Driving Less
I took the car in for regular maintenance yesterday and they laughed at my odometer reading. It appears that we’ve only driven about 2000km in the last 8 months! This is pretty significant and has been part of our plan to reduce our environmental impact while improving our health.
In fact, there are only a few reasons we ever use the car:
- getting out of city for hiking & canoeing,
- transportation for Scouts & Guides,
- and occasionally lugging stuff around.
The car is almost a permanent fixture in the parking garage and if it weren’t for the above reasons it would probably be sitting on a used car lot somewhere.
So how do we get around? First of all, we planned the location of our home very carefully to be close to everything we need. I think the premium we had to pay for location is easily offset by fuel savings — and far more importantly — time savings, health benefits and reduced stress from not having to endure a commute. I work from home and Agnes’ lab is only a five-minute walk away, but we could easily commute to anywhere in greater Vancouver via public transit or by bicycle if this were to change.
Don’t let gas prices get you down. After all, they’re only going to go up.