If you’re a long time follower of the site or have visited our about page, you may know that Justin, Stephen Wade, and I attended Emory University down in Atlanta. When I was a sophomore I made what I thought was a prudent choice to buy a Honda Accord (which 14 years and 156,000 miles later is still in the family). With a fairly healthy 30 MPG highway, I thought it was a good decision, even though gas was 79 cents/gallon in 1998.
Recently I was back on campus for a wedding and used the bike service to borrow a bike (free of charge) to tour around. In particular, I visited Lullwater Forest, an amazing natural spot on campus. I’ve embedded a few pictures. There is no motorized traffic allowed in Lullwater and the only residence houses the president of the university. The space is fairly unique to my knowledge among college campuses. Many schools have wooded areas and extensive natural space, but this represents a significant portion of the school’s real estate.
Back to my point though. I bought a car 14 years ago instead of investing in a nice bike, used or otherwise. I lived on campus sophomore and junior years and was only about a mile and change away senior year. Why did I need a car? I guess the answer is I didn’t. I wanted a car. The question then is why did I want a car? Was it a status symbol? Was I just accustomed to having one since I grew up in the car-centric culture of Los Angeles? A bike would have been much more prudent from an economic (and environmental) perspective. Car sharing programs were not prevalent back then. Not near campus at least. There is Zim Ride now, which is advertised on bus stops around campus. In addition, the major artery bisecting campus, Clifton Road, now has a bike lane. While there are still two lanes of traffic in each direction, the far right lane is dual use. The signage along the road helps remind both bicyclists and drivers that bikes have access to the lane.
What would I tell 19 year old me? A Mark Twain quotation comes to mind, “When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished by how much he’d learned in seven years.” Would 19 year old listen to me? Would he have thought I was out of touch? It couldn’t have hurt, but I would have said, “You don’t need a car. Save the money, invest it, travel, do something worthwhile and then buy a bike for a fraction of the cost. You won’t need a car for several years.”
I didn’t know at the time, but I took a job out of the country after college and lived in New York City, two years in which I didn’t need my Honda. In the words of another literary genius, “So it goes.”
Author’s image
