U1 Reading 1 with Translation 全新版大学进阶英语：综合教程 2.docxVIP

PAGE 5 The Free-Wheeling Family: Car-Free in Suburbia Ric Sara Rosenkranz 1 Our family has always been a one-car family. Late last year, we went further by deciding to give up the only car our family of 4 owned in preparation for an international move back to the USA. We were excited about the 5-week lifestyle experiment of living without a car in the suburbs of a major world city (Sydney, Australia), and getting the chance to better align our own actions with our values related to sustainability and health. Once we had a confirmed buyer for the car, we loaded up the family and drove 40 minutes across town to make the sale. Walking with the family to the train station to catch a ride home brought for us a sense of freedom, mixed with nervous uncertainty about how we might manage to maintain a somewhat normal life without our own motorized transportation. Our kids, aged 4 and 9 years, didn’t seem to mind. 2 Unfortunately, trains could only partly replace our car as the nearest station to our suburban household was more than 3 miles away. We knew that we would have to mix transportation modes for any trips outside our local suburb. This usually meant catching a very intermittent bus, or grabbing a taxi to or from the train station. Sometimes we might have to rent a car. By the numbers 3 During our 38 days without owning a car, we made 209 separate trips in total among the four family members. If we assign one primary form of transportation for each trip, we took 8 by train, 21 by bus, 4 by ferry, 3 by taxi, 12 by rental car, 7 by carpool, 95 by bicycle, and 59 on foot. Our adventures 4 Half of the regular trip to preschool and work was full of traffic and treachery. Much of the way, there were bike lanes available, albeit lanes that were often full of debris or other obstacles. Our son was clearly frightened the first time a semi-truck came barreling past us within an outstretched arm’s distance. 5 Grocery shopping was an interesting way to attract extra attention