Car-less in a car-centred community

[MLKnits]

http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2015/02/20/car-less-in-the-905-one-familys-quest-for-automotive-freedom.html

This family is hardly the only one without a car, but for their probable incomes, it's a big step, and very Mustachian, I thought! I live in this area and I couldn't do it, so they've impressed me.

(And they're completely right about the trails. We have wonderful, beautiful, recreational trails, absolute endless miles of them. You could walk from sunrise to sunset and never hit the end of them. But they're completely useless for commuting.)

[Sid Hoffman]

I would probably get more out of that article if I knew where "The 905" was for context.  For some reason, Google isn't helping me here.  :)  I get that it's near Toronto, but I don't know what the 905 is supposed to mean, or how it compares to what downtown Toronto is.

I can sympathize with the guy complaining about no east-west trails in his area though.  Ugh.  There's no north-south roads with bike lanes where I live for 2-3 miles in each direction.  It's 5 solid miles with no north-south bike lanes, yet a bunch of the roads have bike lanes going east-west in that very area.  I would not be surprised if my city also plays games saying the bike lanes are underutilized, only to overlook the fact they only run east-west in my (older) part of town.

[MLKnits]

It's the area code that surrounds Toronto--basically, suburbs. The part where these people live (Brampton) is very populous, but very sprawling: lots of strip malls, lots of undeveloped land, some industrial areas.

[HenryDavid]

Years ago, as a university student, I commuted by bike through some of that territory around Toronto. You needed a good map and some careful research on safe-ish routes. As usual, biking meant going 10k out of your way in order to have a survivable route.

Now living in another car-focused town in the Canadian West, and when I wrote a newspaper piece describing what it was like to live without a car here, friends laughed and said "no way."

But it CAN be done and it is more fun. If you take the right "life is a fun game if you break all the rules" attitude.
And yes, you save enough to bring FI one year closer for every 4-5 years you bike.
So . . . biking since those student days has cut at _least_ 5 years off my paid-work life.
And also cut decades off of my "fitness age" which is 30 years less than my actual age, according to those online tests.
It's getting paid to be healthy and have fun and be wealthier.
I guess that's not for everyone . . . .