On Monday, October 27th, Michael Hawthorne, the Chicago Tribune's exclusive local environmental reporter was the selected writer for "The Talk," the second page editorial that fills in for John Kass on off days.
Hawthorne provides us with a glimpse into his life, sharing a car.
Using a first-person point of view, but also incorporating facts and anecdotes, Hawthorne is able to describe to the reader what exactly it means to "share" a car. He talks about two Chicago-based car services, I-GO and Zipcar, and discusses how the work, and the benefits and disadvantages of these non-profit services.
At $8 an hour, Hawthorne and users like him can take a car out of a selected garage. That fee covers the cost of insurance and gas. The car is described as a practical option for those who do minimal local driving and can also access public transportation when needed. Hawthorne himself acknowledges the importance of living close to a train station. Of course the ecological benefits are mentioned in the piece.
However, Hawthorne also explains how it can be impractical; how the cars must be reserved in advance on weekends, and how it can be senseless to pay for a car sitting in a shopping mall parking lot. He also ties in some of his own personal experiences, explaining how his oldest son feels when they check out the car ("...my oldest son is convinced the neighborhood high schoolers mock us as we walk to and from the parking garage where I-GO cars are located.").
To close, Hawthorne muses that he often wishes he still had his own vehicle, and I think this is important to readers. Going green is something that is very difficult, and to see that the Tribune's beat reporter has difficulty with it makes us realize that this is something that really has to be worked towards.
Find the article here.
5 comments:
Good call, Evan. Not owning a car is hard, but possible, especially for people lucky enough to live in places like Chicago.
Car sharing isn't meant to take the place of car ownership, but be a piece, along with public transportation, walking, and bicycling, to help folks reduce their monthly bills along with their greenhouse gasses and hours in traffic.
FYI, I-Go blogs on green transit, green media, fun car trips, and itself at http://igocarsharing.blogspot.com/.
I really liked this article because of the first person account we were given. It brings such a large issue close to home, and like you said, it makes us as individuals see that going green is a difficult thing. I wonder if the time of year effects the time with which you have to reserve a car. It would seem that come winter things could get a little icky.
I thought this was an interesting piece to do because the campus is thinking about bring car sharing system to campus. Zipcar should be available to staudent within the next year. So, it was cool to see an article about car sharing.
This was an interesting article. I liked that he was able to write it from personal experience and be objective. He acknowledged that it's not always easy. I felt a little confused at what exactly these I-Gos and Zipcars are though. I wish he had done a better job explaining this.
Another issue I have with this is that it is all written from a Chicago person's point of view. While car sharing is okay in places like Chicago (by the way Hugh, I don't know if I agree with your statement "lucky enough to live in places like Chicago."), it is not really practical for those of us who live Downstate. (I like that he capitalized that in the article-like people who live south of Chicago are from a different state, even though we are still part of Illinois. I get that this is an article in the Chicago Tribune, so it's more geared towards Chicago inhabitants, but I felt that this was a little biased.
Hawthorne needs to acknowledge higher up in the article how "sharing" a car is prohibitively expensive. I could never imagine paying $8 an hour. If I went to see a two-hour film in Savoy, the trip would cost me around $20. This seems more like an option for an affluent environmental beat reporter living in a lush apartment in Chicago. I've met Hawthorne before. Don't let the Volvo thing fool you. He's not scraping by in life!
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