Transport

What we did

We tried to minimise our transport impact through choice of location. When Andrew got tenure at the university at which he was then working (Deakin), we decided to move from Ascot Vale (west of Melbourne's CBD) to somewhere closer. The two criteria that narrowed down the candidate locations we looked at were that they be:

within walking distance of a train line (both for us, and for our children as they got older and wanted transport independence)
within a 30 minute cycling radius of the campus Andrew worked at

We managed to succeed with the former of these, but only partially succeed with the latter. Andrew has managed to ride to work in 30 minutes on a few occasions, but only then on days with little traffic and with the help of a tailwind. A more normal commute time is around 40 minutes (for a total distance of 15 km). He has now been riding essentially the same route to work (with some variations in the last kilometer as his employer has changed) for 23 years. The estimated total distance covered (mix of estimate and actual) is 155,000 km (all on the same bicycle until 2011 when he upgraded to something with better brakes, after a series of interesting near-misses).

What we should have done

Probably the same - we can't think of any shortfalls in our decision. As Andrew gets older it might be nice to live a little closer to work, but then having to exercise a bit harder is a good thing also.

What we are considering now

No changes for Andrew, but we are looking hard at electric vehicles for Dawn. Her work commute is a good fit with the kinds of ranges these can now deliver, and the possibilities for using the car battery as a grid leveller are also attractive. I think we just need to stretch the current car another 3-5 years and we'll be able to move off petrol.

Last modified:Sun Aug 21 15:46:50 2011 -0700