For a long time it was a nice but impossible dream. The answer was usually no. I knew I couldn't possibly have hauled those groceries on a bike. I couldn't possibly have taken care of that dental appointment on my lunch hour, picked up my daughter, or carried that lumber home without my car. I like to think the idea had its roots in my budding social conscience.
Some people never get there.
In my case, conscience seemed to be creeping up on me slowly, like weight gain and wrinkles. It was becoming increasingly hard to ignore the vast amount of information out there about the serious side effects of our driving habit. The death toll from accidents or the brown haze that's come between us and our once-beautiful mountain views are immediate and undeniably real. Other side effects, like the depletion of fossil fuels or the alteration of normal weather patterns, aren't quite so much in our face, and are easier not to think about. I knew I hadn't caused this mess, and I had no illusions that my automotive abstinence was going to make a significant dent in Tucson's traffic problems or the state of the earth.