{"id":173958391,"date":"2010-07-07T09:46:31","date_gmt":"2010-07-07T09:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=173958391"},"modified":"2010-07-07T09:46:31","modified_gmt":"2010-07-07T09:46:31","slug":"the-freedom-to-not-drive","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=173958391","title":{"rendered":"The Freedom to Not Drive"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>by Ben Fried<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\nAutomakers have been equating cars to \u201cthe national theme of freedom\u201d for the better part of a century, so I think advocates for sustainable transportation and livable streets are well-served by flipping that argument on its head, as Carlson suggests. It\u2019s not a tortured line of reasoning by any means. Generations of car-centric planning have, after all, yoked Americans to a transportation system that constrains the most basic elements of our lives \u2014 our time, our health, our finances, our ability to socialize with friends and neighbors.<br \/>\nIn addition to liberating people from hellish commutes, as Carlson describes, reducing car-dependence means freedom from spending more and more of our household budgets on transportation; freedom from sedentary lifestyles that are contributing to skyrocketing rates of obesity and diabetes; freedom from worrying about the safety of walking or biking. Freedom, eventually, from having to extract and use oil in ways that pose catastrophic risks to the environment.<br \/>\n&#8230;<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/streetsblog.net\/2010\/07\/06\/the-freedom-to-not-drive\/\">https:\/\/streetsblog.net\/2010\/07\/06\/the-freedom-to-not-drive\/<\/a>oldId.20100707094631755<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Ben Fried &#8230; Automakers have been equating cars to \u201cthe national theme of freedom\u201d for the better part of a century, so I think advocates for sustainable transportation and livable streets are well-served by flipping that argument on its head, as Carlson suggests. It\u2019s not a tortured line of reasoning by any means. Generations &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/?p=173958391\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;The Freedom to Not Drive&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173958391","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biking-elsewhere"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173958391","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=173958391"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173958391\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=173958391"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=173958391"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.baltimorespokes.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=173958391"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}