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Alternative Transit
In the United States, the amount of energy we consume is atrocious. Period. We now live in an era in which
using air conditioning when it is 80 degrees outside is acceptable. Only a select few think twice about hopping into the car to grab a cup of coffee two blocks away instead of running, walking, or biking.
From a production standpoint, the majority of our energy is produced by way of fossil fuels and the ability to shift to "greener" behaviors is hindered by cost, convenience, and the perpetuation of an array of social
norms (e.g., the luxurious car as the symbol of success).
As indicated elsewhere, I am intensely interested in Global Climate Change. In the documentary Eleventh Hour, one of the interviewees explains that we do not have a global climate problem, but a global climate symptom. Understanding global climate change in this light recognizes that the phenomena is not some physical problem disconnected from the social. Rather, global climate change (not discounting the "natural" variations of climate) is the symptom of the agglomeration of social (human) behaviors. As explained on my climate change page, I believe that for us to confront climate change, we must think critically about the rationalities that underpin our behaviors. On this particular page, I focus on issues surrounding personal transit. In the paragraphs that follow, I have included excerpts from an essay that I wrote regarding an experiment that I undertook from 2005-2007. While I did not entirely understand what I was doing at the time, a course that I took in the Spring of 2008 helped make sense of my experiences and emotions. I welcome any questions or feedback.
730 Days without a Car
"I don't know why are you doing this! You know, you are walking the line of eccentricity."
-My Mother, sometime in September 2005
I remember the moment clearly. Shortly after starting graduate school in the fall of 2005, it became painfully clear that I was unable to concurrently live on a sub-$1,000 budget and own a car. I was standing at the Notary's Office preparing to hand my keys over to its new owner when a feeling of shame, guilt, and intense failure came over me. I wanted to run over the family who had just purchased my car and explain to them that there had been a mistake; the car was not for sale. As I walked out to my parent's car to drive home, I remember fighting back tears, even though I was completely puzzled why I felt the way I did.
In this particular paper, I wish to address the macro scale, hegemonic norms that surround high automobile ownership rates in the United States. According to a recent report, there are 487 cars per 1,000 individuals in the United States, and this includes those who are unable to drive. To come to a greater understanding as to how my particular practices either play into, or work against the reproduction of these norms, I draw an ensemble of events that transpired over the past two years of my life. In short, I have shifted from a proud automobile reliant individual to someone who no longer owns a vehicle and drives a car less than 1,000 miles per year. The title of this paper represents a 2-year project in which I confronted the norm that living without a car in the United States is impossible. Furthermore, I examine the underlying rationality behind these norms and discuss just a few of the thousands of techniques of governance that perpetuate high automobile ownership.
Like most suburban children, 16 represented the golden age in which I was able to gain greater control over my mobility. It represented an opportunity to ascend a few notches up the social ladder and a foray into a better dating life. There was hardly a question of what I would do with the $4,000 dollars I had saved working various jobs. I bought a car within just a few months of turning 16. Until nearly 10 years later, I never questioned using a car to drive to a particular place or the thousands of dollars, I was spending on insurance, payments and maintenance to be a car owner. It was simply another set of payments one made. The practices with which I engaged clearly contributed to the norm that "automobile ownership is necessary" of which I later became so critical.
After working for two years in rural Pennsylvania as a meteorologist, I returned to Columbus, strapped with a smaller monthly salary and a bourgeoning interest in environmental issues. While preparing my monthly budget, I passed over the "Car" line a dozen times, cutting expenses on far more necessary items before asking, "Do I really need a car to live?" It was this questioning that eventually led to a vast number of behavioral changes such as utilizing public transit and biking with greater regularity to eventually living without owning an automobile. Yet, as we have discussed in class, and as Foucault explains in "What is Critique?" questioning the rationality behind these norms and changing one's practices is not only difficult, but as embodied in the opening paragraph of this paper, frightening. The tactics and techniques that underscore the governmentalities surrounding automobile ownership are incredibly formidable.
It is through these techniques of governance that the ensemble of rationalities underscoring automobile ownership becomes clear. First, let us work "backward" and start with the results of these techniques of governance. Our cities are constructed in such a way that, with few exceptions, walking, utilizing public transit, and cycling are inconvenient, time-consuming or dangerous. Interstates carve through the urban fabric, isolating neighborhoods. Public transit networks are slow and partial, covering only a small fraction of the city. Bike lanes, and in some cases, sidewalks are a rarity. Thousands of children grow up in isolated suburban neighborhoods, unable to go anywhere without riding in a car. So, what are the techniques of governance that have at least provided the appearance that our cities are not traversable without an automobile?
While I do not have the time or the energy to provide an extensive genealogy of the increasing "automobilization" of the typical U.S. city, it is through such an investigation that one unearths the discursive formations that support these tactics. However, to demonstrate how this works and to understand just a few of the thousands of techniques of governance surrounding high automobile ownership, I will provide an abridged version.
The early U.S. mercantile city of the 1840s was small, and compact. Individuals lived within walking distance of their place of employment and the center of the city was the privileged place to be. By the rise of the early Industrial City, increasing wealth among the industrial elite made it possible to own private transportation (typically by horsecar) so that the elite could live father from their place of work. As transit became increasingly affordable to greater numbers of people, the suburbs exploded with middle and upper-middle class seeking the lives of the elite. Thus, the association with wealth and moving "up and out" became the objective of the American dream.
As new forms of production developed in the early 1900s (Fordism) in conjunction with the invention of the private automobile, special interests (especially residential developers, oil, and tire companies) worked hard to implant the automobile as the mode of transportation toward their own profitability.
The initial hemorrhaging of the largely white, middle/upper-class from cities only exacerbated and reified particular norms regarding the city. The automobile became, and continues to be the symbol of success, sexiness, and mobility.
We are constantly bombarded with car ads that illustrate how much better life will be if we own this or that car. A recent Cadillac commercial shows an attractive woman driving quickly through the streets of New York (of course devoid of traffic) and asks, staring seductively into the camera, "The question is: ‘when you turn on your car, does it return the favor?'" Furthermore, when one purchases a car, the total cost of owning the car is carefully masked behind low interest rates and inflated mileage standards.
The techniques of governance regarding automobile ownership certainly fall to the exercise of power relationships "outside" of the state or particular state institutions. Obviously, the automobile industry, through advertisements and lobbying for subsidized oil prices and road improvements provides tactics that reinforce particular norms. However, the techniques of governance fall into much finer channels, and shape far more mundane processes than purchasing a car. It was not until I began biking and walking everywhere that these practices became evident. While working at Cup O' Joe, for example, I was unable to advance into a management role because I did not own a car. I was told at one point, had the company known that I did not have a car, I probably would not have been hired! Nearly all job applications, particularly low-wage jobs, require applicants to explain how they will be getting to and from work. Lack of access to private transportation is frequently used as an excuse to deny someone a job.
Consider other tactics: if a young adult expects to consume alcohol, withdraw money from a teller, apply for a loan, or purchase a house, a driver license is required. While a state-issued ID card is valid, many restaurants, banks, and mortgage will not accept these forms of I.D. without a hassle. While a driver license does not require one to own a car, one must at least know how to drive to obtain a license and all BMV offices, (at least in Columbus) are not easily accessible by bus, bike or foot. Finally, except in very large cities, one needs a car to buy appliances, and many other everyday goods. Delivery is either extremely expensive, or unavailable for most businesses.
It is through the evaluation of these techniques that I am able to both identify the dominant rationality underscoring these techniques and make better sense of my own wave of emotions that accompanied the sale of my vehicle. The rationality that underscores these techniques largely centers on conspicuous consumption. Conspicuous consumption (regardless of the value attributed to particular practices embodying it) plays a role in how we understand our own subjectivities. The sense of failure that overwhelmed me as I sold my car was consistent with this rationality; despite the incredible financial, health and social benefits of giving up my automobile, I felt as thought I was giving up a material emblem of success; I was moving backward.
It was only through "care of the self," and critiquing these emotions and the practices that accompanied this event for me to develop new truths regarding what it means to own, or rather to not own an automobile.
In conclusion, I would like to discuss the usefulness of this type of self-reflection not only for me, but to others as well. Through my own questioning of the truths regarding automobile ownership, others close to me have followed suit in their own ways. After confronting why I felt as I did when I sold my car, the changes in my personal practices regarding transit began to multiply toward shaping other choices. While it had long been a dream of mine to live in Worthington, my new truths led me to question the rationalities behind this dream. Alternatively, we bought a house in a very walkable, bike accessible neighborhood south of downtown. Instead of immediately hopping into the car and heading to Target or Home Depot, we first look for local, family owned businesses that might be within walking or biking distance to satisfy our material needs.
While questioning "taken-for-granted" practices and systems of knowing has been incredibly beneficial for me, the most rewarding part of this entire process has been watching others question their understandings of automobile ownership as well. While working at Cup O' Joe in 2005, several of my colleagues drove to work despite living within a few miles. Since this time, two of my colleagues have also sold their automobiles, while another now exclusively bikes or walks to work. In a recent discussion, one of my colleagues explained, "Now that I have been biking to work, I think about how ridiculous it is that I didn't start this earlier." Both of my colleagues who sold their car also succumbed to similar emotions of shame and guilt as they sold their cars, but through discussion and internalization of each other's experiences (like a ba!), we found comfort in collectively questioning these norms and imagining the alteration of other truths and practices.
Through reading Foucault and engaging with the various case studies, I have been able to tease out what has transpired in my life regarding my transit choices over the past two years. As it turns out, my form of resistance (though I did not really understand it as such until this course) was consistent with Foucault's understanding if resistance. Had I understood this earlier, I might have been able to come to more easily terms with the emotions I felt when I sold my car. While my 730 days has ended, I have continued to engage with these new sets of practices. This course has demonstrated that there is no "point of arrival" of resistance. Caring of the self necessarily involves continuously critiquing the everyday assumptions that prop up our mundane practices.
This is an incredibly important issue to me. I welcome any comments or feedback. I have added some relevant links below; some specific to Columbus, but most not.
This site does not take into account the availability of sidewalks, crime, and a number of other factors, but is a fun tool nonetheless. How "walk" friendly is your address? How about your workplace or friends' houses?
Third Hand Bicycle Co-op (Columbus)
I had the opportunity to check this place out in October after a Critical Mass Ride. This place looks like they have it together with lots of opportunities to volunteer, join in on some rides, help make Columbus a more bike-friendly city, and more. It is located on 5th Avenue, just east of Summit Street.
Waiting for a bus in the rain, cold, sleet, and/or snow sucks. However, now that the buses have GPS systems onboard, you can determine in real-time whether your bus will be early, late, or on-time. Can someone please create a Google Earth Extension?!
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