Rethinking point A to point B
Two Halifax families adapt a less car-centric life and prove it can be done, even with young children.
Halifax resident, Eva Mooers, with her two young daughters, getting ready to head to daycare and work this past December on their Christmas-light festooned cargo e-bike.
Having a family can be all consuming. From diapers and food, to toys, clothing, and extra-curriculars, families consume a lot of stuff. It can be hard to cut back on all that consumption, but in response to this, some families in HRM are re-thinking how they get from point A to point B to lessen their environmental impact.
For some, this means giving up the gas tank for an electric vehicle or ditching the second car for a bike or Carshare, while others are saying goodbye to the car entirely. If you live in a city, it’s easier than ever to make these changes. And for some parents, greening their ride has the added benefit of being the kind of example they want to set for their kids.
Eva Mooers and Tom MacDonald are fixtures of Halifax’s cycling scene, participating in critical mass bike rides over the last several years, and now Kidical Mass, a worldwide movement that promotes child- and cycling-friendly cities. Their young daughters learned to cycle in preschool, and as a family they ride around on a cargo e-bike. Mooers says she feels impervious to Halifax’s growing traffic congestion while cycling to her daughter’s daycare and work (in downtown Halifax), with the added perk of not paying for parking.
“The bike is great, and is the easiest way to get around, and hard to put away for the winter,” says Mooers.
Mooers, who commutes by bus in winter, says the cargo e-bike acts as the family’s second car, complimenting their small electric vehicle, although, as with most EV drivers, they need to make charging stops for longer EV trips, which doesn’t seem to bother the family.
“We’ve gotten to know the towns of Mahone Bay and New Glasgow really well, especially the libraries in those places. I’d say that’s a plus,” she says.
In downtown Dartmouth, Phil Bergeron-Burns, Leslie Bagg, and their two young children have also embraced a slower pace. When their car died in 2020, they decided not to get a new one.
Phil Bergeron-Burns, Leslie Bagg, and their two kids get ready to hit the road.
“We liked the idea of the kids not taking the car for granted. Now I like that they’re like ‘we have somewhere to go so we’ll look up how to get there on the bus or we’ll bike there,’” she says. “They don’t just have the car as a go-to.”
If they need a car, says Bagg, they jump into a Carshare or borrow a family car, though they only drive on average four times a month. With kids involved in baseball, basketball, capoeira, and theater, this is no small feat. She says the kids “now don’t flinch” at biking and bussing, even when it means biking to baseball in the rain.
“They barely remember what it’s like to have a car, really,” Bergeron-Burns says.
As a family, he says they find the car-free life to be easier in many ways. They’re rid of the mental and financial stress of maintaining a car, parking is a non-issue, and their driveway remains “blissfully unshovelled” in winter. They even relish some of the inconveniences.
“We’ve embraced the harder aspect. We’ve biked to the beach and it’s just a really cool feeling to all be on our bikes, going somewhere significant,” he says.
As a result, Bagg says their kids see the city differently, noticing how road design often prioritizes cars, as well as where there’s a lack of bike parking; things most kids don’t notice from the backseat of a car. Both couples ultimately want to teach their kids that rethinking their transportation options comes with lots of personal and environmental value.
“Another world is possible,” Bagg says. “You can design a city in a way that doesn’t revolve around cars and make similar choices in your own life.”
Climate Stories Atlantic is an initiative of Climate Focus, a non-profit organization dedicated to covering stories about community-driven climate solutions.
