Tag Archives: Curbing Cars

by | September 30, 2013 · 9:00 am

Curbing Cars Checks Out Transit In Canada

A streetcar in Toronto.

A streetcar in Toronto.

By Micheline Maynard

Curbing Cars is a North American transportation project, so this week I’m headed north (or technically south, if you’re standing in Detroit). I’m visiting Toronto and Montreal, checking out their blends of bike sharing, public transportation, walking and driving.

Follow my visit on Twitter @curbingcars (with the hashtag #cccanada) and on our Curbing Cars Facebook page. I’ll be posting regular updates on the people I meet and the ideas that I hear about.

There will be plenty about both cities in the upcoming Curbing Cars ebook, and we’re looking for your suggestions on what to see and do. Drop me a note in the comments.

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by | September 20, 2013 · 9:00 am

In Columbia, Missouri, A Decision To Curb A Car

Lauren Steele on the bridge she crosses each day in Columbia, MO.

Lauren Steele on the bridge she crosses each day in Columbia, MO.

In our first story by a student writer, Curbing Cars presents this tale of trading driving for walking.

By Lauren Steele

Walking out of the Ragtag Cinema in downtown Columbia, Missouri with a friend last August, our conversation quickly went from Silver Linings Playbook to an Ashton Kutcher film from a few years back.

“Dude, where’s your car?”

My smug chuckle was quickly gagged with a lump in my throat and the realization that my friend was not quoting the movie.  My car was gone.

We interrogated some car-towing witnesses and took a cab to a sketchy gas station, where I was reunited with my Pontiac. After writing a $160 check to retrieve it, I made a resolution—my car was getting curbed.

I had a few transportation options, such as the free shuttles that ran from my apartment complex, riding a bike, or walking. As a small-town farm girl and a dedicated runner, I considered each choice with a certain dogged stubbornness.

The shuttle seemed like a lazy option and I didn’t want to wrap my schedule around its pick-up times. My bike was a rusted out piece of unreliability, and the hills of Columbia beat most cyclists, leaving them pushing their bikes and hoofing it.

If I was going to have to walk, I figured I might as well go all or nothing, and walk the whole way. Plus, Columbia caters to pedestrians with lots of trails, great sidewalks and crosswalks that don’t favor drivers. Continue reading →

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by | August 21, 2013 · 9:00 am

My Transportation Diary: A Detailed Commute In Queens

By Micheline Maynard

Some people grow up driving, and find they change their ways once they move to the big city. Jason Reese, the director of strategic media at ArkNet Media in Garden City, New York, is one of them.

Here’s his contribution to My Transportation Diary. Check out his great photos and be sure to read all the way through for his detailed account.

Jason writes, “I am originally from rural eastern Tennessee, where the only way to reliably get anywhere is by car. Two years ago, I moved to Nassau County, Long Island to pursue graduate school. The town of Hempstead and its surrounding suburbs fall just outside of the borough of Queens and as such the NYC subway system.

The only reliable public transit option for local travel is the N.I.C.E. bus system, which is generally not so nice. As such, I kept my car for regular commutes to work and school, but often took the Long Island Railroad (LIRR) for trips into Manhattan.

Last week, I moved to Forest Hills in Queens, where I have a plethora of transit options available. Three blocks from my apartment are the E/F/M/R subway lines and a LIRR stop for Forest Hills, as well as several MTA bus connections. I still have my car, but to park in the garage around the block would be $300/month.

Parking around my apartment is metered 25 cents per 15 min from 9am-7pm and is very competitive outside those times, so I park free in a residential area about five blocks away.  Continue reading →

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by | August 18, 2013 · 10:08 pm

Teens: What Would Get You Interested In Driving?

By Micheline Maynard

Driving is down five percent nationwide since 2004, and one of the biggest reasons is a significant drop in teens on the road. Only about 28 percent of 16-year-olds get their licenses, as we’ve told you before, and teens just don’t have the lust for automobiles that their parents and grandparents had.

The NPR logo

On Sunday afternoon, I talked about the quandary this poses for the carmakers on NPR’s Weekend All Things Considered. You can listen to the show here.

There are a lot of reasons why teens are getting licenses, but we’d like to hear from our young audience. Is there anything that would make you more interested in driving? Or is it just not on your radar?

One of my Twitter followers suggested that mobile phones fill the role that cars once did. True? And if we have any car buffs, we’d be happy to hear from you. Why do cars make your heart pound?

 

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by | August 17, 2013 · 3:36 pm

10 Big Transportation Ideas: An Old Idea Returns

Did you know New York City once had streetcars? Now, other cities are getting them.

Did you know New York City once had streetcars? Now, other cities are getting them.

By Micheline Maynard

I am a streetcar geek. I’m pretty sure my love of streetcars stems from my first visit to Boston, when I was seven. We stayed a bit away from downtown, and to my delight, the T ran above ground right near the apartment hotel my dad booked for us.

Not long after, I discovered the streetcars in Toronto and from then on, I was a certified streetcar fanatic. I make it a point to ride the streetcar in any city I visit that has them. I’ve learned to navigate driving across streetcar tracks, just as these cyclists in Zurich manage to maneuver around the tracks there.

So I was delighted to learn that streetcars are making a comeback.

Minneapolis is the latest place where local officials have approved a streetcar project. It joins at least a dozen cities that are launching new streetcar lines, or expanding lines already in place. They include Atlanta, Tucson, New Orleans and Los Angeles, where streetcars will return after more than half a century away. Continue reading →

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by | August 13, 2013 · 9:32 am

The Happiest Photo We Can Imagine

KickstarterBy Micheline Maynard

Thank you. And now, the journey continues.

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by | August 10, 2013 · 5:23 pm

My Transportation Diary — Your Contribution To Curbing Cars

Send us your contributions to My Transportation Diary

Send us your contributions to My Transportation Diary

By Claudia Payne

Curbing Cars has made its Kickstarter goal. Now it’s time to get to work and we want your help with a new feature we’re calling My Transportation Diary.

Would you share with us your stories of how you get around this coming week?

What transportation choices were available to you? What combination could you choose from (car, bus, taxi, bike share, hourly rental, etc)? How did you make use of them and how did they work out?

And how did you feel about it all?

At Curbing Cars, we’ve been compiling data on the rapidly expanding networking of sharing programs, for bikes, rides and cars. In some places, public transportation has adapted. In others, it’s a weak link.

With the help of such innovations as deft new apps and collapsible bicycles, we know that people are customizing their strategies. You’re no longer just tied to a car, or limited to taking the subway. Transportation has become a portfolio. Continue reading →

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by | August 8, 2013 · 6:43 pm

She’s The Best In The West — And Now Part Of Curbing Cars

Respected journalism educator Donica Mensing has joined the Curbing Cars advisory board.

Respected journalism educator Donica Mensing has joined the Curbing Cars advisory board.

By Micheline Maynard

Journalism students at the University of Nevada, Reno, agree on one thing: they all respect and admire Donica Mensing.

She’s a savvy educator who figured out the importance of multi-media early in her academic career. She’s led scores of students to achieve terrific things on campus, and to standout professional careers.

And now, she’s part of the Curbing Cars journalism project. Donica is joining the Curbing Cars advisory board, which also includes Claudia Payne, a 30-year veteran of the New York Times.

(You have until Monday to support our Kickstarter. Click here.)

Donica will help us track trends, strategize our crowd sourcing, and incorporate student voices into Curbing Cars. She’ll be a wonderful help as we set down the journalism standards that our project will follow.

Here’s why Donica decided to join us.

“Curbing Cars represents an ongoing story unfolding at a local, regional, national and international scale,” she says “Its potential as an Ebook, as well as a continuing project illustrates the best type of in-depth journalism, incorporating careful analysis on a topic of great significance, intuitive data visualizations and interactivity.” Continue reading →

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by | August 6, 2013 · 12:09 am

From The New York Times To Curbing Cars: Our New Teammate

By Micheline Maynard

Claudia Payne, a veteran editor at The New York Times, is joining Curbing Cars.

Claudia Payne, a veteran editor at The New York Times, is joining Curbing Cars.

Claudia Payne, a veteran journalist with more than 30 years experience at The New York Times, is joining the Curbing Cars journalism project. Claudia will serve as senior editor and become the first member of the Curbing Cars advisory board. We hope to announce more board members soon.

Rick Meier and I expect that Claudia will help in many ways, leading our brainstorming sessions, providing an editor’s skilled input, helping us find story ideas and essentially providing the kind of critical help that every journalist values.

Claudia has a great reputation as an entrepreneurial journalist. She was part of the team that produced the Times‘ series on global terrorism, which won a Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting in 2002.

She also created special recurring sections for the emerging subjects of personal technology, the new wealth and philanthropy, and energy. Working together, she and I developed the Business Travel section and produced the annual Cars section.

(It was this story that I wrote for Claudia that inspired the Curbing Cars project, so you could say we owe it all to her!) Continue reading →

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by | July 29, 2013 · 9:05 am

Curbing Cars: As Seen In Monday’s New York Times

By Micheline Maynard

You’ve come to the right place. This is the Curbing Cars project that was mentioned in Monday’s New York Times Wheels blog.

Jim Motavalli looks at the University of Michigan study that says driving has been declining in the United States since 2004. There are a number of reasons, which make up what we’re studying at Curbing Cars, and Jim called to ask me about it.

Here’s some of what I had to say:

In an interview, Micheline Maynard, former Detroit bureau chief for The New York Times and author of a coming book called “Curbing Cars: Rethinking How We Get Around,” said, “Driving is definitely down, though I would certainly not say the auto industry is going away. I think it can maintain 15-million annual sales years in the United States for some time to come, although some people were predicting we’d be at 20 million vehicles by now.”

If you’re interested in this all-important subject, please support our Kickstarter, which is providing seed money for our ebook and research. We’d also love to hear your personal stories about driving less. And thanks.

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