The Driving Dilemma

So many of the green blogs are written by folks who live in cities, and they are, rightly, huge proponents of biking or walking to work. I have read that you should not drive to any destination within 2 miles of your house. Here's my problem: there is no destination within 2 miles of my house. Because I live several miles outside a small village, in the boondocks. There are advantages -- lots of space to grow my own vegetables, harbor wildlife, plant trees, and enjoy the peace and quiet. My neighbors don't care if I have 3 yards of compost in a pile beside the driveway for a couple of weeks, in fact they don't care what I do at all because they can't see it from their houses. We have our own well that we have never been able to draw down, so there are no issues with the quantity or quality of our water.

But the driving dilemma... I actually work in the small village that is 5 miles from my house. And I could and do ride my bike that far during the two months of decent weather that is called summer in the Adirondacks. But since I'm a teacher, I don't actually have to commute in July and August. Technically, I could bike to work in September and June. 5 miles is far enough that I would get sweaty though, and there's no place to shower once I get to work, plus I need to be dressed up for work, so I'd have to carry clothes in such a way that they wouldn't get too wrinkled. I frequently bring home bulky heavy "homework" that needs to be transported. Since I'm a vegetarian, I also have to bring my lunch. And if I biked, I couldn't do many of my errands on the way home.

It gets worse from October through May. It's dark in the morning when I go in, and there are no street lights in the country. There are, however, roads with speed limits of 45 - 55 miles an hour without shoulders (or even lines down the middle), and a whole bunch of unleashed dogs that I hesitate to encounter in the daylight, let alone when I can't see them coming. Once snow falls (November - April) it would be downright dangerous to try to share the road with cars and trucks. The snowbanks make the road narrower and eliminate the possibility of moving into the grass to avoid traffic.

If this sounds like a litany of excuses, well, it is. But I have contemplated biking to work many times, and keep coming to the conclusion that it might work out a handful of days during the year but not often enough to make a real difference. I will continue to do other things to reduce my environmental impact and work harder at what I can do that folks in cities can't -- like growing more of our food.

The best thing I did to reduce my driving was to quit a job that was 30 miles from home for one that is 5 miles from home. I try to do business locally when possible and to combine errands whenever I can. But I won't be biking to work. Sorry.