Is it possible to live in America without a car?

[Jasper Janssen]

On 1 Dec 2005 07:25:30 -0800, "[email protected]"
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Jasper Janssen wrote:
>> On 29 Nov 2005 09:59:49 -0800, [email protected] wrote:
>>
>> Sometime remind me to tell you about the border crossing between Greece
>> and Turkey that preceded it.
>
>This sounds interesting. I did a Turkey ->Greece in the late 1980's and
>slept through most of it. I do remember waking up for a moment as we
>glided by the gun emplacements and later waking up in a lone car on a
>Greek siding. Apparently our car was shunted across and the rest of the
>train remained in Turkey.

Yeah, the other way round is pretty easy. There's only one train with one
car per day that crosses the border, and the Greek trains pick up the
passengers from Turkey fairly quickly. However, there are two trains a day
that go straight from Athens to said border town. One of them arrives a
mere 3 hours or so before the car to Turkey leaves and the other one
arrives 11 hours before that.

Guess which one I picked by misreading my timetables.

Yeah. So there I am, leaving Athens fairly late at night, I arrive in the
little border town at not long after dawn, not having slept much, not
having anything much to eat with me and I find out... that my train leaves
at 15:30. This station, since you probably didn't get so great a look at
it, was an utter ghost place. Nothing open in the way of shops, no trains
whatsoever coming or going, nobody even keeping an eye on it. I was there
with an englishman teaching English as a Second Language in Istanbul who
was in the same boat, so we took turns watching our bags so we could
explore a little. About a kilometre down the road was the real town, which
was just as sleepy. There was a small Byzantine stronghold there which was
being restored with EU money. That was pretty much it.

Oh, yes, and along the road between town and station were an awful lot of
restaurants with large terraces out front, presumably for tables and
chairs, that were utterly deserted. I finally managed to convince one of
them to sell me some ice cream.

I ended up buying some emergency supplies at the Turkish border station on
the other side, and arrived in Istanbul at midnight. I was lucky enough to
find a tout at the station who could take me to a hostel right beside the
station where I could have a private room for 10 euros a night, including
breakfast, and I had a good time there. But jesus, is that Greek border
town *boring*.


Jasper

 

[[email protected]]

Jasper Janssen wrote:
> On 1 Dec 2005 07:25:30 -0800, "[email protected]"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >Jasper Janssen wrote:
> >> On 29 Nov 2005 09:59:49 -0800, [email protected] wrote:
> >>
> >> Sometime remind me to tell you about the border crossing between Greece
> >> and Turkey that preceded it.
> >
> >This sounds interesting. I did a Turkey ->Greece in the late 1980's and
> >slept through most of it. I do remember waking up for a moment as we
> >glided by the gun emplacements and later waking up in a lone car on a
> >Greek siding. Apparently our car was shunted across and the rest of the
> >train remained in Turkey.
>
> Yeah, the other way round is pretty easy. There's only one train with one
> car per day that crosses the border, and the Greek trains pick up the
> passengers from Turkey fairly quickly. However, there are two trains a day
> that go straight from Athens to said border town. One of them arrives a
> mere 3 hours or so before the car to Turkey leaves and the other one
> arrives 11 hours before that.

This sounds familiar. I thought I was on an overnight through train to
Salonika. We did not even have an engine AFAIK when we crossed the
border. As I mentioned earlier I believe we were shunted across. We
arrived at about 06:00 and the Greek train came by at about 11:00.

>
> Guess which one I picked by misreading my timetables.

It appens. I just barely manged to get the "Express" from Salonika to
Athens the next day because a chance-met other Canadian said that he
thought I should be able to get a better train and he was right. This
was all back in the late 1980's and I understand that at least the
Salonika-Athens run has newer and faster trains.


> Yeah. So there I am, leaving Athens fairly late at night, I arrive in the
> little border town at not long after dawn, not having slept much, not
> having anything much to eat with me and I find out... that my train leaves
> at 15:30.

Just like me except in the other direction. Mind you we had also had a
02:30 passport check that required all foreigners to disembark and
stumble over to some office.

This station, since you probably didn't get so great a look at
> it, was an utter ghost place. Nothing open in the way of shops, no trains
> whatsoever coming or going, nobody even keeping an eye on it.

When I was there there was a post office /snack bar which I think was
actually open. And a fountain and a monument to the fallen of a French
infantry regiment.

> I was there
> with an englishman teaching English as a Second Language in Istanbul who
> was in the same boat, so we took turns watching our bags so we could
> explore a little. About a kilometre down the road was the real town, which
> was just as sleepy. There was a small Byzantine stronghold there which was
> being restored with EU money. That was pretty much it.

I didn't even find that. I must say the village reminded me of small
Northen Ontario towns (villages)
>
> Oh, yes, and along the road between town and station were an awful lot of
> restaurants with large terraces out front, presumably for tables and
> chairs, that were utterly deserted. I finally managed to convince one of
> them to sell me some ice cream.

Luxury. I think I got a coffee at the p>ost office and finally got
something to eat a the somewhat primative snackbar on the train.


> I ended up buying some emergency supplies at the Turkish border station on
> the other side, and arrived in Istanbul at midnight. I was lucky enough to
> find a tout at the station who could take me to a hostel right beside the
> station where I could have a private room for 10 euros a night, including
> breakfast, and I had a good time there. But jesus, is that Greek border
> town *boring*.
>
> Jasper

Boring hardly comes close IIRC the only sign of life was a team of
three men trying to move a freight car using pry bars. Not wildly
stimulating.
John Kane, Kingston ON Canada

 

[Matt O'Toole]

On Fri, 02 Dec 2005 11:59:52 +0000, Dan Connelly wrote:

> I've never owned a car, so obviously it is.

Sometimes it seems I've spent most of my life in cars (20k+ mi/yr), but
I've been living (mostly) without them for almost 4 years. So far so
good.

> Issues:

> * I rent a car for occasional needs (typically going to cycling events,
> ironically)

I usually carpool with other bike club members. We're all good friends
anyway. I rent cars to meet with clients, or to travel to visit family,
etc.

* shop for food often, rather than weekly. It's better that
> way, anyway -- less accumulation
> of stuff I'll never eat, anyway, and fresher food.

This is true. Most people rely too much on convenience foods, which take
up too much space with all their packaging. I cook entirely from scratch,
the only packaged goods being a few canned staples like tomatoes. So my
grocery loads are very compact. They can be pretty heavy though! If I
had further to go, panniers or a trailer would make sense. But I don't.

> * I
use a courier bag for hauling stuff. I could use a trailer for
> larger loads, but I
> just don't have need for that.

Two loads a week with a medium-sized backpack does it for me.

> * Obviously, one needs to choose where to live giving considerable
> weight to compatibility
> with a minimal-car lifestyle. This tends to trade off quality for
> quantity.

This is true, but I would choose these areas to begin with, even if I
didn't ride a bike.

Matt O.

 

[Jasper Janssen]

On 2 Dec 2005 10:39:11 -0800, "[email protected]"
<[email protected]> wrote:
>Jasper Janssen wrote:
>> On 1 Dec 2005 07:25:30 -0800, "[email protected]"
>> <[email protected]> wrote:

>> Yeah, the other way round is pretty easy. There's only one train with one
>> car per day that crosses the border, and the Greek trains pick up the
>> passengers from Turkey fairly quickly. However, there are two trains a day
>> that go straight from Athens to said border town. One of them arrives a
>> mere 3 hours or so before the car to Turkey leaves and the other one
>> arrives 11 hours before that.
>
>This sounds familiar. I thought I was on an overnight through train to
>Salonika. We did not even have an engine AFAIK when we crossed the
>border. As I mentioned earlier I believe we were shunted across. We
>arrived at about 06:00 and the Greek train came by at about 11:00.

Well, the car that I was on did get pushed both ways by an engine, I
believe both the car and the engine were Turkish Rail or whatever they
call themselves. The car, at least, continued on for the rest of the route
after the passport check, but the rest of the train was hooked on first.

>> Guess which one I picked by misreading my timetables.
>
>It appens. I just barely manged to get the "Express" from Salonika to
>Athens the next day because a chance-met other Canadian said that he
>thought I should be able to get a better train and he was right. This
>was all back in the late 1980's and I understand that at least the
>Salonika-Athens run has newer and faster trains.

I came to Athens by ferry from Italy, and I can tell you that the
Peloponnesos round-journey trains are pretty awful by comparison to those
in the rest of Greece.

>> Yeah. So there I am, leaving Athens fairly late at night, I arrive in the
>> little border town at not long after dawn, not having slept much, not
>> having anything much to eat with me and I find out... that my train leaves
>> at 15:30.
>
>Just like me except in the other direction. Mind you we had also had a
>02:30 passport check that required all foreigners to disembark and
>stumble over to some office.

Ah yes, that happened to me when I left Turkey again -- Istanbul to
Bucharest-Romania via Bulgaria. I believe it was the Turkey/Bulgaria
border. Most trains they just come by your compartment to check your
bleary eyes and the hand holding your passport out to them. There, it's
2:30 or 3:30 or so, they wake you up (I got a sleeper cabin to myself for
a few measly euros on top of the Interrail train card) and don't tell you
that it's gonna be cold and you'd better put all your kit back on before
marching out.

At least on that trip I had a lovely cabin all to myself, a good bed, and
I bought lots of candy and other edibles in Istanbul.

>This station, since you probably didn't get so great a look at
>> it, was an utter ghost place. Nothing open in the way of shops, no trains
>> whatsoever coming or going, nobody even keeping an eye on it.
>
>When I was there there was a post office /snack bar which I think was
>actually open. And a fountain and a monument to the fallen of a French
>infantry regiment.

The monument with the fountain was at the Athens-side, road-side of the
station wasn't it? I think I spotted that one. They did eventually open up
a little counter with water and a few snacks and stale sandwiches in the
station itself, but that was when it was getting pretty close to leaving
time anyway.

>> I was there
>> with an englishman teaching English as a Second Language in Istanbul who
>> was in the same boat, so we took turns watching our bags so we could
>> explore a little. About a kilometre down the road was the real town, which
>> was just as sleepy. There was a small Byzantine stronghold there which was
>> being restored with EU money. That was pretty much it.
>
>I didn't even find that. I must say the village reminded me of small
>Northen Ontario towns (villages)

Never been there. Many of the houses in the village looked abandoned,
actually.

>> Oh, yes, and along the road between town and station were an awful lot of
>> restaurants with large terraces out front, presumably for tables and
>> chairs, that were utterly deserted. I finally managed to convince one of
>> them to sell me some ice cream.
>
>Luxury. I think I got a coffee at the p>ost office and finally got
>something to eat a the somewhat primative snackbar on the train.

Well, I could even pay them with Euros, by then. It wasn't even
particularly cheap. Unlike Turkey and Romania, incidentally (although when
I was briefly in Budapest I was hitting relatively high prices again -- a
hotel room with bath, both of which I really, really, really needed at
that point, cost me the equivalent of 40 euros).

>> I ended up buying some emergency supplies at the Turkish border station on
>> the other side, and arrived in Istanbul at midnight. I was lucky enough to
>> find a tout at the station who could take me to a hostel right beside the
>> station where I could have a private room for 10 euros a night, including
>> breakfast, and I had a good time there. But jesus, is that Greek border
>> town *boring*.

>Boring hardly comes close IIRC the only sign of life was a team of
>three men trying to move a freight car using pry bars. Not wildly
>stimulating.

You had men working to watch? Luxury!


Jasper

 

[[email protected]]

Jasper Janssen writes:

>>> Yeah, the other way round is pretty easy. There's only one train
>>> with one car per day that crosses the border, and the Greek trains
>>> pick up the passengers from Turkey fairly quickly. However, there
>>> are two trains a day that go straight from Athens to said border
>>> town. One of them arrives a mere 3 hours or so before the car to
>>> Turkey leaves and the other one arrives 11 hours before that.

>> This sounds familiar. I thought I was on an overnight through train
>> to Salonika. We did not even have an engine AFAIK when we crossed
>> the border. As I mentioned earlier I believe we were shunted
>> across. We arrived at about 06:00 and the Greek train came by at
>> about 11:00.

> Well, the car that I was on did get pushed both ways by an engine, I
> believe both the car and the engine were Turkish Rail or whatever
> they call themselves. The car, at least, continued on for the rest
> of the route after the passport check, but the rest of the train was
> hooked on first.

>>> Guess which one I picked by misreading my timetables.

>> It appens. I just barely manged to get the "Express" from Salonika
>> to Athens the next day because a chance-met other Canadian said
>> that he thought I should be able to get a better train and he was
>> right. This was all back in the late 1980's and I understand that
>> at least the Salonika-Athens run has newer and faster trains.

> I came to Athens by ferry from Italy, and I can tell you that the
> Peloponnesos round-journey trains are pretty awful by comparison to
> those in the rest of Greece.

>>> Yeah. So there I am, leaving Athens fairly late at night, I arrive
>>> in the little border town at not long after dawn, not having slept
>>> much, not having anything much to eat with me and I find
>>> out... that my train leaves at 15:30.

>> Just like me except in the other direction. Mind you we had also
>> had a 02:30 passport check that required all foreigners to
>> disembark and stumble over to some office.

> Ah yes, that happened to me when I left Turkey again -- Istanbul to
> Bucharest-Romania via Bulgaria. I believe it was the Turkey/Bulgaria
> border. Most trains they just come by your compartment to check your
> bleary eyes and the hand holding your passport out to them. There,
> it's 2:30 or 3:30 or so, they wake you up (I got a sleeper cabin to
> myself for a few measly euros on top of the Interrail train card)
> and don't tell you that it's gonna be cold and you'd better put all
> your kit back on before marching out.

You might fine some appropriate pictures under Tr (Turkey) or Gr
(Greece) with links to the stations you most likely encountered at
this web site:

http://www.railfaneurope.net/pix_frameset.html

Jobst Brandt

 

[[email protected]]

Ben Pfaff wrote:
> [email protected] writes:
>
> > Here's an example: I lived in the SF bay area for several years. I
> > requently had to fly out for business trips. The bay area has 2 major
> > airports and 3 train systems. None of the train systems connect to
> > either of the airports.
>
> Not true. BART connects to SFO. There is a free shuttle bus
> between Santa Clara Caltrain and SJC. (I never go to Oakland
> airport so no idea there.)

There is a (free?) bus from Oakland airport to BART.
BART was extended to SFO relatively recently, explaining the
difference between you and the previous poster.

Airports aren't a fatal problem, because there is usually private
transportation even if not public - lots of travelers have to get to
and from the airport without a car, even if they have one in the
family, or just if they don't want to pay for two weeks of airport
parking. In areas with something like Supershuttle, it's only
moderately expensive. (Supershuttles drive me crazy, but they
are a lot cheaper than taxis.) For trips that happen rarely, this
kind of thing is acceptable. It's the everyday stuff that's annoying
if you don't have a car.

In the city where I grew up, poorer neighborhoods had informal
jitney cabs that would do things like take people to the supermarket
(which of course are rare in poorer neighborhoods) for less money
than an official cab, and take them home too. The assumption
that everyone has a car is both recent and often driven by affluence
and suburbia. If you ask, "is it possible to live in America without
a car?" the answer is obviously yes. If you ask, "is it possible to
live a comfortable middle-class existence in America without a
car?" it requires more special dedication.

 

[Tom Keats]

In article <[email protected]>,
Matt O'Toole <[email protected]> writes:

> * shop for food often, rather than weekly. It's better that
>> way, anyway -- less accumulation
>> of stuff I'll never eat, anyway, and fresher food.
>
> This is true. Most people rely too much on convenience foods, which take
> up too much space with all their packaging. I cook entirely from scratch,
> the only packaged goods being a few canned staples like tomatoes. So my
> grocery loads are very compact. They can be pretty heavy though! If I
> had further to go, panniers or a trailer would make sense. But I don't.

Actually I don't mind making multiple grocery shopping trips.
I get better quality stuff from specialty shops than from
one-stop supermarkets, I can keep better track of my
refrigerator/larder/spice rack inventory, I'm less likely to
forget obtaining something, and riding is less of a chore when
the loads aren't too heavy.

By using this multiple-trip approach I've come to the conclusions
that Leon's kosher chickens indeed make way better soup than Safeway
chickens, and I can spend way too much money at The Cheese Place
(but their wares are so irrisistable.)

One of these days I've gotta check out the Red Square Bakery. Maybe
treat myself to some potato & spinach & broccoli peroshkas, and a
loaf or two of that ponderous Russian black rye bread. I don't mind
making a 20Km round trip for just a loaf of good bread.


cheers,
Tom

--
-- Nothing is safe from me.
Above address is just a spam midden.
I'm really at: tkeats [curlicue] vcn [point] bc [point] ca

 

[[email protected]]

Jasper Janssen wrote:
> On 2 Dec 2005 10:39:11 -0800, "[email protected]"
> <[email protected]> wrote:
> >Jasper Janssen wrote:
> >> On 1 Dec 2005 07:25:30 -0800, "[email protected]"
> >> <[email protected]> wrote:


> Well, the car that I was on did get pushed both ways by an engine, I
> believe both the car and the engine were Turkish Rail or whatever they
> call themselves. The car, at least, continued on for the rest of the route
> after the passport check, but the rest of the train was hooked on first.

I think Turkey-Greece relations may be a bit better since I was there.


>
> I came to Athens by ferry from Italy, and I can tell you that the
> Peloponnesos round-journey trains are pretty awful by comparison to those
> in the rest of Greece.

Then the Athens - Salonika units definately have been replaced. The
train to Salonika from the border was pretty grim. It looked better
than some Egyptian trains I had seen but it was pretty obviously about
ready for the scrap heap.

> >Just like me except in the other direction. Mind you we had also had a
> >02:30 passport check that required all foreigners to disembark and
> >stumble over to some office.
>
> Ah yes, that happened to me when I left Turkey again -- Istanbul to
> Bucharest-Romania via Bulgaria. I believe it was the Turkey/Bulgaria
> border. Most trains they just come by your compartment to check your
> bleary eyes and the hand holding your passport out to them. There, it's
> 2:30 or 3:30 or so, they wake you up (I got a sleeper cabin to myself for
> a few measly euros on top of the Interrail train card) and don't tell you
> that it's gonna be cold and you'd better put all your kit back on before
> marching out.

Sounds familiar, but the weird thing was that we did this hours away
from the Turkish-Greek border.
I cannot remember if there was any kind of customs or immigration on
the Greek side. I don't know where my old passport is so I cannot
check to see if I actually got a stamp. Somehow I think I did at the
post office.

> >When I was there there was a post office /snack bar which I think was
> >actually open. And a fountain and a monument to the fallen of a French
> >infantry regiment.
>
> The monument with the fountain was at the Athens-side, road-side of the
> station wasn't it? I think I spotted that one. They did eventually open up
> a little counter with water and a few snacks and stale sandwiches in the
> station itself, but that was when it was getting pretty close to leaving
> time anyway.

That's definately the place Pythos or something like that?
>
> >> I was there
> >> with an englishman teaching English as a Second Language in Istanbul who
> >> was in the same boat, so we took turns watching our bags so we could
> >> explore a little. About a kilometre down the road was the real town, which
> >> was just as sleepy. There was a small Byzantine stronghold there which was
> >> being restored with EU money. That was pretty much it.
> >
> >I didn't even find that. I must say the village reminded me of small
> >Northen Ontario towns (villages)
>
> Never been there. Many of the houses in the village looked abandoned,
> actually.

Depending on what town in Northern Ontario you're in that may be true
too but it was more the slightly wild country side and the trees. Also
I was there in late April and it was a bit chilly for me and that too
reminded me of Northern Ontario.

> >> Oh, yes, and along the road between town and station were an awful lot of
> >> restaurants with large terraces out front, presumably for tables and
> >> chairs, that were utterly deserted. I finally managed to convince one of
> >> them to sell me some ice cream.
> >
> >Luxury. I think I got a coffee at the p>ost office and finally got
> >something to eat a the somewhat primative snackbar on the train.
>
> Well, I could even pay them with Euros, by then. It wasn't even
> particularly cheap. Unlike Turkey and Romania, incidentally (although when
> I was briefly in Budapest I was hitting relatively high prices again -- a
> hotel room with bath, both of which I really, really, really needed at
> that point, cost me the equivalent of 40 euros).

Euros had not been invented when I was there. I think I managed to
cash a cheque at the post office. For some stupid reason I forgot or
it didn't occcur to me to get some drachmas before we pulled out of
Istanbul.

> >> I ended up buying some emergency supplies at the Turkish border station on
> >> the other side, and arrived in Istanbul at midnight. I was lucky enough to
> >> find a tout at the station who could take me to a hostel right beside the
> >> station where I could have a private room for 10 euros a night, including
> >> breakfast, and I had a good time there. But jesus, is that Greek border
> >> town *boring*.
>
> >Boring hardly comes close IIRC the only sign of life was a team of
> >three men trying to move a freight car using pry bars. Not wildly
> >stimulating.
>
> You had men working to watch? Luxury!
>
>
> Jasper
John Kane, Kingston ON Canada