When the alarm goes off at 4 a.m., I ask myself, 'Why am I doing this?' Nobody would notice if I just went back to sleep and didn't ride 200 miles on TARC buses for the next 13 hours. This is brutal. I don't know how some people do this every working day. Why am I doing this? Four years ago I heard about World Car Free Day on the internet and decided I wanted to bring it to Louisville. I saw the addiction we have for our cars (having been an addict myself once) and thought it would be good for this city to start Step 1 and admit we have a problem. World Car Free Day started in 2000 in Europe. It has spread to over 1,000 cities around the world. It challenges people to go for one day without their cars. There's a sure way to find out if your addicted to something - try giving it up for a while. Four years ago I got CART (the Coalition for the Advancement of Regional Transportation), a local non-profit alternative transportation advocacy group to help me promote World Car Free Day in Louisville. We posted fliers around town and held a press conference at the boardroom of TARC and no one came. When I got back to my office, a bit down from the experience, I got a phone interview from a local radio station and we were off and running. In the following years, our efforts and successes grew. We printed fliers, posters, had rallies, and web pages. It's a hard event with which to measure success because it's a non-event. People do this on their own, riding a bike to work, taking the bus, or telecommuting.

Back in 2008, I?m walking to the bus in near total darkness. Some of these streetlights are still off from Hurricane Ike (I still can't call it a 'wind event'). At Bardstown and Eastern Parkway I?m surprised by a photographer from the Deer Park Neighborhood Association who is here to document my start. Maybe she just wanted to make sure I was really doing it, but I am energized by her presence at 5 a.m. She apologizes for driving to the spot. People have been apologizing to me for their transportation choices ever since I started this effort four years ago.

5:06 a.m. the #23 bus shows up right on time. I ask the driver to radio ahead to make sure I make my next connection because I know I am cutting it close. She does this without hesitation like most good TARC drivers will. She tells me she's 'on the board', TARC lingo for a substitute driver who gets whatever route is open that day. Otherwise, she would probably know if I had a good chance of making my connection.

5:20 a.m. and I'm standing in the dark parking lot of Union Station where anyone going backwards on the express routes waits. Backwards, because most people ride these buses into downtown in the morning rather than out to the suburbs. I chose to ride a lot of express buses today because they travel the fastest and I can reach my 200 miles in a reasonable amount of time (if you call 13 hours reasonable). With me are about five other would be passengers, including three guys huddled together that look to be dressed for construction or some such work. The distinct smell of pot tells me they aren't looking forward to this long day of hard labor. Only one woman joins me on the bus to LaGrange that is a few minutes late in starting. The driver knows she can make up the time on I-71.

My fellow passenger sleeps so I talk to the driver about my quest. He tells me he rides 200 miles on a bus every day, and gives me a look that says 'why would you want to do this and not get paid?' This year I wanted to have a Bus-a-thon. Other groups have walk-a-thons and bike-a-thons, why not a bus-a-thon? Well for one thing, you can only comfortably fit 30 people on a bus, and secondly you couldn't all start in one place. So this year I decided to do a one person bus-a-thon and chose Family Scholar House (formerly Project Women) to receive the funds because they give TARC passes to their clients. I raised over $2200 from donors.

Fifteen people join me for the return trip to town, most from Park 'n TARC lots in Oldham County. They aren't exactly car-free, but car-light is better than nothing.

When I arrive back in town at 4th and Broadway, I am actually a few minutes early, usually a mortal sin for bus drivers, but since this bus doesn't pick up passengers, only drop them off, I guess the driver gets dispensation. I drop in the Brown Hotel to get a complimentary cup of coffee (I ask first), where I see the European Ryder Cup team loading into charter buses for their return home. I guess they will be car free today too.

Back on the street a television cameraman is waiting for my bus to arrive. He is surprised to hear from me that it came early, and probably wondering if I really did ride the bus like I said I would. He does an interview and films (actually it's digital now) me boarding the next bus with the promise to show it on the 8 a.m. news.

This is the Prospect bus and the driver in residence is Carl. He has been a TARC driver for 30+ years and 12 on this route. Everyone on the bus knows his name. They are also curious about the television camera. Here's my chance. I distribute fliers and tell my story about World Car Free Day knowing that I am probably preaching to the choir. One guy waves me off and beamingly tells me he doesn't own a car. The ride to Prospect is spectacularly beautiful as we go East into the rising sun along the river. The ride back into town is full of stories about the storm damage; Louisvillians will be talking about this for years.

It?s 9:15 when I get back to 4th and Broadway where television reporter and cameraman await and so does Cathe Dykstra the Executive Director of Family Scholar House. She joins me for the hour-long loop I take to Jeffersonville and back. She and I talk about how important it is for her clients and many others that we have a good public transit system. One in five households in Louisville doesn't have a car according to the last census. The television crew drives their SUV alongside the bus, filming us as we ride up 10th Street. They still don't get this car-free thing.

Middletown is my next destination and it's getting towards lunchtime. I eat the sandwiches I brought during 'recovery time' at the end of the line where the drivers either rest or use the time to get back on schedule. From there, it?s to St. Matthews, then Jefferson Mall and back to St. Matthews without much incident. CART President, David Morse, meets me in St. Matthews for a digital-video interview for the CART blog.

My last leg is on the Eastern Parkway bus from Oxmoor to Shively and then back to the Highlands. It's the last 40 miles of my trip and it will take over two hours. This is by far the most crowded bus I have ridden on all day. I count 46 people at one point - about 10 have to stand. Some people refuse to share a seat by spreading out over two.

The same neighborhood association woman meets me at 6:05 p.m. as I debus, as does my wife. My wife and I eat at Qdoba and talk about the importance of having a good transit system for people to get around, especially now that gas prices are so high and expected to go higher. My wife teaches high school social justice and she gets it.