A friend and her son are living with us now so we are beginning to venture into getting around with two kids the car-free way. It’s a learning curve! We hope to write more about it and hear your stories about how you get around with multiple kids.
Biking to the Y…DeAnna, Ramona, and their Extra Cycle
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DeAnna and Ramona on their Extra Cycle.
Last month – May 2013 – was Bike Month and our local YMCA got involved by highlighting different member’s stories about why they bike to the Y. There were all these great photos and essays up around the facility as well as raffles, and a promotion of the new indoor biking parking space (Go Berkeley Y!).
A few weeks ago I was taking Fern to play at the Kindergym and I was excited to discover a photo and essay up about our friend DeAnna and her 3 year old daughter, Ramona, right outside of this kids area at the Y. What a great way to engage folks and inspire other parents.
Big poster at the Y. Love it!
Here is the poster:
DeAnna plans to write a guest post for Car Free Parenting soon but here are a few highlights from the poster:
“I choose to bike to the Y for many reasons including environmental, financial, social and my physical well-being.”
“As a family, it was a challenge to find a bike that worked for us, we settled on an Extra Cycle with a Yepp seat, which we absolutely love.”
“I think cycling has had two impacts on our life. One is that we are more likely to stay local. We do have a car and mostly use it to take our dogs out for hikes or to visit friends and relatives in nearby towns. Generally, we keep our day-to-day routines on bicycle and that means within 3 miles.”
We are looking forward to hearing more from DeAnna (and Ramona) soon!
And, just for the cuteness factor, here is a picture of Ramona and Fern hanging at the Y together getting ready for swimming:
Funny girls who like to ride bikes and swim!
Half Moon Bay and the Ocean by BART and Bus
Our most recent car free vacation was to Half Moon Bay. It took about 2 hours from our home in Berkeley via BART and 2 buses to get there (see specific transit info below). We walked, and loaded up the stroller, and carried backpacks, and used public transit. And we got all the way to a cute little town and the OCEAN!
We actually ended up postponing this trip a few weeks because it turned out that on the original dates we picked there was a lot of rain forecast. These are the kind of things that are pretty important when going car free. Nice weather helps when you are waiting with a toddler and your stuff for the bus.
Another car free consideration is where you can get from the bus – lodging or camping and access to stores and restaurants. Convenient is key – not remote and off the beaten path (that could be fun, if you go prepared! We look forward to trying bike camping when Fern is a little older.) It is amazing how you can get to some pretty wild coastline via bus and a little bit of walking here in the greater Bay Area.
In Half Moon Bay, there are quite a few lodging options right on Main Street which is where the bus goes and where the food stores and restaurants are. We also spent some time at the Half Moon Bay Public Library which is near the little Main Street/downtown area and has a great kids area, bathrooms, and a nice little outdoor patio out back.
The beach is about a 20 minute walk from town – flat and easy but a bit of a walk. There is a campground (Half Moon Bay State Beach) right at the beach where we have stayed on a bike trip before Fern was born. One of the great things about going car free is that you don’t have to have a reservation to get a spot in the bike (or walk) in spaces – and reservations are notoriously hard to get in Northern California Parks.
TRANSIT specifics from Jesse:
To get to Half Moon Bay on public transit we took BART from Ashby to Daly City BART – $4.30 and it took 40 minutes.
At Daly City, we took the SamTrans 110 bus to Linda Mar Park N Ride – $2.00 and it takes about 35 minutes. The transfer between BART and the bus was timed so the bus left about one minute after we got on board! The ride on Bus 110 is through suburban neighborhoods which is a little slow but it is interesting to see all the houses and how people do their yards. At the top of a long hill around Colma you get a great ocean view along the beautiful coast and then you go parallel to highway 1 past beaches.
At Linda Mar Park N Ride (in the city of Pacifica a block from the beach) there is another timed transfer to SamTrans Bus 17 – $2.00 and a 44 minute ride to downtown Half Moon Bay. Bus 17 goes through the new tunnel that avoids highway 1 that used to go along the cliffs at Devils Slide. There are still some good ocean views plus a portion of the ride where you slowly circle through some rural neighborhoods. The last bit is on highway 1 through farms and along the ocean which is pretty.
Overall, the whole trip took about two and a half hours including walking to BART, waiting for transit, riding on transit and making transfers. All the bus drivers were pleasant. Fern enjoyed looking out the windows and sitting on our laps. We rolled the stroller right on the BART and the buses so it was fairly easy carrying all the baby stuff.
Going back we took the same buses except that we decided to stop in Pacifica for a few hours to go to the beach, since the beach in Pacific is only a block from the bus stop which is closer than the beach in Half Moon Bay is to downtown Half Moon Bay.
The beach in Pacifica is a crazy surfing scene — everyone from old people to little kids were wearing wet suits and carrying boards. There are restaurants almost on the beach. It was a kind of urban crowded beach but even though I like the rural Marin beaches better, Fern had fun in the sand and the waves and sky were beautiful. Since Pacifica is only about an hour an a half from Berkeley via BART and bus, we might go back to that beach at some point.
On the bus between Pacifica and Half Moon Bay.
Bike East Bay billboard on our local bus line.
Caught this “I Bike For Family” billboard on the side of a bus yesterday.
Today is Bike to School Day, tomorrow is Bike to Work Day. Hope folks out there can join in the fun!
For the Bay Area, you can check out more info on the Bike East Bay website.
(Fern and I will probably hit the “Energizer Station” at Telegraph and Bancroft between 9am and 10am to see what’s happening – see you there?)
BABY ON BOARD !
New sign for added visibility.
I love the front seat and Fern loves it too. It’s fun for her to be able to see where we are going and I can talk to her. However, I often feel that people driving behind us can’t tell there is a baby on the bike. So I got one of those silly “Baby on Board” signs and here is what I did…
FAQ – Why car free?
These are Jesse’s answers to some of the questions we get when we are asked why we choose to be car free and how we do it with a kid.
1. Why are you car free parents?
Being car free is such a fundamental part of my identity that it is unimaginable to consider raising a child with a car. Living car free represents a measure of symbolic freedom from some of the social structures I find most oppressive: big corporations, consumerism, and fossil fuel consumption. Spiritually, being car free means independence and self-reliance. There is a certain lightness not having to worry about car payments, insurance, gasoline, engine problems, parking, or running someone over by accident. Politically and ecologically, I don’t want to participate in the daily destruction of the earth any more than I have to. Living without a car is living my values — not just talking about how we can live simply, but actually living more simply.
Choosing to be car free in a car-dominated world automatically makes life more complex in certain ways, but it is a good kind of complexity that mostly requires more creativity and leads to adventures and excitement you wouldn’t have if you went with the flow and drove everywhere. Simplicity and efficiency are overrated — boring. The efficiency and speed of cars is fake — it depends on hiding the real costs and shifting them to other people, the future, and the environment.
I’ve always loved biking and walking — why should I only walk and bike as a hobby rather than to actually get me and my daughter somewhere? Its all about how we want to spend our time: in traffic in a car and working to pay for the car, or on foot, on a bike, or on transit. Car-depending people isolate themselves from others and their surroundings, whereas on public transit I’m in contact with people around me and walking or biking, I get to appreciate the weather and the city as I move through it.
I’ve known I wanted to be a car free parent since way before my partner and I thought about having kids. I want to be a parent in part so I can share the things I love the most about this world with my daughter. What my daughter needs from me most is for me to stick to my values and live life on my own terms so she can learn that we all get to decide what is really important. Having a kid is all about making compromises. What is really key is how you make those choices.
2. What does it mean to be car free as a parent?
Being a car free parent means a few related things to us. It means not traveling by car on our own or with our kid whenever possible. It means that we don’t own our own car. It does not mean we never set foot in a car. If we need to go somewhere or do something that is impossible without a car, we rent or borrow a car. However we’ve found that it is only necessary to travel by car on rare occasions. I think its key to avoid owning a car. Once you own a car, it is too easy to hop in. If the default is moving without a car and the exception is using a car, then you realize how infrequently a car is actually necessary.
3. Why make a Car Free Parenting website?
I wanted to share cool adventures I’ve had. I think there are more and more car free parents all the time so its good to break down isolation and share what we’ve learned. I would love to inspire others to use cars less. I want to break down the myth that you have to have a car to raise kids. It isn’t true. A lot of folks I’ve known who lived car free before they had kids got a car once they had kids because there is an enormous amount of pressure to organize parenthood around the car. When you leave the hospital, the only thing they require you to have is a car seat. That says a lot. We carried our daughter out of the hospital in her required car seat . . . and then we walked home!
4. How do you go car free?
It is easier to be a car free parent if you were already living that way before you became a parent. It can take years to create a life that works well without a car. Doing so requires living intentionally and learning special skills. Being a parent is already so overwhelming that making more changes and learning more new skills is asking a lot of parents.
Living car free works best if you set up your life so the places you have to go are either close enough to walk or bike or are easily accessible by public transit. This doesn’t happen by accident. It means being very selective about where you live and work and the distance from work to home. You don’t consider some jobs because they’re too far away. You don’t pick activities or friends irrespective of location. Particular cities and towns will work better than others. Living in the city center will work better than in the suburban fringes. It is easier to live in a flat part of town than in a hilly part.
You have to figure out tricks to move supplies without a car and most of these tricks are relevant and useful as a parent. I have a bike trailer and bike bags on my bike, plus I’ve figured out what types of things its best to get delivered (for instance: lumber). With my daughter, I was already used to biking with a trailer. I can move a lot of groceries in her stroller or her bike cart.
People who use cars frequently become psychologically dependent on their car use and may find it hard to imagine life without a car. In particular, they set up their lives without regard to where everything is, so getting by without their car naturally seems impossible. Their house is so far from stores that they “have to” drive. They work two cities away so they are “forced to” drive. They pick a yoga studio 4 miles from home rather than the one down the street. Folks caught in “car-think” might think a life organized around keeping distances short is restrictive or boring, but I never feel like that. While none of us can completely control where we live or work — cost and available jobs limit our choices — there are often a lot of options. You have to decide what you really prioritize.
Weekend Outings
Entertaining the toddler while waiting for the bus.
During the week we walk and bike to our regular destinations like the library, the YMCA , and for grocery shopping and other errands.
We get restless on the weekends and want to get out of our normal routine. To get further afield we often use public transit. We love the bus and the BART and are lucky to live somewhere with good transit options.
In recent weeks we have gone to the Berkeley hills and Lawrence Hall of Science, Indian Rock and the Alameda Circle Fountain, to San Francisco to visit the Yuerba Buena Gardens (more fountains – Fern loves water!) and the great park there and the Children’s Creativity Museum nearby. Last weekend we took the BART to West Oakland for the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair.
Buses, BART, feet — and strollers!
Adventures in CAR FREE PARENTING 