I received an email from a good friend elsewhere in Canada. She has been a regular cyclist past 25 yrs. or more. She has been car-free about last 20 yrs. She lives near a subway station and belongs to a car-sharing co-cop. So she rents a car several times per yr. when she needs to transport heavy/bulky stuff. She bike tours for vacations most of the time.

She went to visit and stay with a sister in Calgary this winter. I've had the same experience myself whenever I stay with friends or family living way out on the edge of suburbs, etc. It's actually a strange feeling when one lives a car-free life.

It was also a very car-oriented week. When you don't live by the car for a long time and you suddenly find yourself being driven around everywhere, it gives you a sense of how completely woven into peoples' lives the car has become and how far we have to go and how seemingly impossible it would be to wean ourselves from our car addiction. And my sister's family is unusual in that they decided not to have a second car and so because of where they live, a day can sometimes be a carefully choreographed schedule of pick-ups, drop-offs and drive bys.