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Mathewson picked a central neighbourhood to make possible a car-free lifestyle. “We wouldn’t live in the suburbs for that reason,” he says.

If she owned a car, Gaherty says she knew she wouldn’t use it much, so it would be a bit of waste. She also didn’t want to have to maintain a car. “It felt simpler to maintain a bicycle.”

At work, she has the use of an on-site company car for client meetings. She’s also rented a car to take the boys to Jasper. This isn’t a religion for her, with cars a forbidden fruit. Environmental reasons are part of her thinking, though. “I felt it was a little difference that I could make fairly simply.”

Her children go to piano lessons and community league soccer. So far, they’ve able to cycle to these activities. Her ex-husband has also helped out, taking them now and then in a car. But she can see down the road she might have to get a car again. “If they do hockey, I can’t imagine how I’d make that work, but I’m just taking each day at a time. If it comes to a point, then maybe. But there are other options. It makes you think creatively.”

She and the boys like to go swimming, for example, which entails long transit rides. “It does take us a long time to get to the swimming pool, but I look on it as it’s all an activity, being on the bus, being on the train. It’s not about getting there, it’s about the journey, and they enjoy that side of it as well … rather than just passively sitting in the back of a car.”

She does most of her shopping at a grocery store within walking distance. About once a month, she’ll make a trip on her own to a distant Costco or Superstore, hauling groceries on two bags attached to her bike.