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The Road to Recovery

Commuting can drive you crazy -- no, literally

Posted at 3:04 PM on 09 Jun 2008

Traffic.
Think your commute drives you crazy? Well, you might be right. In a culture so accustomed to being on-the-go, sitting immobile in traffic for hours each day can take a toll on mental health, researchers say. "If you're stuck in traffic, there's a feeling of being out of control," says psychologist Laura Pinegar, who says she's hearing more and more complaints of traffic anxiety in her practice. Psychologist Ronald Nathan says it can get even more intense than that: "We can start to over-generalize by saying, 'My life is worthless. All I am is somebody who gets into a piece of metal and goes from one place to another.'" We prescribe one bicycle, to be taken twice daily.

source:  Los Angeles Times

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Comments: (9 comments)

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Or Better Yet...Give Up On Suburbs

Suburbs have given us nothing but trouble. They use up land that could have been set aside as wilderness preserve or farming, cause traffic congestion, and breed a false sense of entitlement. People should move back to cities, live near where they work, make use of public transportation, and rebuild the tax base in the inner city.

Ever Ride The E Train?

Let's see...have you ever been to New York?

Have you ever had to ride the E or F train from 6th avenue to Queens?   Have you ever been stuck in a subway tunnel with low lighting?  Have you ever gotten onto a train, with hardly any people...and wish you hadn't?   Have you ever accidentally gotten off the "wrong stop"?    Have you ever had to follow poorly written signage while transferring from one line to another...two lines which used to be competitors and so had no native inter connectivity except a half mile long, poorly lit "passenger tunnel" with moldy pools of water near the drains?   And have you ever been crammed into a train where every seat and square foot of standing room are taken up and there's nothing to hold onto as the train lurches and the doors ding and you wish that there weren't so many old ladies on the train so you could grab the next orange or yellow McDonaldsesque seat and stare out the window into the blackness as the 19th century pillars goes by?

May have the cart before the horse

A person would have to already be crazy to commute by fossil-fool powered wheelchair (unless one has a legitimate disability, or course). We have all seen evidence of the homicidal behavior of the nut cases in these steel wombs. Also, considering that we now have abundant evidence that we are literally driving ourselves to extinction, perhaps the time has come to rid our country of these vermin before it is too late.

Following the Horse to Pasture

Actually, the car came after the horse and fortunately will be following it out to pasture soon:) Soon, people will be taking the train out to the countryside on the weekend to enjoy a nice drive. Driving everyday takes the joy away.

urban vs. suburban vs. rural?

While I do agree that suburbanite insistence on driving to the city is absurd, I am tired of the old argument that everyone must move to the city. Responsible suburban living, which should include growing food for family and neighbors, landscaping with native plants, living in small net-zeo homes, spending time on the front porch/building community, commuting by public transit/working from home/biking to work, walking/biking to shopping, can be a sustainable option. Not all of us can thrive in an urban environment.

It's time to think outside the box.

I grew up on an organic-concept farm in the country that my parents still run.  Then lived in a popular big "green trendy" city for a decade, but tired of the mundane realities as it was being loved to death.  Quality of life on a daily basis is more than seeing a mountain out the window...

I'm back in the boring midwestern city of my origin, in a nice house I could never afford in the "green trendy" place.  I bike to work, practice permaculture in my small but packed yard, and am slowly eco-updating the house.  Where I am now feels more sustainable to me, with a few exceptions I am seeking to address (e.g. grid electicity here is mostly nuke and coal fired).

I got this far by taking single incremental steps forward, recognizing that I do have choices-- practiced every day, in how I will live. Consciously striving for more sustainable options as I make these decisions, has been very worthwhile from a personal standpoint.

I have a hard time envisioning the 'burbs as sustainable at this time unless solar power conversion becomes much more efficient.  With their lack of grid street connectivity (bad for walking and biking transportation), isolation, and dependence on fossil fuels for everything from lawn mowing to a trip to the pool or park...  The burbs are not going to cut it well in a carbon constrained future.  I could live there since I drive a hybrid, but I'm better off closer in to the city where I don't even have to drive for 6 out of 7 days of the week.

Only in an eco-developed burb with small lots, front porches and common (not privatized and fenced) green space could be sustainable.  Try razing the old cul de sac villes and redoing it with sustainability in mind.  The burbs and their inhabitants right now are still deep in denial, I suspect when it comes to sustainability.  So they're going crazy in their wheeled cages on the highway, creeping along...  

Telecommuting should enable exurban living off the grid, with growing your own food... unless one wants social stuff that cities excel at.

We needn't go all the way to the NYC example of Jabailo's above, to live sustainably at the personal scale.

Moving toward sustainability with hopefulness, one revolution at a time.

PDXGreebGrrl

Suburbs are inherently ecologically destructive due to the unnaturally long distances needed to be traveled just to get to work, school, and shopping.  Travel needs to be changed from private motor vehicles to public transit, but walking and biking also need to be major parts of that transition.  If people still have to travel long distances the construction and maintenance of the infrastructure for trains will also cause serious ecological damage, though not as much as for cars.

If you're advocating for the environment, the issue is not one of whether the selfish desires of individual humans would be satisfied by certain lifestyles or living arrangements, but whether those things are in harmony with the natural world.  Specifically, does your travel require oil or other ecologically harmful infrastructure, or do you live close enough to regular activities to walk or bike?  Etc.

Correction

Sorry PDXGreengrrl, I misspelled your name above.

Let's not forget

that cutting out the long driving commute also cures us of that odd affliction known as "road rage," which not that long ago, a psychologist or two tried convincing us was a legitimate "mental disorder."

How about we improve public transit, create walkable/bikeable communities, and learn how to relate to people from outside the glass and metal frame of our car windows?

Moving from the cookie-cutter, highway-choked suburbs to a city I can walk and bus around has transformed the way I perceive and know the place I live. Sitting in a car never gave me that kind of feeling for who else lived in my neighborhood.

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