2012 Car Independence Report:
According to President Obama who addressed climate change in his State of the Union Address, we have already lost this trial. The evidence is in the earth is warming and weather patterns will continue to be more erratic and disruptive and costly.
It sounds grim, really hopeless, as ice melts and water levels rise. Can we even survive it?
The climate change issues show us one thing, things always change. To
what extent can we control the environment? It is compounded by news of other natural disasters: The meteor that drops into Russia!
So do we concede that the change has occurred like the seasons in New England, they are different less defined but they do arrive.
An attempt to control nature will fail, but we can control our own activities and benefit from the change in numerous ways. With that backdrop – a bit depressing I know—I give my 2012 Car Independence Annual Report:
Summary: Tabulating my Car Independence for 2012 shows that I am still reducing the time in a car but have not been able to crack the 50% barrier in three years, of note is the fact that I only rode a bike one day in 2012, and only took the bus 4 times a significant drop from previous years. However, walking was way up to 85 days of walking to and from work.
251 Possible Days in Office for Work
41Days out of state
47% of the time in the car
41% of the time not using a car – walking, bus, carpool, train, bike
210 Total Days in Office:
Transportation Choices in 2012: 1-day biking, 2 Days worked from home, 85 days walking, 15 days on the train or carpool – ( i.e. usually trips to Boston or rides home/work from others), 4 days on the bus, 118 days in the car:
56% days used a car vs. 43% used no car as transportation
My heaviest use of the car was in the spring April and May following my son Andrew’s baseball games and also traveling for transporting college-age sons to and from school as well as graduations in May.
