464
We may soon have 70 million boomers too old to drive, too car-dependent to stop.
(lloydalter.substack.com)
this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2026
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I'm in my late 40s. I'm hoping think I can get another 2-3 years out of my 100k mile car and then my next car will hopefully be another 10+ year car and hopefully by then self-driving will be mature.
It's called a bike, a train, a bus... Or walking.
thats not likely for elderly people who have mobility issue.
I see very old people on my bus all the time. They love it because they have a captive audience to talk to
So anyway a big guy comes to me crying. He says. He says to me. Crying. To me. He says. He says. To me. Crying. Big. Big guy. Hooch. He was. He says.... Ooops! That's my stop! See you next week!
I don't know if there will be room for my 65 year old ass on bike paths dominated by wheely-ing tweens. When I lived near a reasonable amount of public transportation, I could take a 2.5 hour train to the beach or drive for 40 minutes. Whenever my car was in the shop and I had to take the bus to work I'd have to be at the bus stop at 4am to arrive at work by 6:30am vs leaving at 6a when I drove. Now that I live in a suburb of a suburb, there is no public transportation path that starts early enough to get me to or from work on time. I have an e-bike and put thousands of miles on a Segway MiniPro but neither can handle my 80 mile round trip commute. My car just passed 9 years old and 100k miles, ~30 miles per day. I paid $25k for the car itself including tax and interest, another $10k for insurance for 9 years, $35k for gasoline, $5k for repairs and maintenance, so as soon as robotaxis can beat ~$0.75/mile I'll go that route.
Those are fantastic options where they are available.
If you live where it's icy roads in winter and no municipal busses, well, that's seeing one as rightly fucked, isn't it?
Case in point, the nearest affordable grocery store (like an Aldi) is 5 miles from me and on a two lane divided road that has no sidewalks. Oyyy...
I can only hope to come back home for a walk during 4 months of the year. The rest of the time it's way too cold or wet here north of Seattle. It's not city and not suburb exactly. It's slightly suburby.