Although most Latin Americans do not have the right to buy a car, it's everyone's duty to pay for that right. For every thousand Haitians, barely five are motorized, but Haiti spends a third of its foreign exchange to import vehicles, spare parts, and gasoline. So does El Salvador, where public transportation is so disastrous and dangerous that people call buses "caskets on wheels." According to Ricardo Navarro, a specialist in these matters, the money that Colombia spends every year to subsidize the price of gasoline would pay for handing out 2.5 million bicycles.

Upside Down, Eduardo Galeano (1998)

Now, where in the Constitution does it say that you have to own a car to be a citizen? And yet, that's how we've been operating as a society for at least the past 50 years —if you don't have a car, you're not a proper American. In Marin County, the number one source of air pollution is cars, the number one killer of children is cars, the number one social issue is traffic congestion (and it ain't bike traffic, friends). Hey, get a clue — lose the car!

Shocking antisocial behavior! Fed up with the congestion of their city streets by bicyclists and pedestrians, local motorists have begun staging Critical Mass "Drives" . . .

Transport yourself to some of these fine sites:

• Intersection Online, a car-free web site
• Crawford Systems' lays it all out at carfree.com
  (check out their collection of Links to Resources concerning car-freedom)
• Auto-Free Ottawa, who also have a smashing collection of Green Transit links
• Flora (home of AFO) is now hosting Pednet, a mailing list of ideas and actions for a car-free culture
  (comb the Pednet archives)
• get around the European scene wisely & happily with the Trento Bike Pages, a friendly on-line how-to guide and story-telling lounge
  (hosted by A. Caranti, the cycling professor of algebra)
• get around the San Francisco scene wisely & responsibly with Bay Area Transit Information
• bikes are vehicles, dammit! read the law: California Vehicle Code Section 21200-21212
  (the whole CVC is available online for fact-checking)
• not only do you not need a car, you probably don't need a truck — Worksman Cycles will sell you a kick-butt trike to haul your goods
  (dig also their Rush Hour Urban Assault Vehicle, the Humvee of bikes)
• the good people at the SF Bicycle Coalition can get you in the lane of righteousness
• meanwhile, on the other side of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Marin County Bicycle Coalition helps folks take the lane
• Bike the Bridge!
  and Beat the Ticket
• facing major schleppage and your basket's not big enough? The folks at Pedal Express haul it all
• the BAYSTEP project, "dedicated to exploring creative human-powered transportation alternatives with children and adults", can help you lose that SUV
• "Good thing you were wearing a helmet", said the motorist after he ran me off the road. "Like that excuses your dangerous behavior", say I. Read Chris Carlsson's thoughts on the helmet topic.
• hey, that's some progressive town: City of Portland's Bicycle Program
• the big-banana of bike advocacy — The League of American Bicyclists
• hey, you Marin environmentalists, it's no big fuss, get on the bus (or ferry) — Golden Gate Transit