A Sunday drive looks a lot different these days for Cameron Ogilvie and his family.
Deciding to sell the family car for an eco-friendlier electric cargo bike, complete with a compartment for his children to ride in, is something Ogilvie says at first took a bit of getting used to.
But since making the switch, he says it’s all been well worth it for his family of four.
“We ditched the car for several reasons. The environmental aspect was only part of the picture. The main reason was shifting to a slower pace of life,” Ogilvie said.
“Yes, cars allow us to do things in less time, and then we do 10 other things that we never would have been able to do without a car. The tendency is to cram things in. And what's lost is the ability to be fully present for any one of them.”
Ogilvie says a car-free life allows physical activity to be built into the rhythms of daily family life, rather than needing to find space for it after the fact.
“We love how a car-free life causes us to live locally. We know our neighbours and we run into friends in our community. It’s easier to stop and engage with people when you're not travelling in a metal box at 50km/hr,” Ogilvie said.
“Driving cars makes us grumpy. Riding bikes makes us happy. Cars are loud, expensive and dangerous with motor vehicle collisions being a leading cause of death for children.”
The e-bike, Ogilvie says, allows his family to take in their surroundings, the sights, sounds, and smells, to be better in touch with the seasons, and interact with the world around them.
“Our two kids far prefer riding in our cargo bike than being strapped into the back seat of a car. They have a better view of their surroundings and can more easily interact with us,” he said.
In Canada, cars are responsible for a high proportion of greenhouse gas emissions, contributing heavily to climate change.
“The biggest opportunity for reducing household GHG emissions is ditching the private automobile,” Ogilvie said. “If we're going to mitigate the impact and extent of climate change, from our perspective, we don't see a future where every family owns a private automobile.”
Ogilvie says local, provincial and federal government has invested in infrastructure that prioritizes cars.
“We think this is backwards. Our cities should prioritize people,” Ogilvie said. “Cars are only one way of moving people from A to B, and they're pitifully inefficient and expensive.”
Ogilvie says building walkable communities, frequent and fast public transit options, and separated active transport infrastructure can all have an exponentially better return on investment, and maintenance fees are a fraction of those of car-focused infrastructure.
Mike Darmon, director and advocacy chair of the Guelph Coalition for Active Transportation, says the transportation system has been geared specifically for cars for so long that people are just so used to being in cars all of the time.
“They really don’t consider any other choice of getting around,” Darmon said.
“The city’s Transportation Master Plan highlights data on car use in Guelph finding that a vast majority of trips are less than five kilometres. Some are even way less than that. And of course, these trips are achievable by walking or biking.”
Darmon says when people see Ogilvie’s family on a bike, picking up their groceries without using a car, it might make them curious and consider a similar lifestyle too.
“One of our goals is to become net zero in the city. If we get a small percentage of people to try it, it will make a difference.”
When Ogilvie suggested the idea of selling the family car for an e-bike, his wife Sonya needed some time to wrap her head around it, at first.
“We weren't going to make a big decision like this if she wasn't convinced, and I was the only one motivated to see it through. So, we parked our car for the summer and tried living as though we didn't have one,” Ogilvie said.
“It wasn't always convenient, but it was doable, and that was enough for Sonya to be convinced. We sold our car in October 2020 and haven't looked back.”
Before making the switch, Ogilvie and his wife were already being ‘thrifty’ with car expenses and calculated that they could rent a car three or four times a month to break even with monthly car payments as well as gas, insurance and maintenance.
“Financially, our ‘transportation’ budget line now includes things like quality cycling clothes, bike repairs and thank you gifts for our friends that we borrow cars from,” Ogilvie said.
“We haven't come close to spending as much as we did before on transportation,” Ogilvie said.
Ogilvie says that for his family, it was about investing time, energy and finances on things that align with their values.
“We wanted to be more intentional with our time, our relationships, our energy, and our ecological footprint,” Ogilvie said.
“Ditching the car, forces us to do that.”
