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Small Living

by Angela 02.09.2009

We live in a small condo, about 660 square feet, 36 square feet of which is an unheated porch off of the master bedroom. We moved here from a 450-square-foot awkwardly-arranged apartment when our daughter was almost a year old. This condo with it’s open floorplan and 200 additional square feet felt like a palace. [...]

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Making Choices: Frugality, the Environment, or Social Justice

by Angela 01.30.2009

I stumbled into the carfree lifestyle because I’m a cheapskate. I’m allergic to spending money, and cars drink up a lot of money. I get to feel overly proud of not owning a car because I’m being environmentally responsible. Living without a car brings two of my core values together. But those values are often [...]

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Introducing our new xtracycle kid seat!

by Angela 10.15.2008

We’ve written before about our problems with the peapod seat for the xtracycle, that primarily stemmed from incompatibility with the our small bike frame frame (Angela is 5′ 1″….what can you do?). Then, a generous offer from Rob Hanson on the rootsradicals yahoo group solved all of our problems. Rob custom built us this snap [...]

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Costs of Car Ownership, Part II

by Angela 09.03.2008

In addition to the costs in time and money, there are other, less quantifiable costs of car ownership. These may be personal costs or costs to society at large. Mental and Emotional Costs The car is one more thing you have to worry about, and it’s a fairly big one. You have to worry that [...]

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Costs of car ownership, part I

by Angela 08.27.2008

Those of us who go carfree or car-light often do so because of the high costs of car ownership. So I thought it would be a good idea to spend a some time detailing those costs, which look to me like they come in four broad categories: monetary costs, time costs, mental/emotional costs, and social [...]

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But is it safe?

by Dorea 08.18.2008

The most common question I get about biking with my daughter is whether or not it is safe. I’ve also noticed that on any thread on any forum or list that addresses biking with kids, someone says some version of “You are all really awful parents. You should never bike with children in X setup [...]

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XtraCycle Specs

by Dorea 08.14.2008

To follow up Angela’s introduction to our new cargo & kid bike, here are some details and thoughts for others who might like to try this set up. I got advice from local xtracycle riders (including Cambridge City Counsilor Craig Kelley, who was a great resource) that disc brakes and 26″ tires are preferable for [...]

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Cost of Living in Cambridge vs. the Cost of a Car

by Angela 07.27.2008

One interesting tradeoff that we’ve used to make our lives car-free is to trade housing costs for automobile costs. The only reason that we can afford to live in a condo in Cambridge, MA, is that we don’t have to make any car payments or pay the high costs of maintenance and gasoline. Now, that [...]

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Surprising Benefits from Being Car Free

by Angela 07.21.2008

One surprising benefit of being car free has been the reduction of choice in our lives. This might seem counter intuitive in a world in which more choices are assumed to make us happier. But making choices takes a lot of time and energy. If we hadn’t been restricted geographically, we would have felt obliged [...]

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