This Earth Month, you might be thinking about what steps you can personally take to reduce harm to the environment. Maybe you ride a bike for exercise, but are intimidated by bicycle commuting. Perhaps you have plateaued in your efforts to reduce how much you’re buying that comes packaged in seemingly unavoidable plastic. Or maybe you’d like to be less reliant on Big Energy and more in sync with nature, but aren’t sure where to start.
Not everyone has the luxury of going without a car by choice, or seeking out a grocery store that lets you bring your own refillable containers. But for readers looking to reduce their environmental impact in their everyday lives, we wanted to get insight from locals who have done it: What prompted them to make these commitments to sustainability? And how, exactly, do they live into their values day-to-day?
There are so many people in the Triangle making strides to reduce their own environmental impacts and build a greener world. We profiled three: Marc Maximov, who has navigated the Bull City without a car for 20-plus years while advocating for bicycle-friendly policies and infrastructure as a Bike Durham board member; Louise Omoto Kessel, an artist, storyteller, and veteran of off-grid living helping people of all ages experience a life closer to nature at Clapping Hands Farm in Pittsboro; and Kathleen Liebovitz, executive director of Cary-based Toward Zero Waste, who’s leading efforts to reduce waste in her own household and across Wake County.
When Marc Maximov set out on his first bike ride as a commuter in Brooklyn in 1999, he was nervous about the traffic conditions.
“I thought I was gonna die,” Maximov said. “I was like, ‘How can anyone do this? There are speeding cars right next to me.’”
Maximov—now a Durham resident and a board member of Bike Durham, a local transportation nonprofit and advocacy group—grew up in the sprawling suburbs of Tucson, Arizona, where everyone drove. When he started a new job in 1999, a friend convinced him that biking 10 miles to Queens would be faster than the subway. A lifelong fitness freak, Maximov saw an opportunity to not only cut down on his emissions and commute time but also maintain his health. His first trip out—riding his TREK brand 7800 silver commuter—was filled with close calls, but Maximov soon discovered a new world, one that any two wheels could take him to.
In major metropolitan areas, robust public transit has long made car ownership optional. In most of the United States, though, car is king. Cars aren’t just a means of transportation—they are status symbols that signify wealth and desirability. Alongside this American dream, though, is the reality that vehicles are one of the planet’s most potent pollutants, emitting millions of metric tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere every day.
“One of the main reasons that I became a bicyclist is [that] I do care about our carbon emissions,” Maximov said. “I feel like everyone has a responsibility to do whatever is within their power to help that.”
When Maximov moved to Durham in 2006, even the South’s lackluster public transportation didn’t tempt him to buy a car. Instead, he built his new life here around biking. He commuted 15 minutes to and from his job at Duke University, taking quieter back streets for their pleasant tempo and lower likelihood of encountering “four-ton murder machines”—though he also has no fear of traffic, should he need a more direct route.
Maximov travels with a messenger bag across his chest made out of rubber from post-consumer bike tubes and a strap made from an augmented seat belt. It’s filled with practical things: a front light, bungee cords, shopping bags, metal chopsticks, chargers, and his laptop. In cold weather, he rocks a weather-resistant REI jacket, and in hotter months, embraces the sweat.
When it’s time to stock the fridge, Maximov fills up his shopping bags and hangs them from his bike handlebars. Sure, a simple set of pannier bags attached to his bike frame would lighten the load, but he’s comfortable with his method. And should he need a car for an out-of-town trip, he has no qualms about borrowing or renting one.
“I can buy all the groceries I would ever need,” Maximov said. “I don’t go to Costco and buy truckloads of groceries. I shop a little more frequently than most people. Is that a problem? That’s how they do it in France, and they’re not suffering.”
Car ownership can be a major financial burden for many individuals and families. Researchers estimate the average cost—from car payments and gas to insurance and repairs—at north of $10,000 a year and growing.
“So many people that would benefit, especially at the bottom of the income distribution,” said Maximov of his 40 years of savings from not having a car, “but even in the middle, like, who doesn’t want to save $10,000 a year?”
Saving on health-care costs, while a slightly more amorphous metric, is another coin in the piggy bank for bikers like Maximov. He gets his daily dose of recommended exercise (and then some) by commuting to and from work or traveling on the network of trails and bike paths like the American Tobacco Trail and White Oak Creek Greenway that connect Durham to the rest of the Triangle.
“When you get in a car and go somewhere, your body’s just sitting there limply, moving your foot a little bit and your hands a little bit,” Maximov said. “And that’s the way to get super frustrated. Whereas the bike is always a release. You’re always feeling better.”
In 2019, Maximov joined the board of Bike Durham, leveraging his lifestyle into a broader call to action (the author served on the Bike Durham board, too, from 2021 to 2023). Maximov understands that not everyone has the ability to adopt the full-time bike commuter lifestyle—especially people who have children or live farther from the downtown core—but he said that living in a small city without a car is not the insurmountable feat most people expect. He encourages folks to plan incremental trips to nearby places, like the grocery store or a friend’s house, and slowly build up to a bike commuting way of life.
When Maximov tries to convert others to the lifestyle, safety is most people’s primary concern. The city of Durham has made strides toward improving bike infrastructure compared to when Maximov moved down in 2006, but there are still significant gaps in bike lanes and trail networks that make commuting for many Durham residents untenable.
“I can’t argue with that. I was terrified the first time,” Maximov said. “A few years later, I saw the benefits, but you can’t blame anybody for being scared. Durham is so bikeable. People who are scared should be considered in our city design.”
Maximov believes Durham leaders should stop investing in parking garages that cost millions and instead invest in fully connecting the city’s bike infrastructure network.
“No one likes cars except the one that you’re in,” Maximov said. “If we got rid of all of them, we’d all be so much better off. So that’s an impossible dream that I think, 100 years from now, maybe is achievable. We might as well move along that road.”
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