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Do you have the option of taking public transportation or riding a bike to work, but still choose to drive for personal reasons? The D.C. Council is asking people like you to pledge to give up your car for just one day tomorrow, Tuesday, Sept. 18, for its first annual Car Free D.C. Day. If you'd like to take the Car Free Pledge, head over to Ward 6 Council member Tommy Wells' site to sign up to participate in Car Free D.C. Day. You can also pledge to participate in World Car Free Day (Sept. 22) and Car Free Week (Sept. 16-22) with the same form.
Since you're the kind of person who chooses to drive even though you don't have to, we're sure you're asking yourself, what's in it for me besides the smug self-satisfaction of being a once-a-year do gooder? Why, all kinds of free stuff, that's what! First there's the Flickr contest (tag your photos from the day's events with "DC Car Free Day"), which makes you eligible for a Car Free Day t-shirt autographed by Mayor Fenty and all the Council members. Plus there's a host of free walking tours and a '90s throwback in the form of a free inline skating lesson from the Washington Area Roadskaters. To top it all off, Bike the Sites is offering a deal on Tuesday only of $15 all-day rentals in honor of Car Free D.C. Day.
The Council is also hosting a World Car Free Day event on Sept. 22 on 17th Street NW between P and Q Streets, where information booths will be set up to help people learn about options for making a car free commitment more long term. Do you think you'll participate? Let us know how in the comments.
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Of course I will participate, I am car free like 95% of the time anyway. I don't own a car! I walk and metro to work, walk to grocery store, etc., but sometimes borrow a car for longer trips to non-metro places, like once a month or so.
So is anyone on the Council besides Wells and Mendelson giving up their car for the day? Or is this one of those things like paying parking tickets that the Council exempts themselves from?
Hopefully this means less traffic for me on my way to work tomorrow.
On the CarFree DC website it says "Bike the Sites is offering free rentals to... DC city council members" on CarFree Day.
FUCK THIS .. the metro is over crowded as it is ... jackasses
I'd be much more likely to participate in something like this if I didn't drive because I need to take BabyRat to daycare. This is nice idea, but many of us drive out of necessity not laziness.
yeah, I'll try thumbing a ride to Baltimore tomorrow. um, not.
guess i should plan on doubling my morning commute.
Hillrat & Everett: I would've thought the first sentence of the post would preclude comments like these, but apparently not? For some people it's not feasible to do without a car, even for a day, and I'd wager that the organizers of this event understand that.
I know, I just wish I didn't have to drive everyday. So I take it as my prerogative to be cranky.
Then again, I really don't miss the stripe of wet shit up my ass when I used to get stuck biking in the rain.
How incredibly frustrating!! The ONE day I have to drive (got an interview up in Bethesda) - as I always walk/bus/metro every other day - is Car Free Day!! Argh!! T'aint fair!
Mellbell - What is the comments section of DCist for, if not to bitch about nothing?
Anybody worried that this might have the opposite effect? A couple thousand drivers give Metro a try, only to be trapped between Mr. Stink E. Mcbuttpoo who hasn't washed his junk since the Mckinley administration and the tween with the cellphone grafted to her head talking about, y'know, like, about, y'know, like, whatever. Then there's the inevitable Red Line delays and the suspicious packages and the elevator outages and the 20-minute transfer at Federal Center and they all yell eff this noise and go screaming back to their cars.
I might decide to take the bus, but I'm not trusting the shitty, unreliable Metro to get me to work and back on time. Is it just me, or has it been particularly bad this summer?
I kept the car parked for two years and took Metro everywhere, but lately, I don't dare use it unless I have an extra 30 minutes to 2 hours built into my schedule.
"I might decide to take the bus, but I'm not trusting the shitty, unreliable Metro to get me to work and back on time."
You trust the Metrobus over the Metro train? Boy, not I. I take the Red Line every day to work, and can count on one hand the number of times I've been inconvenienced this year. But the handful of times I've taken the bus somewhere, there is *always* a problem. The bus is late (or early, equally annoying), driver parks the bus and waits because he/she is due for a break and the other driver isn't there yet, bus breaks down, bus is forced to stop on every block and misses every light and a 12 block commute takes 25 minutes, etc.
in spite of all of the criticism flung towards it, my experience with Metrorail has, for the most part, been positive. I *cannot* say the same for Metrobus.
One issue I have is that people are constantly telling me that metro is superior to my car, but...
I drive my wife to work
I drop off two kids at two schools.
So I leave my house every day with 4 people in the car.
I mean... every day there's "Something" I need to do after picking the kids up, whether it's the cvs, library, grocery store or dinner pick-up, I haven't had a "normal" commute since the baby went to daycare.
I remember reading on the metro and loving it, but that was before I got married and had kids.
so in all seriousness, I picked up Jr from school thursday and his teacher asked me why we didn't bring in a disposable camera for the class project on Friday, even though we did and I handed it to the teacher, who LOST IT, I had to run off to CVS to replace it right from school. Or I had to pick up my exhausted wife from Dulles w/ the kids so they could meet her at the terminal when they wanted to... how the hell was I going to do that between 5:30pm and 6:15 when her plane landed if I didn't get on the access road?
I think it's great that people consider non-car commutes, but there is a reason that so many middle agers and parents commute via cars in the suburbs (or for me, in DC) and that's because June Cleaver isn't at home making dinner and watching the kids, so Ward Cleaver has to drive at 5. You cannot both have women's emancipation from house-slavery and a non-car lifestyle. Not possible.
I drop my kid off at school but he rides on the bicycle with me. I spend all day feeling superior to everyone around me.
I'm going to be car-free tomorrow. In fact I started being car-free early this afternoon. I was so excited about the prospect I had my radiator spring a leak somewhere north of Laurel while I was on my way back from Baltimore.
Oh wait, that wasn't a conscious choice at all.
Anyway, I'm a District resident and I work from home, but I still have to drive the car every Tuesday for most of the year. I have to get in, start it up, and park it on the opposite side of the street so I don't get a $30 ticket on Wednesday. But not tomorrow! It's already out of reach of DC parking enforcement. I'll show them!
"You trust the Metrobus over the Metro train? Boy, not I."
At least I know that Metrobus won't likely be on schedule. On the other hand, Metrorail's reliability is completely unpredictable. I'd rather spend time being late for work on a bus aboveground, than stand on a dangerously overcrowded, un-air conditioned Metro platform for 45 minutes, while the the PA announcer repeatedly mentions that they are experiencing "minor delays," and the WMATA Web site says that there are no delays at all.
I drop my kid off at school but he rides on the bicycle with me.
I've ridden my bike to work sporadically, but DC drivers are far too harried, careless, and thoughtless for me to take BabyRat to work with me on a bicycle. I'll take a chance with my own life on bike in rush hour traffic, but not the little one.