Tim Grahl and Carlton Reid have published (late June 2009) a book (Bike to Work) that addresses all the reasons we give for not being able to use our bikes for transportation. I have not gottena copy yet but hope to when it becomes available through Amazon.
One of the best books I read and highly recommend to anyone seeking freedom from a life of car dreariness, is Chris Balish's How to Live Well Without Owning a Car: Save Money, Breathe Easier, and Get More Mileage Out of Life.
Resources such as Balish's book were motivating and really helped me to begin assessing how I could move from a car-centered life to a more solar-powered lifestyle. When I moved to Columbia, I carefully mapped out how far certain apartment complexes, housing communities, shopping complexes, gyms, etc. were to my place of work. I got on the PedNet website and emailed people (who graciously returned my emails and gave some top-notch advice about road conditions, etc) and began plotting how far from work I wanted to live, how near amenities I needed to be, etc. One of the best things I found was that so much of using a bike for transportation is developing a mindset that reframes daily life as one where I have far more choices about how and where I need or want to go. By that I mean that we are conditioned into using cars for everything and then, through years of relying on cars and becoming enmeshed in a system that privileges car use, we don't really know how to think any way else about meeting our own daily needs. We also grow weaker physically, sometimes quite sick, which moves us further away from real independence.
In addition, most of us have no idea how much money we will spend over the course of our lives on cars (Chris Balish puts it at about $150,000 or the cost of a house). Think about how many people will never own their own home, in large part because they will spend almost all of their adult lives paying for a hunk of metal that is depreciating every single day. We also fail to consider that when we are given a raise at work, it is never, ever enough to cover the cost of owning and maintaining a car yet most of us are expected to own a car (it seems like an unwritten rule but not a legal one). I know for myself that I also never considered how much time I would spend in a car in a given day. Time that could have been spent getting a mild (or more!) workout, enjoying nature, seeing other people, and getting the best parking spot! :-)
I have to say that using my bike to get about Columbia has made my lifer calmer, easier to manage, cheaper, and far healthier. I also have found that my mindset has shifted to take into account all the hidden costs of that "quick trip to the grocery store" or car ride to the gym. When you realize how much money is invested in trips that could easily, and far more enjoyably, be taken by bike or foot, it changes your view of how to live.
