Public transportation or personal automobile?

Very interesting independent movie about 1 hour long on General Motors and how they destroyed America's public transportation system to promote auto sales. This is no joke.

As a child I remember riding the bus to/from our home in Hueytown, Alabama to the YMCA in downtown Bessemer. After our swimming classes we would wait in the library next door for our bus. We read a lot. It didn't matter if we missed the first bus or even the 2nd bus cause there would be another one behind it in 30 to 40 minutes so we just kept reading. When we finally got tired or hungry we would go outside and wait for the bus with as many books in our arms as the library would let us check out. We read while we waited. We did this 2 or 3 times a week. Our mother didn't have a car so she couldn't come looking for us. This was the mid 1950's so child kidnapping was uncommon especially in the small town of Bessemer, Alabama. When Mother finally got a car in about 1956, we stopped riding the bus and started driving most places. However, if Mother was at work we rode our bicycles to the library and brought our books home in the bike basket or tied them on the back fender. We walked to church (about 8 blocks) 3-4 times a week. We walked to the corner grocery store. We skated if we were playing close to home but the bicycle was my most reliable transportation until I married at 18 yrs. During high school, I rode to school with a classmate who was fortunate enough to own his own car. That was a luxury!! As a band student, it was not uncommon for me to practice after school so often I walked home from good ole BHS, about 3 miles from home, with books and clarinet case in tow. Walking is good, but to tell you the truth, I didn't enjoy that walk because of the load I carried.

By the time I married in 1963 we could only afford one car, so we car-pooled for about 2 years. Later around 1967 when I went to college we had a freeway to Birmingham so my husband and I bought a 2nd car so we could go to school/work separately, as needed. Occasionally, my husband or I would ride the bicycle to the corner store or around the block when we were teaching our young son to ride his first bike. The bicycle that Daddy gave me for my 9th birthday was retired to the backyard until someone "voluntarily relieved" me of it. In other words, it was stolen. I miss that bicycle.