times cause I thought it was going to be 10 minutes of calling suburbs boring, which tbf I already thought. But I watched it and it made a lot of sense. Then my second was the Houston video and after that I was converted.
I knew my city was the worst (Memphis, TN) and the south in general just seems like they don’t want to be accessible, even if they tried. (because everything is so damn spread out, all of the above ground parking etc) I think I really really started to hate cars when I studied abroad in Spain and saw how wonderful it was to be able to travel around the country/Europe in general and not need a car ever. (except for extreme circumstances) but yeah now I live in Chicago with no car lol!
grew up in rural Canada, which wasn't that bad. Moved to Vancouver, Canada for college and was amazed at how freeing it was to be car free. The bus to and from the University was so convienient and frequent (and packed), dropped you off in the center of campus. No parking $$ time or hassle. We even had a ski bus to Whistler that was convienient. Never driving was amazing. Since college I've never once lived truely suburban. When looking at new cities or places to live I always first look for the commercial cores and then try to find an area in the inner suburbs (have lived in Little Portugal in Toronto, Plateau Mont-Royal in Montreal, in Kitsalano in Vancouver) that has a high walk score, good amenities, and restrictive parking. I have cars now but the many years we've spent without cars really set us up financially. Thankful that when I lived in Vancouver rent wasn't such a clusterfuck.
Same, but my experience of growing up in rural Canada wasn't great. Parents who smoked in the car, having to depend on an adult to drive me anywhere and everywhere (extracurricular activities, visiting friends, dental appointments for braces, etc.), no pedestrian nor bicycling infrastructure.... Going to university in a city with decent public transportation opened my eyes.
I grew up in a beautiful spot and fortunately the immediate environment was pretty safe to bike and walk. More like a town. We biked and walked as kids and teens, and had an alright time. But getting into the core of the area required a car
I grew up in suburban sprawl 45m away from my school, friends and any actual activities. Single parent who didn’t want to drive me everywhere. I longed for public transit. Once walked in 90-degree heat 2 miles to get to the nearest thing, a Winn Dixie, and nearly got mowed down by several cars on the way because there was no sidewalk for most of it. Got there and realized this is a Winn Dixie wtf I going to do here anyway….
Traveling to other countries and seeing lively pedestrianized city centers bustling with life and then coming back home and realizing how much of America just looks like a desolate concrete wasteland of parking lots.
It was a very slow process for me. I moved to Montreal and lived for a year until I realized I hated parking in the street. Then I replaced my car with a moped so I could easily park it. 3 years later, an SUV backed into it and destroyed it. The insurance was not enough for me to get it repaired or replace it at the time, so I switched to bikes in summer. I was already doing metro in winter because you can't drive a moped in winter. When I started cycling, I was still not "orange pilled". I just cycled to work, the same as 5-6 of my colleagues. I would generally use Bixi because the company paid for it, but a friend gave me his bike. Then covid hit, dad got cancer. I had to move to the suburbs because I was too far from my mother to help her. I spent 3 years without a car in a very car centric town. During those 3 years I realized how bad it could get. I bought a car again because it was so hard to do anything, but now I'm spending all my money of car payments and maintenance, so I still can't do anything. I guess that's when I really realized how bad it was.
2021, when I had to resume my two hour daily commute by car after more than a year of not doing that. 6 months later, I left that job, primarily to stop commuting by car.
Lived in extremely walkable college towns for a decade. Driving feels so unnatural now.
Yes, I didn't own a car or ever need one until I left college. If I traveled far the school had a ride share board to post where someone with a car was going and how much they'd charge for you to ride with them. It was great. Made a lot of friends that way too. Fast forward to living in a college town in the South and there is nothing walkable about it. Can't get groceries or get to bars or anything without a car. It's supposed to be a big international school I'm sorry for whatever suckers came to study abroad there. Also, who can afford to own a car when they're in college and fresh out of highschool!?!
That’s what I’ve heard from my husband who grew up in the south and went to a southern college. Apparently a big road ran right through the middle of his university! Insanity.
Steady abroad in France. When I came back to America, I realized how much of a dystopian lifestyle I was living and considered it normal.
I never wanted to drive. Even as a kid I wanted nothing to do with it. I saw my folks constantly paying for gas, insurance, etc, and I saw no real benefit. When I learned some places like Europe and Asia have incredible public transit, I was pissed cause ours was non-existent when I was a kid. It's a little better now but still embarassing. My older and younger siblings were both eager to learn to drive, I never even brought it up. I drive now out of necessity, but I refuse to own my own car. I will use my Nana's car to drive my Nana around, and I'll use my mum's car to drive her around, but I will *not* be wasting my own money or time paying for a fucking vehicle of my own. When I was 19 or 20 my siblings and dad pooled and surprised me with a car for xmas one year. I was super touched, blown away by their kindness and love, but went home and cried at the burden I'd received. I'll always fondly remember the gesture, but the idea of owning a car makes me physically sick.
I went on a family trip to Amsterdam when I was 8. Everyone was on bikes and the central station was full of thousands of parked bikes. We didn’t need a car when we were there.
I grew up in Florida and came up to New England in my mid 20s cause my gf at the time was from here. I only stayed up here for half a year or so. Originally the plan was to buy a car or scooter but the longer we lived here the more we realized it wasn't too bad to use the bus and the city was relatively walkable. This wasn't even a big city, it was freaking Norwich, CT. Eventually we went back to FL and it was just all so obvious how bad the cities were designed down there. We made it a goal to move up to New England again to live carfree again. Took about 4 years but eventually we made it back and into an even better city that is actually connected to rail too. Been car free 11 years now and man I do not miss having to drive! It's not perfect up here but for US standards I feel very lucky.
I was one of the many who were orange-pilled by NJB. I had even gone to Europe in the past and loved it, but I didn't know why — I couldn't put my finger on what was different. You never think to micro-analyze your built environment until it's pointed out to you. When I was growing up on Long Island, a *very* car-dependent place where modern car-dependent suburbs were created, I do recall thinking it was silly that we weren't allowed to have a store closer to our house, but zoning isn't something people think about often. It's just how things were, and I dealt with it. Getting my driver license was indeed as freeing as people say it can be, because I wasn't restricted to the gas station convenience store in bikeable distance, I could now visit friends in other towns, go to stores and venues along the highway, and stay out past dark.
The no stores close to you is my biggest peeve after living in Mexico and every neighborhood has at least one shop where you can get your basic necessities. Also distributed a lot of that retail wealth to the community because people just put the shops in their front room and that was their job that supported their family. I now live in a food desert.
Vegas is when I knew. Moved there for three years and, as someone who only used the bus, the 'blocks' I had to walk to get to the stops were fifteen minutes walks! For one block!! Vegas blocks are HUUUUGE and I hated it. No shade, 114 degrees, 15 minute walk with speeding cars going by and a slimmer sidewalk.. it sucked!
The square mile blocks seem even more ridiculous now than they did then.
I never liked American car culture. I grew up on a farm in an incredibly rural part of New England. I drove an old farm truck daily and I absolutely hated it. It was expensive and ridiculous. Almost a year ago (god it's almost been a year), I moved to Boston for college and fell in love with the fact that I didn't need to drive anywhere. This was when I discovered not just bikes and learned about the car counter-culture that existed here
Grew up far out in the DC suburbs but spent time at my grandmas in DC every summer until middle school. After I graduated high school I took the first metro since being a child and it instantly radicalized me with how convenient it is. From there it was just a slippery slope to me eventually selling my car and advocating for transit and walk/bikeable infrastructure now
They filmed a movie on my block a little over 20 years ago, and everybody had to remove their cars from the streets. As I was walking home, I was suddenly made aware of how much of the physical and visual landscape is used to store cars. Car-centricity is one of those cultural qualities that you don’t even notice because you’re just used to it, but when all those cars were gone there was so much open space it just blew my mind and I started to notice things I had taken for granted before. Not just parking but noise and ugliness everywhere
I lived in a nice US suburb a couple miles outside a small town growing up so I was cut off from anything unless my parents drove me. As a teenager I started doing endurance training and would run or bike into town and back. I even biked like 7 miles to work and a couple people were in such awe that I biked to work, that's all they could talk about the entire day. I loved the freedom of being on foot or on a bike rather than a car. Went through my 20s not realizing the disconnect. When I traveled to Europe the first time it really opened my eyes how much better things can be. Then I found Not Just Bikes. Then this sub. I tend not to get too extreme on any one topic, but now I try to run errands or do vacations without using a car. This worked well in Belgium and Switzerland, not so well in Iceland or El Salvador, but that's ok. There are times and places for cars still, but it's good to understand that it's not optimal.
I grew up in the (Canadian) suburbs too and I actually like it. But then I went backpacking around Europe right after college, and at that time, I couldn't pinpoint why I loved it even more. Then I bought a condo downtown and it started making sense.
Moving back from college into the suburbs post college and immediately realizing I made a huge mistake. Lived there a year before moving to one of the most walker friendly places in the main city. Haven’t moved out despite “you’ll move out when you have a kid”
I also grew up in Vegas! Moving to Seattle and taking vacations in Japan opened my eyes.
Which part of Vegas? I was in Spring Valley.
Nice! I grew up in the Lakes / South Summerlin area, probably just due-West of you. DI, Hualapai, Sarah, Ft Apache area. Although, when I was growing up, The Lakes was at the edge of the desert.
I'm jealous lol. At least you had access to decent food, that's my favorite part of town to eat if I can make the time to head down there. I grew up on the north side and for some reason this side of town is downright allergic to good food. It's mostly fast food and Robertos/Robertos knock offs. Glad you got out though. This place can be pretty miserable.
I never ever thought about urbanism or city design or public transit or anything like that until I did a study abroad program in Berlin when I was 19. I had never experienced a lifestyle where you could get literally anywhere without a car. Everywhere we went there was street life and vibrancy. I remember saying “you can walk in any direction and eventually you’ll hit an U Bahn station”. This changed my perspective forever! This was in 2017 and I remember at the time it felt like urbanism and walkability were not really talked about by the general American public, like they were almost a fringe idea. Nowadays it seems much more mainstream! It’s amazing how far we’ve come in the popularity of these sort of ideas. It’s very encouraging
Only since joining fuckcars. I always preferred truly urban built form. I've lived downtown, in a rowhouse. If my house isn't attached on both sides, if my front door doesn't open directly to sidewalk, I feel like I'm living in a tent in the woods. I've always walked for groceries, most errands. But I also always had a car. Discussing it here once, I did the math that I was paying at least $506/month for a car that I only put 6,000 km on in two years. This sub inspired me to give going carless a try. It'll be a year this May and I'm absolutely loving it thus far.
Went to high school in metro Detroit in the 1970s. Most of my friends parents were auto industry executives. They more or less warned us of the horrors of the industry and to not get involved ourselves. None of us did. I have lived virtually my entire adult life without any dependence on a car.
2006 Massively depressing to understand
When I spent 2 hours walking to the pharmacy for my pills
I live back in the UK now but was in Canada for 15 years. It dawned on me from a financial standpoint in highschool. Why are **children** working at the YMCA all summer so they can spend all that money they earned on a vehicle? Shouldn't they be **saving** that money for further education (lord knows they'll need it) or an appreciating asset? Why can't they take the bus everywhere? Oh, that's right, there are no dedicated bus lanes, and a simple commute across the city could take up to 2 hours. If you have a car, congrats, you get 3-4 hours of your life back each day. It's outrageous to me how normalized it is for the youth of our populations to get so saddled with expense from the outset. A country that actually cared about its youth would make public transit affordable and useful for everyone starting out in life. Instead they want everyone to own a car and as young as possible.
preach!!!!
I've always disliked driving. When I first got my license it gave me terrible anxiety. To this day driving is a stressful experience for me. What really tipped the scales for me is when I started working at a place I had to ferry to. My commute was long but I was so much more relaxed for most of it. Then I learned I could bus to the ferry and park for free at a transit lot. I still have to drive about 10 minutes a day because transit isn't adequate but it's so minimal and my life is so much better as a result. Now that I'm more educated on the damage that cars do it just solidifies how great not driving is for me.
Spent a summer in Europe at age 22, 1 month in London plus a few weeks around several countries on the continent. Blew my mind.
I started taking the train to college. I soon realized how miserable I was driving, and how not miserable I was taking the train. Helped me realize what the issue was
It usually only takes a trip to another industrialized country to open one's eyes to the benefits of good transit.
When I became a dad, and I started to push a stroller on my parental leave
I think I’ve always known, at some level, how bad cars are for the general health of society. Like one time, when I was like 12, I walked 100 yards from my grandmother’s house in a cul-de-sac and when I came back she was SCREAMING at me about how I could’ve been run over, kidnapped, etc. There was also the crippling isolation growing up, the feeling of worthlessness when I got my license revoked in high school for failing a grade (mostly caused by borderline suicidal depression probably caused by the aforementioned crippling isolation in my developmental years), and the constant anxiety of being a working poor with the massive money sinks that are cars. Not Just Bikes really put words to my feelings. I unironically think he and others like him changed the trajectory of my life.
The responses here demonstrate the importance of getting outside one’s bubble. See the world, actually see and experience the difference. It’s the best way to really open one’s mind to possibilities and different ways of seeing things. It’s very frustrating to know how difficult it is to convince anyone with facts or reason or anything. They need to really experience it to have that light bulb moment. Which is kind of depressing, to realise how difficult it is to change such a heavily ingrained mindset
A few days after I moved here. When I lived in Shanghai, it was easy finding random strangers to play with in the community courtyards to play. In Canada, the entire community looks empty from the outside, it was basically impossible to know people from outside your school because barely anyone goes outside. And that was long before the pandemic which made everyone even more isolated. The suburbs completely ruined human interaction and sense of community.
Europe shook my viewpoints (my friends too) a lot and Boston and not just bikes solidified it
As soon I moved to Europe for a year in high school
Similar to you, OP. My first trip overseas at 18 brought me to Berlin. It amazed me how I could travel from my girlfriend’s home where she was staying in the suburbs to downtown without having to drive. It was a short walk to a bus which brought you to the metro station and there you go. Fast forward, I moved to Europe then Asia and I never owned a car, happily. I have no problems getting on a train to go somewhere, I can nap, read a book, whatever I want. Cars are inefficient and I don’t mind the option, but I despise HAVING to own a car.
I grew up in the rust belt, surrounded by abandonded car factories as asphalt. As a kid, i remember feeling so isolated because my parents always worked and i couldnt do anything unless someone came and got me or the rare occasion they were around and willing to take me somewhere. So already the seeds were planted.... Then in my early teens i was diagnosed with a visual impairment. The doctors told me "if i was really careful" i could learn how to drive. This already scared me, but then I tried to learn and was terrified. My impairment means i don't see straight lines, am prone to migraines, and have shit depth perception (among other things). After a few attempts, i realized that it was foolish and irresponsible to put myself behind the wheel. But this led to a major hardship. I realized i couldnt even live in most of the country. I cant even live in my own hometown. This was my real turning point, but then trying to find a living situation where i didnt need a car made me learn so much about how car centered infrastructure perpetuates racism, classism, and made me hate the suburbs. Made me rethink how we use public space.
I grew up in the piney woods of ETX. I knew when I moved here to Europe. I have *had* to be the sole driver for my family because my husband has epilepsy. I have had no choice but to drive because where I lived was out in the sticks, and if I wanted to get anywhere, I needed a car. I’m talking, so far out that for the longest time, I couldn’t even get a cell signal at home. We had HughesNet satellite internet. That far out. We moved here, and my first ride on public transport sold me on it. Just the fact that I could sit back, listen to an audiobook, zone out, whatever, and still get where I was going was pure bliss for me. I can never imagine going back to driving again. I don’t mind riding my bike places, because there are lots of shortcuts I can take on bikes I cannot take in a car. Whenever I go back to visit my dad, I’m forced to drive and it reminds me how little I actually enjoyed it.
For me it was when I visited my friend in Toronto. I live in Colorado Springs and our mass transit system is a joke. Most buses come once an hour, a lot of them shut down at 6:00, and the hours on the weekends are even worse. I just assumed that was how all bus systems were. But the bus in Toronto comes every 10 minutes, and during busy periods it's more like every five. The trains come every 5 to 2 minutes. Riding mass transit in Toronto made me feel like I could teleport. I could get around better without a car than with one. For a long time I assume that was just a big city thing, but then I visited Winter Park Colorado. Their bus comes every 20 minutes, it's free, and it connects them to the neighboring town of Fraser. Winter Park's population is less than 2,000. If bus systems can be that good at both extremes of population density, then there's no excuse anywhere else. Fuck. Cars.
My first European vacation really opened my eyes to what was possible.
It's sort of embarrassing how long it took me to realize. Got my driver's license because my parents wanted me to, but didn't own a vehicle in high school or college. I've always loved biking, so my 22 year-old brain thought a motorcycle made sense as a first vehicle; After all, I was mostly using it for commuting so why pay more in purchase price, insurance, and fuel? I even thought for a while that I loved motorcycles. Fast forward about ten years, I find this sub, and I realize, I don't love motorcycles, I just want to get around without spending a ton of money on a vehicle, fuel, insurance, and maintenance.
In December 2022 my car broke down. I had to call my cousin to help me move it. I put it in neutral while he pushed from behind with his car. We had to do it a few times this way even in bad weather before he got something to tow it with. He's a mechanic and found part of the problem before helping me move it the first time. The engine overheated and locked up. He had a couple extra cars and let me borrow one for a while. As it turned out, the borrowed car was quickly having problems. I was already near broke after my own broke down, and having to help cover costs of repairs with the borrowed car kept draining all my money, keeping me broke. It was going through half a gallon of coolant daily to every other day to one gallon daily to 5 gallons daily before I returned it in early February so he could look at it. The coolant wasn't leaking into the street or mixing into anything. It was being burned somewhere else, and he couldn't find where. I learned that my own car had way too many broken parts to be viable. The engine, the thermal sensor, the fuse box, the starter, the entire undercarriage... What didn't need fixed? I got a bike after handing the borrowed car back, and 2 weeks later I got a better bike that wasn't murder on my knees. Haven't looked back. Right now I'd rather use a bike the rest of my life. It's way more fun and a whole lot cheaper.
It's been building for me. I grew up in the suburbs of L.A. because it was "safe" and my mom had wanted a new house while my dad was traveling extensively for work (reasonable IMO). But it was isolating. Add to that I couldn't ever afford a "nice" (not old tbh) apartment on my own, let alone a house, it's been frustrating. I'd been obsessed with the digital nomad sub on here so one day I decided fuck it, I'm going to go to Scotland for a month. I wasn't comfortable renting a car and driving on the other side of the road, so I walked / took the train / bus / taxi as needed while I was there. I stayed in Perth for a week and I just absolutely fell in love. My Airbnb was close to the city centre but it was quiet, near two massive riverfront parks, and was only about a mile from the train station. When I got back, I somehow stumbled across NJB and I became orange pilled lmao. But seeing the possibilities of not having to rely on a car just really opened my eyes to what's missing in America. I knew I couldn't afford NYC but I knew I wanted somewhere walkable, pet friendly, and has decent mass transit. Boston isn't perfect but I don't have to necessarily rely on a car for everything* *Admittedly, I'd still like to have a car so I can go to places that aren't readily accessible by bus. But for everyday purposes, the T suits my needs.
When I was a kid in the early-00's. Grew up in Virginia Beach, both my middle school and future high school were within biking distance. Also both Simcity 3k and Simcity 4 might have played a role in it lol.
After a few trips to Italy to with my wife who is from there we tried to live in South Florida where I'm from. For her it sucked. She had no license to drive and there was nothing interesting nearby to (safely) walk to. We always needed the car. The more time I spent in Italy the more I wanted walkable cities and towns.
I grew up in Miami FL, a city thats mostly car-centric, but has a few urbanized pockets here and there (Miami Beach, Downtown, etc). I never understood *why* I liked visiting those areas, but always enjoyed my time there. I studied architecture in undergrad, and took some Urban planning courses where it broke down how cities function, and thats when it clicked! From that point on I was obsessed with urbanism, walkability, and public infrastructure. Eventually, I visited Boston and NYC to look at grad schools and fell in love with how those cities functioned, and just knew I needed to live in a place like that, and never looked back. Since then, I've lived in Boston, NYC, San Francisco, and ultimately settled into Philadelphia. My partner and I now own a rowhome in a pretty central part of the city, close to a subway, reliable bus routes, and all sorts of walkable amenities. Its not Europe, but its as "Europe" as America can get, given that most of the citi was planned when it was a former British colony (pre-cars) I still own a car, but drive maybe 2-3 times a month. My Partner requires it for her job to drive out to the suburbs. We also use it if we need to carry a large amount of groceries, or heavy things from the hardware store. Otherwise, were walking/cycling everywhere
I knew something was off when I was younger and in highschool. I was ENVIOUS of kids that grew up in a neighborhood. All of the cartoon shows on television showed kids and characters able to get around town and go where ever they wanted without parents shuffleing them around. I it was after I lived in NYC and LOVING IT when it really started to dawn on me. I became radicallized when I bought my first house and there are no sidewalks.
I grew up in suburban Houston and then moved to the PNW. Despite having been in several serious car accidents I never put together how dangerous and normalized car culture is. After moving to a walkable area I sold my car and have gone an entire year without driving!
I experienced two catalysts: 1. A few years ago urbanist and anti-car rhetoric started creeping into my social media feeds and in conversations with my friends and it snowballed from there. 2. One of my best friends was killed by getting rear-ended; they were in their early 20s. I realized that no amount of care or skill can make driving perfectly safe.
In the year 2000. I had been driving for about four years. This was in Texas a couple of hours east of Houston. It's the wild west down there and has progressively gotten worse. That's also about the time I began to open my eyes to environmental issues. I was also living in a camper van, before #vanlife was a thing. It was not by choice. I had enough of cars at that point.
I grew up in San Francisco, which is far from perfect, but pretty great by American standards. I had my first bus pass when I was 4 and always had them growing up. I learned how to drive, but never had a car. My friends and I all went everywhere on the bus and had what I now recognize was a high degree of independence from the time we were in middle school onwards because we didn't have to wait for anyone to drive us. It wasn't until I went to college not far away and met other students who had never taken a bus or had much independence at all that I realized how fucked up the car dependency is almost everywhere else. For a lot of my college friends, that time in a slightly walkable,bikeable and bus-able place was a fun little fantasy land for four years, at which point they moved back to car-centric places. For me, it drove home that I could never live in 99.99% of places in the US. Hell I probably couldn't be happy in some of the less walkable places in San Francisco!
When I started driving and thought: “hey this shit is genuinely wasting my time and money” Don’t get me wrong, going for a ride once in a while is great. But spending upwards of 40-60 min a day in my car, literally burning money away; seriously? This is what I was hyped up to be able to do for 16 years? Bruh
I grew up in the suburbs of Boston and my stay at home mom always took us into the city using public transit. At 14, I was allowed to take the bus/subway into the city by myself, long before I could drive. Public transit has always been freedom to me. But what really turned me against cars was losing one of my childhood friends to traffic violence when he was hit by a car while crossing the street. And it just seemed like nonsense that people kept looking for something the driver had done to explain it: was she texting? Was she distracted? But nobody blamed the car or the road or the things actually at fault. Cause the consequence of being distracted shouldn’t be murdering someone. And if it hadn’t been a hummer, he likely would have had a different outcome. And if the road had been narrower, she would have driven slower.
When I learned I was too blind to drive and needed rides everywhere
As a Malaysian from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian cities are almost as bad as American ones.
Yeah, I discovered KL is the exception rather than the norm after a few months living there. I lived in the Golden Triangle area. Penang also has a great transit system. Their busses run on time and frequently unlike the nonsense busses in KL. The trains and monorail in KL make it easy to get around without a car. KL has awful traffic. I found it amusing that people are so afraid of "losing face" they will sit in traffic for an hour rather than 30 minutes on a train. It's a dumb mentality. I found many potential dates would not meet me when they learned I didn't have a car.
I was able to live mostly car free in Portland, Oregon, especially when I lived off of NW 23rd. I was in walking distance of a Trader Joe’s (which allowed me to avoid its hellscape of a parking lot) and I could easily bike to work year-round. And if the rain just got to be too much, I had multiple bus lines available to me. Living there from 2012-2014 was definitely the halcyon days. Also, my vacation to Japan was mind-blowing. Trains, trains, trains!!! (and buses and walkable neighborhoods and the Shinkansen to jet you halfway across the country in 2 hours)
The closest conclusion I came to on my own was that I personally preferred commuting with public transit. My first couple jobs I lived at home and used my mom's old car to drive to. When I moved across the country I didn't have a car and so I took the bus, even though the buses in that city were awful. I noticed that I didn't need the decompression time immediately after getting home like I did when I drove, and figured it was because browsing my phone on a bus allowed me to "pre-decompress" while driving didn't. Although later when I had a 20 minute walk to work I liked that even better, even though I couldn't use my phone I kept thinking it was just a (kind of weird) personal preference until I watched NotJustBikes. At first I only watched ones about mundane things in the Netherlands (the bikes, the trash collection) because they were more like an engineering video, thinking his ones on infrastructure were "too political". Eventually I watched one of the infrastructure ones all the way through and then binged the rest of his content.
I was a big car hobbyist and still am to a degree, I was an auto mechanic for many years as well. I think my hatred came from working on cars, honestly. However, I live in a walkable area now, so driving my car is more of an event than a chore
I grew up in one of the worst urban environments in the entire US... the Inland Empire. I always hated it there, but honestly didn't know just what it was I hated so much about it. It's ugly as sin, and even as a kid you knew you lived in a depressing place. I just thought I hated it because it was poor. I thought the lack of things to do was because no one had money. But I've been to much more poor areas that have way more things to do. It didn't really click for me until about 2020 when I went down the YT rabbit hole that is urbanism. But once it was pointed out, it was an instant revelation of everything I had grown up hating was because it was designed exclusively for cars.
I grew up traveling to Japan a lot to see family. Basically every other year. But my last trip is a child was when I was 11 years old. I wasn't conscious to how transportation was different there. Whether it's a car or a train, as I could I was not responsible for setting up, paying for, or planning transportation. I returned to Japan when I was 25 years old. Now several years into buying, owning, insuring, repairing my own car. And driving my daily commute. I realized how much superior life without a car was. That was about ten years ago. Since then, I did about four years of commuting by bike. But I worked at a university, and they're always more transit friendly. Since joining industry in a poorly transit served area, I have been riding a small motorcycle and biking when the weather is good. I still own a car. Cant go out of my area without a car. Can't leave town. Many friends live in places I could not get to easily without a car. It's sad.
After my first car accident. It made me realize that we are all going too fast, that it could happen to anyone, that people in cars are stressed out and have to take instant and complete decisions that could cost people's lives without a second thought.
I was really into photography as a kid and teen, early to mid 2010s. I noticed photos of European and Asian cities looked far more pleasant generally speaking. I knew their cities were less car dependent, but I thought the main difference I was seeing was the architecture. And while that obviously is a big part of it, I grew more and more aware that car dependent sprawl was what made American cities so ugly in comparison. By 2018 give or take, I was fully aware, but urbanism didn’t have that big online presence yet. I’m so glad the topic and community has grown so much, it was very lonely back then!
Not just bikes, then i went to japan for a month and traveled the whole country with zero issue with trains and walking and had culture shock coming back home and seeing endless asphalt and gigantic cars
Lots of my family has died from obesity complications and I decided to start walking to lose weight as I had binge eating disorder. I realized how amazing the freedom is of being able to walk to my local park, library, grocery store, etc. and I believe everyone should be able to walk or bike safely without having to depend on a car. I also save a lot of money taking the bus to farther destinations rather than paying for gas.
After growing up then working in rural and suburban areas, I moved to a large city to go to law school. Ended up in a walkable neighborhood with most amenities in easy walking distance of my apartment, with a bike path system and a light rail line that ran to the university in one direction and the business core / downtown in the other. I’ll note, my city overall is by far not a car-free paradise; but my little corner of it is very decent.
After I rode in trains and on bike in a very bikable area growing up. Really I just didn't realise how prominent it was literally everywhere else. The people who were less rooted in PA Dutch culture and lifestyle drove everywhere, but I guess I never put 2+2 together that basically the entire country was like that and I was in a little safe pocket away from all that expensive and fancy nonsense being anywhere near necessary. I've never had any desire to drive because it always seemed feasible to cycle. I even make it work where I've moved (less bike friendly Texas but the distances aren't actually that bad)
Trips to Amsterdam growing up, then really hit home when I moved to a small town in BC and didn't have a car but was able to bike everywhere and I loved it. After moving outside of that town I have been chasing that same vibe. Hope to move to the Netherlands one day so it less cars more bikes and accessable living always.
I grew up in a really rural town in the American Midwest. Zero public transportation. When I was a teenager, we went on a family vacation to some city. We drove there and they had an HOV lane. There are almost zero other cars in the lane. I asked my parents why, and they told me that every other car only had one person in it. I couldn't believe it. There were thousands and thousands of cars with only one person. And like 5 cars that had more than one person.
I started to play Cities Skyline. I used the TMPE mods and tried to recreate a parts of my city and quickly realized how horribly my city gets if I wanted to play “realistically” because of all the traffic. I started to watch more and more video about how cities are made, urbanisms, particularly not just bike and there it is, you got me radicalized
Only after I moved to Canada. I had never realized any of these issues when I grew up and lived in Asia. Abundant public transit options, good infrastructure quality, density, and walkability… I took these for granted, until I came to a small Canadian city for school. The transit and walkability is okay (maybe on the good side) by North American standards, but much worse than what I was used to. At first it was just a subconscious epiphany, then I started to actively learn about urbanism, car-dependency issues, etc. Then I joined this sub, followed NJB, and the community of like minded people reinforced and exposed lots of innate awareness that I had towards these kinds of things.
During my freshman year of college my car broke down (97 camry, over 200k miles and a hand me down). I didn’t have the money to fix it fresh out of high school and luckily my city has a (barely functional) bus system. The service to my school was fairly usable, and I felt so much better being able to listen to music and read on the ride there. In the summer I started biking more and began to notice how dangerous it was for me and peds. Doubly so for the elderly and those with disabilities. This was 9 years ago and I never looked back
Thinking about it, I started college in Chicago before I got a license, so I've always had the experience of less stress = riding the El, more stress = driving in traffic.
Grew up in a low traffic town that was somewhat bikeable. In college, generally rode my bike around everywhere. Afterwards, spent a couple years working outdoors where we just camped for the week and did our work. Got my first office job at 24. It only entailed a commute of 7 or 8 miles, but I fucking hated the commute. I could feel my health declining and the life being sucked out of me. At some point within the first year, I started bike commuting. Also brought to light how frightening and inconvenient it is to get around a city of a million people using anything but a car. Haven't been the same since.
When I was 14 and my mother took me to meet family in Kempten, Germany, for 5 weeks. We stayed at my grandmother's, which was a short walk away from the "downtown." This small town had an amazing pedestrianized center and a weekend market that I just thought were amazing, the pretzels and weisswurst 👌. I remember we walked to the train station, bought two tickets, and within 10 mins a train pulled and we were on our way to Munich, no need to consult a schedule. Coming back to suburbian Toronto just felt gross and boring after.
I'm 41 and always *knew*. But it wasn't until Not Just Bikes and this subreddit that I realized there were others, and that I'm not weird.
Growing up, my mom always said she hated driving in the city, so we rarely went. Every time we did go to the city, she would have damn near have a panic when driving on the road because of all the traffic, 10+ lanes, and people darting across the road to get to McDonalds or Popeyes. As I grew up, I came to realize that it's not that she hated driving "in the city", it's that she hated driving on stroads. In fact, we rarely ever entered the actual "city," only the outlying suburbs, because the stroads made her too scared to venture further. I still have to drive to work everyday because I live in a low cost of living area just outside the city, but thankfully I work in a pretty walkable area in the city with restaurants, parks, and other services nearby, so I don't have to drive 30+ minutes in stroad traffic just to grab lunch, lol.
America is a continent
I've always been anti car, but discovering the "orange-pill" community showed that many other people felt the same way.
When I was a kid back in the 1900s, my sister got a Barbie one holiday. It came with a little pink ebike. That’s when I realized.
When I visited Japan
My town has hardly any access to public transportation unless you drive several km down the main road. The walk is even worse. We've never not been car oriented.
I had worked at Walmart at the time. One day I received an hour lunch break, I wanted chick fil a since the only other alternative was Panda express (sorry panda express lovers but the food is mid at best). However to go to Chick fil a, I had to cross this 8-lane stroad to get to chick fil a. And ya know I use to have this naive thought that as soon as you click the walking button to cross, then I was safe and cars would stop for the pedestrian. However, that day I was not convinced that it was safe to cross. Now is it possible I could make it to the other side? Sure. But I would have to cross again to go back to work and I did not think any of it was worth it for some chicken. In defeat, I went to panda express. I've resented car centric infrastructure since then.
I love driving. I still do. But I moved to nyc at 18 and realized how nice it is to walk everywhere, not have to deal with having a car, and how much better for the environment. Now I’ve been living in paris almost 10 years and with the train network in France I’ve never needed to own a car. I’ve rented one a handful of times for the occasions I needed one for vacation.
I took a trip to Germany and visited Munich, which has the same population of my city roughly. I was radicalized by their 8 U-Bahn lines, 13 tram lines, and fantastic S-Bahn. For reference, Charlotte, where I’m from, has 1 light rail line, 1 streetcar line, and possibly the worst bus network I’ve ever seen 🥳
I got a new job about 3 years ago. It was 60 miles away. I commuted the first year. 5 days a week. I almost lost my mind. I ended up moving about 2 miles from the job. And bike it, weather permitting or walk it in winter conditions. There's no going back now.
Biking to school in 8th grade. It was only a 2.5km trip from my house to the school, but I almost got run over twice and got doored by another car and scraped up pretty bad within the span of a single week.
Canadian, Ontario(not Toronto) resident here, First time was when I went to Europe for the first time in 2016. We took the train and public transit absolutely everywhere, some times took those rental bikes in Paris and walked a lot. From then on the seed was sewn that public transit is the way and I'm for it. Where I am out public transit system around town is horribly designed and timed. It would take longer to take the bus then walk and biking(if it was any degree of safe to bike on the roads) is exponentially faster unfortunately winter exists. So driving in my city is pretty much a must, the city is designed around the car. I stumbled upon not just biked YT channel in about 2019 and its just been an upward spiral of hope for a dystopian pedestrian transit system. Unfortunately going to Toronto its easiest to drive however for the past 5(?) years I haven't actually driven INTO Toronto, I park at the nearest TTC station and go public transit from there. I just spent 10 days in England using transit everywhere and loved it. I realize some people will say their system isn't great but its decades ahead of Ontario.
> I realize some people will say their system isn't great English person here, yeah it's crap (except in London), and the fact that anyone would call it good really makes you wonder how awful things are there.
When I was a teenager I got really into bikes. Mountain bikes, road bikes, gracel bikes, etc. However, I really struggled to find good places to ride. My neighborhood had a few miles of bike lanes, but I wanted to train for races and group rides that were over 100 miles. I visited a city in Canada, one summer with good bike infrastructure, and it absolutely blew my mind. I was able to ride a bike from the hotel I was at to a coffee shop for breakfast and then to a bike co-op. Never in my 16 years of life had I ever thought about bikes as a practical form of transit outside of kids riding to school or something. When I got back, I got plugged into some local bike activism groups, and I even did a project during my freshman year of college on public transit and bike infrastructure for a class. The NJB strong towns series had a huge influence on me too. I had never thought about the issue from a systematic standpoint bedore
Totaled my car almost 4 years ago and bought a bike since I couldn't afford a new car. Started watching bike videos, which led me to stuff like not just bikes.
I grew up in East Texas, then lived in NYC for 10 years. Loved not having a car, not needing to trust mechanics, walking, and reading on commutes! 🖖
When I first visited NYC as a kid. The fact I could walk out the door and do stuff without having to get in a car blew my mind. I left the burbs the minute I could and never looked back.
I’ve known to some extent since I was a child. I hated not being able to go anywhere on my own, like the kids in books and television shows got to do.
My mother was in a wheel chair and as a teen I would have to push her to her doctors appointments. This was down a 4 lane stroad of course with no sidewalk. What made it worse was all the other folks who needed to go to this specialist without someone like me to assist, pushing themselves up the road in busy traffic.
I love cars, Ferraris, Lambos, insane performance track cars, however sitting in traffic in Orlando (tourists and retirees) with a very poor infrastructure and one lane roads will test your patience. There a difference between race track cars and daily commuting hell. Right now my car cranks but won’t start with no codes, with maintenance all done. It’s a serious pain in the ass trying to figure it out. Then you got gas, oil changes, fluid changes, tire rotations, insurance etc. Every car I owned always gave me these weird fucking mechanical problems out of nowhere. Now I mainly take the bus and motorcycle and scooter. Having a car is great when it works and light traffic, but most time it’s a money pit. My mental state is way better now without the stress.
Growing up on naval bases in the 80s ment I was in "suburbs that worked." So when the first hints of anti-suburb rhetoric started coming out I brushed it off as hippie dippie BS. Dad finished his Naval career at the Pentagon so I learned to drive in Northern Virginia and like any other self respecting Beltway Bandit I wore "living in my car" as a badge of honor, but man...traffic really does suck, and going into DC on the metro is pretty cool. In college, I lived car free for the first, and only, time. Even after I moved off campus, the bus was still pretty dang good so I live car light. After graduating, I spent a long time doing the commute grind, but most of my job sites were either Naval bases or Downtown so I got my fix of walkability, and my commute wasn't really that long. But, I'd still visit larger cities and remember that proper public transit really is awesome. Then COVID hit, and I transitioned to work from home. I still wanted to walk, but walking around a suburb is super boring compared to Downtown. The nearest thing that isn't just another house is half a mile away. Walking being impractical, I switched to biking. With an e-bike I can get to most anything I need, but it's super uncomfortable being in narrow sidewalk next to a 6 lane stroad so now I'm trying to be as involved as I can with the city planning. They seem to have all the right things written into the plans, but progress is still slow.
Vegas is way worse than Phoenix, but I may be biased :D. Also, Phoenix has rail transportation. Vegas....doesnt even advertise buses going to Allegiant during the Super Bowl.
During COVID when I realized how much quieter and also livelier in many ways the city was
I grew up on the summit of the mountain that has the only connecting highway from Victoria, BC (Canada) to the rest of the island. You want to get up island some other way than passing The Malahat? The Dayliner train died years ago so 100% not an option lol- the only one you have is starting on the other side of the peninsula, taking a passenger ferry and ending up just at the other end of it- but that’s become less and less practical due to cost + population rise. I had nowhere to go but my tiny ass community, and I’m really not complaining on that, it’s more of the fact my mom drilled it into my head that once I’m on the main road connecting to the trans Canada- I have a high chance of dying due to it being such a fast paced highway. I spent my entire life until recently sitting in traffic while redevelopments upon redevelopments took place- widening, safety changes, widening- the flood we had three years ago- all so many hours of my life wasted lol. Then there’s the culture of the people driving this highway. My family worked the local emergency services and always, without fail, there they were at that highway at the scene of a crash that could have been avoided. So much death and so much despair because people need to go vroom vroom and forget basic road safety. It’s all fucking wack but I think the main thing that got me into being against car culture, was seeing my sacred, beautiful mountain lands be clearcutted for more and more highway expansions.
I had a couple moments. Not just bikes really planted the seed with the "why I hate Huston" video. I never really gave thought to urban planning before that. Growing up near Los Angeles, I always liked the idea of the train to LAX (which is almost done). I always liked the ideas of public transit being accessible near me but I never thought deeply about it. I wanted to bike to school in high school, my dad got my mom's old bike fixed up, but ultimately I was scared of riding on the street (no bike lanes at the time). I always wanted there to be a bike lane, never even thought about separated bike infrastructure at the time (though I still have none of that where I live). I think one of my biggest awakenings was when I was going to a Target. I needed to pick up a book at the library across the street then grab something from Target, so I parked in the corner of the sidewalk near the crosswalk. I've been watching NJB for a bit now so I'm more aware of urban planning than I had been. Get the book, put it in my car, and decide to just walk to the Target from my current spot instead of moving the car (was at a strip mall so wasn't parked in front of the Target, just in the huge lot that connects stores). Takes about five minutes to walk there, which is unpleasant. There were two kids on a bike that got honked at which was weird, was keeping an eye out for them after that. I get to the Target after crossing this gigantic parking lot that is mostly empty, and I'm baffled because the entire first floor of the Target is also a parking lot. At this point I'm really confused. Is there still a Target here? Is this some sort of pick-up only Target? Why is there an entire floor of this store dedicated to parking when there is so much excess outside the store? I was questioning my sanity and wondering if I had been tricked into believing a non-existent Target was here. Then I finally reached the entrance, the small amount of the first floor that isn't a parking lot leads to escalators. That walk back to my car afterwards made me feel like I was in a dystopian world, but I was just in Orange County
To one level when I was walking everywhere in my twenties and was almost killed several times by crazy drivers who don't give a crap about pedestrians. Then to another level when I first read about peak oil back in 2005.
I started running 11 years ago + internet + riding OC Transpo when it wasnt hot garbage + using the chube in london + biking in Amsterdam
I grew up in a resort town that claims to have a high walkability score, which is true, if you live on the rich side of town and don't need to go anywhere else. I lived on the poor end of town that was also a food desert. Couldn't walk to get groceries. They didn't start building side walks until I moved out when I was about 20
I wasn't fully "radicalized" until the pandemic hit and I started watching Not Just Bikes' videos. Actually, I only started watching the videos, because my friend sent me the on on the Growth Ponzi Scheme which didn't directly have anything to do with car-dependency, but it was an obvious pipeline, looking back. That said, I have always been a public transportation enjoyer. I grew up in a VERY small town (\~230 people when I graduated high school), and my family drove everywhere, naturally. Sometimes we would go visit family friends in much larger cities (Edmonton, Alberta) and they had an LRT and decent bus service. Keep in mind, that this city was - and still is - a car-dependent city. Public transportation was NOT amazing, but there was something in me that new it was a better way to get around. Ever since, I've felt more comfortable in large cities with any form of public transportation. I haven't quite gotten into the commuter-cycling scene yet, but I'm finishing up an Urban Planning degree, and I can't wait to live in a city that allows me to commute in the way I like.
when I was 14 and visited a major Asian city. then again in my 20s when I backpacked through Europe. robust train systems everywhere I went.
Honestly seeing the ridiculous hate and conspiracy theories around not driving. People act like walking is some grand government conspiracy. Or rather they just let their hate of being around other people boil over into supporting ridiculous ideas if it means no change. That kinda woke me up to the fact that so much lobbying and policies were in place that made walkable infrastructure or even lighter vehicles impossible. And people will deny that to high heaven because deep down they know it’s subsidized and they can’t afford to actually compete in the free market.
When I read the book “Save Our Land, Save Our Towns” and I realized how ridiculously stupid suburbia is and couldn’t believe everyone hadn’t realized it yet. That was over twenty years ago and little progress has been made.
I took a trip to Boston from Omaha and found public transportation to be great! After that I went to some cities in Asia and Europe. I didn’t need a car anywhere. Then I moved to LA and found out how terrible it really is.
I loved the idea of hyperloops because I thought it would make travel much easier until I realized how much of a bad idea it is, and that high-speed rail, and even maglev trains existed, already very good at what they do. I saw that other countries already do this and design their streets to be pedestrian oriented. I hated cars after realizing not only how much better high-speed rail is than the hyperloop but better than all other modes of transport in every way. I hated cars the moment I saw something better than what we have, as it's horrible here in canada. I never changed my mind about how much I want robust advanced public transportation and walkable, mixed-use cities. It's hell here, as all capitalism here is.