Broke my streak

We went on vacation last week and had to take one of the dogs to a kennel. We got home on Sunday, too late to pick him up that day, so I picked him up Monday. The kennel was in the suburbs, so picking him up before or after work could have involved getting stuck in rush-hour traffic. The best option I could think of was to drive to work so I could get there early, then leave early, and pick him up on the way home. I did that, and it worked well, but I broke my biking-to-work streak and I now have driven to work once in the first six months of 2008.

This little example shows how we have set ourselves up for dependence on personal motorized transportation. Even if I had been able to find a kennel in the city, it's unlikely it would have been in walking distance of our house, and I don't think dogs are allowed on the buses. The location of the kennel we did use was not reasonably accessible by any means other than a car. Our "lifestyle" of people leaving home, living in nuclear family units, not knowing the neighbors well, meant that there was not anyone I could have recruited to pick him up.

Of course we got it to work, and I could have come up with other options, but the point is that the convenience is tilted toward automobiles. Other ways of structuring things, like denser multi-use neighborhoods, might make owning and using a car more of a nuisance, and finding a dog kennel within walking distance of home easier. We have make a choice (somewhat unconsciously) that might not have been the best.