[Denny]

This is a pretty cool article about all the pluses of going carless. Maybe that will be sooner on the horizon than we think.

See CBC News
MARTIN O'MALLEY:
Ditch your car and find true happiness

Haven’t had an automobile since July 1999 when I was living in midtown Toronto in a high-rise apartment, commuting to work by subway and telling everyone that I didn’t really need a car.

My bluff was called that summer when my son borrowed my blue Hyundai and burned out the clutch. I figured I’d go four, five months without a car, then succumb again to the lure of another shiny metal gas-guzzler. But seven years later I remain happily car-less.

The immediate benefit of going without a car was a $100 reduction in my apartment rent because I no longer needed my spot in the underground garage. Then the savings mounted: street meters and parking-lot fees, gasoline, maintenance, repairs, insurance, car washes, registration, the odd traffic ticket.

By not owning a car I have become a more fashionable modern man. Two recent books are contributing to this trend. One is entitled How To Live Well Without Owning A Car, by journalist Chris Balish, the other, Divorce Your Car! by writer Katie Alvord.

“The car industry has done a fabulous job of convincing Americans that their status and self-worth are tied to their cars,” Balish says in an article this week in Maclean’s magazine. Balish then mentions Garry McGivney, who last year won the New York Lottery jackpot worth $56 million US. He didn’t own a car when he won the jackpot and he hasn’t bothered to buy one with his new fortune.
...

It’s not that I never drive or drive in cars. Besides the subway, I take taxis and occasionally I’ll rent a car for a few days or a week. I also have friends with cars, one of whom lends me her car when she’s out of town in exchange for feeding her two cats.

I’ve owned seven cars in my lifetime: a 1950 Meteor, which I bought with my sister when I was 16, then a 1960 Ford, a Renault, a Plymouth Duster, a Jeep, a 1976 Cadillac (which I got on an even-up trade-in for the Jeep to drive my son to Dalhousie University in Halifax as what I then considered a final father-son bonding experience) and the little blue Hyundai.

The only time I regarded a car as a status symbol was in my teens, driving that metallic-green Meteor.

I have become a better person by not owning a car. Jostling with other humans on the subway and on city sidewalks brings me new experiences every day that I would not enjoy locked inside a hermetically sealed automobile. I’m convinced what many car-owners most enjoy about driving their cars is the delightful privacy in lives otherwise fettered to jobs and families. In the lush privacy of their automobiles, even on hour-long commutes, they can listen to their favourite music, follow sports, smoke and chat on their cellphones.

I recommend not owning a car to any aspiring writer. I get at least a dozen column ideas a year from the sights, sounds, smells, insults, laughs and epiphanic discoveries of jostling along with other pedestrians. And I walk more, which makes my doctor happy.

I save between $600 and $700 a month not owning a car, which comes to $7,200 to $8,400 a year. This means over seven years I have saved between $50,000 and $58,000.

[IanC]

There are some "sticky-wickets" with going carless. The most obvious being the problems with having small children.

We live in inner Portland Oregon. We have one car - a VW Eurovan actually. I ride my bike to work and my wife rides the bus and we alternate days at work. Whoever is home with the kids, ages 3 and 6, gets the car. Portland is blessed with really good public transportation and that is helpful. We also live centrally, so we can bike or walk to many services, including the grocery store and school, as long as it's not raining too hard.

With that thumbnail sketch, going carless for us would seem easy. The problems arise with the realities of transporting small children: hard to get them ready to be punctual for public transportation, too big or too small for bike seats, too cold or rainy for a bike trailer, they're napping so you can't leave the house or pack them into the bike trailer, they need car seats for taxis, the list really goes on and on.

The other factor with going carless with small children is cost. It takes a lot of time to transport children without a car. This can lead to tardiness or absenteeism at work. Bikes and bike trailers cost money (although the 2nd hand market is pretty good). Then there is the whole real estate market to consider. In Portland, close in neighborhoods are the most desirable so the price for a house or condo is really high. In order to have the home base to facilitate a biker/public transit lifestyle, you need to either be rich enough to buy a close-in house or have gotten into a house before prices rose (like we did, thank God). If you can't afford said property, you need to rent a crappy apartment which means you probably won't be able to logistically make a car-free lifestyle work, or you're living in the apartment as a stepping stone to a better place and probably don't have kids.

There are plenty of exceptions to these observations, but I just wanted to get them out there. It seems like most people who write these somewhat snotty "I'm-car-free-and-so-much-better-than-you" articles are either young people starting out (no kids) or older people with no kids or grown kids. Oh, yeah, or they're wealthy people who have the luxury of having choices.

-IanC
Portland, OR

[rwwff]

An adult with certain handicaps could also be a deal breaker.

[joewp]

You can do it fairly well in New York



But building that kind of subway system in major cities today would be really expensive, I think. I wouldn't count on abundant and cheap fossil fuel to help build it, either.

[dooberheim]

I hardly drive mine anymore, bu there are times it is a good tool to have. It doesn't cost me that much either - it's depreciated it's $6500 purchase price over 17 years, I do my own maintenance, it gets 40+ mpg so gasoline is pretty negligable. I wouldn't save more than $3-400 a year by not having it.

DK

[nocar]

My children are 35, 31 and 24 yrs old now, but obviously they each have been newborn once-upon-a-time, and we (hubby and me) never owned a car through our years of parenting in suburban Stockholm, Sweden (and still do not). We did own a car earlier, living in Hyattsville, Maryland (=suburban Washington, D.C.)

Although living car-free in Europe is very different from in North America, all our neighbors had cars, and they believed it is not possible for them to be without, especially with children.

Yes, you have learn to allow the right amount of time dressing them in winter when going to catch the suburban train. Luckily, children adapt, and they learn to know when mommy is really serious about cooperating with these boots right now! Catching the train is non-negotiable.

In Stockholm, all subways, trains and buses take prams and strollers - otherwise things would have been difficult. Children go to sleep in their strollers.

We always had their daycare within walking distance. Actually it was about 800 m or a half mile. After that, at age 7, they walked the same distance on their own.

I can not remember a time when we could not fit the family onto bicycles. Certainly, we put them in baby-seats from six months of age. In Holland, last summer, I saw people transporting 3 children on one bicycle (one in front, two behind) - not legal in Sweden, but in Holland they allow lots of things with bicycles. We had at most one in front, one behind. When #3 was born, the older ones had their own bikes.

We went in taxis too - I do not remember that it was necessary to have babyseats there - perhaps it is now. Visiting friends in other suburbs - we often went there by public transport, and then called for a taxi going home with tired children and tipsy parents at late hours.

The main problem occurred at school age leisure activities, when everyone assumed that children should be chauffeured and ours would not be. That is a sensitive age of feeling 'different', too.

We got the store to deliver groceries, for a fee, for several years.

For some vacations, we rented cars, but it always seemed out car-free vacations on bicycles and tent camping or canoeing (with tents) in Canada were our best vacations.

I believe, that if there is a will, there is a way. Most often, anyway.

nocar

[Fergus]

My children are 35, 31 and 24 yrs old now, but obviously they each have been newborn once-upon-a-time, and we (hubby and me) never owned a car through our years of parenting in suburban Stockholm, Sweden (and still do not). We did own a car earlier, living in Hyattsville, Maryland (=suburban Washington, D.C.)

Although living car-free in Europe is very different from in North America, all our neighbors had cars, and they believed it is not possible for them to be without, especially with children.

Yes, you have learn to allow the right amount of time dressing them in winter when going to catch the suburban train. Luckily, children adapt, and they learn to know when mommy is really serious about cooperating with these boots right now! Catching the train is non-negotiable.

In Stockholm, all subways, trains and buses take prams and strollers - otherwise things would have been difficult. Children go to sleep in their strollers.

We always had their daycare within walking distance. Actually it was about 800 m or a half mile. After that, at age 7, they walked the same distance on their own.

I can not remember a time when we could not fit the family onto bicycles. Certainly, we put them in baby-seats from six months of age. In Holland, last summer, I saw people transporting 3 children on one bicycle (one in front, two behind) - not legal in Sweden, but in Holland they allow lots of things with bicycles. We had at most one in front, one behind. When #3 was born, the older ones had their own bikes.

We went in taxis too - I do not remember that it was necessary to have babyseats there - perhaps it is now. Visiting friends in other suburbs - we often went there by public transport, and then called for a taxi going home with tired children and tipsy parents at late hours.

The main problem occurred at school age leisure activities, when everyone assumed that children should be chauffeured and ours would not be. That is a sensitive age of feeling 'different', too.

We got the store to deliver groceries, for a fee, for several years.

For some vacations, we rented cars, but it always seemed out car-free vacations on bicycles and tent camping or canoeing (with tents) in Canada were our best vacations.

I believe, that if there is a will, there is a way. Most often, anyway.

nocar

Here in Arlington, TX, we can thank the Vandergriff family for totally eradicating any public transport. We have no buses, no subway, no taxi services, infact a cab company has to have a special license to enter to pick up a fare in Arlington. They can drop anyone off in Arlington, but can not pick up anyone without that special license.

BTW, the Vandergriffs own several car dealershis and seems like we have had a Vandergriff as Mayor every election. Not really, but seems like it.

To live in Texas, D/FW especially, you need a car. My work is 30 miles one way to N.Dallas. I am actually in the process of leaving that position for something with in walking distance, biking distance at the least. But within walking distance is nothnig but retail shops, grocery stores and fast food establishments. While I dont mind working there, I come out of the interview being told I am over qualified for a bag boy job and retail sales associate. Hell, I even tell em I will work for less money just to be this close to home and can walk here, so no worries about my car breaking down or I cant afford the gas to get to work. But they would rather hire 16 yo school kids. Go figure.

But I would love to get rid of one of our cars. We just cant do it. Shes works further away in Ft Worth. So we find ourselves a victim of surburban sprawl. We just live too damn far away from anything we want to do.

[WisJim]

We have always tried to live close enough to where we work that we wouldn't need a car to get to work. Savings in car expenses more than makes up for higher home price. You have to decide what is important in your life. We try to live in a place we like.

[EndOfSewers]

I also have an old, fuel-efficient car that doesn't cost me much. I'd hate to give it up because it saves so much time. Going carless would cost me at least an hour a day in extra transit or waiting time. I work hard and my free time is precious; losing that hour each day would be a huge hit to my quality of life.

[Gridlock]

My experience is if you can do it, the financial savings are surprisingly good, but then get spent But I wouldn’t want to lose much free-time, and wouldn't want to spend hours extra each day commuting. Weaned myself off via a 50cc scooter, which did give rise to much piss-taking, but was a lot of fun, plus when you fill-up you pay in small change. Crash helmet was so big compared to the bike I turned by tilting my head.
I miss driving though, I must admit. But my motoring days are, alas, over [insert sad emoticon]

[thuja]

There are some "sticky-wickets" with going carless. The most obvious being the problems with having small children.

We live in inner Portland Oregon. We have one car - a VW Eurovan actually. I ride my bike to work and my wife rides the bus and we alternate days at work. Whoever is home with the kids, ages 3 and 6, gets the car. Portland is blessed with really good public transportation and that is helpful. We also live centrally, so we can bike or walk to many services, including the grocery store and school, as long as it's not raining too hard.

With that thumbnail sketch, going carless for us would seem easy. The problems arise with the realities of transporting small children: hard to get them ready to be punctual for public transportation, too big or too small for bike seats, too cold or rainy for a bike trailer, they're napping so you can't leave the house or pack them into the bike trailer, they need car seats for taxis, the list really goes on and on.

The other factor with going carless with small children is cost. It takes a lot of time to transport children without a car. This can lead to tardiness or absenteeism at work. Bikes and bike trailers cost money (although the 2nd hand market is pretty good). Then there is the whole real estate market to consider. In Portland, close in neighborhoods are the most desirable so the price for a house or condo is really high. In order to have the home base to facilitate a biker/public transit lifestyle, you need to either be rich enough to buy a close-in house or have gotten into a house before prices rose (like we did, thank God). If you can't afford said property, you need to rent a crappy apartment which means you probably won't be able to logistically make a car-free lifestyle work, or you're living in the apartment as a stepping stone to a better place and probably don't have kids.

There are plenty of exceptions to these observations, but I just wanted to get them out there. It seems like most people who write these somewhat snotty "I'm-car-free-and-so-much-better-than-you" articles are either young people starting out (no kids) or older people with no kids or grown kids. Oh, yeah, or they're wealthy people who have the luxury of having choices.

-IanC
Portland, OR

I'm here in Portland too Ian, and my wife just got pregnant. I work very close at the hospital and my wife works out of the home so we can bike all the time. We still have a car but we use pretty infrequently.

What I'm wondering is, once we have a little kid, it seems like that car will come in really handy once in a while. I imagine it being very difficult to gear a little toddler up in a bike while its dark and pouring down rain and we're supposed to meet friends for dinner.

So how about instead of no car...low car...meaning very low usage.

Actually what I'm really interested in is getting one of those 4 wheel white mini cars that look like golf carts. I think they're electric and you could probably fit two in a parking spot. How come we're not all driving those? That's all I'd need. Anyone know about these types of vehicles?

[Blueberry]

We've sold our last car 6 years ago.

We take the train, bus, Greyhound -- use Flexcar, or rent a car. You don't need to have a car -- there are other ways to get around.

I sure don't miss the $500 payment/insurance a month.

And, we do have 2 kids. I like it because instead of worrying about the crazy drivers or a child who doesn't want to be strapped down, it's very relaxing to ride public transit comparatively.

I do miss quick errand running sometimes -- but the benefits are so great.

That said, we are getting a "bug out" beater car in case of an emergency.

[EndOfSewers]

$500 a month for insurance? That's ridiculous. Registration + insurance costs me $46/month. I could license and insure a $700,000 Ferrari Enzo here for under $200/month.

I can see public transport being a lot more attractive when driving is that expensive.

[dinopello]

$500 a month for insurance? That's ridiculous. Registration + insurance costs me $46/month. I could license and insure a $700,000 Ferrari Enzo here for under $200/month.

I can see public transport being a lot more attractive when driving is that expensive.

I assumed Blueberry was saying the car payment+insurance was 500.

But, once you are down to a low-car lifestlye (like thuja describes) it does just become a financial decision of how much you want to pay to have something you don't use all that often. If your car is paid off and you have a place to store the car it isn' that expensive to hang onto it. If you have car-share and taxi service (plus most things -school, work, grocery etc - within walking distance) it is feasible to give it up though.

It does do bad things to cars if you don't drive them regularly though. For several years I was not using mine much and it developed a rust problem (you should shovel the snow off it, even if not driving). I kept changing the oil so the engine wasn't too sludgy.

[Loki]

My truck sometimes sits for weeks at a time. I walk most everywhere, or take the bus like today when I had a bunch of stuff to take home from the farmers market. But I wouldn't give up my truck. The freedom to get out of town is too precious. I lived without a vehicle for many years and I almost never left the city--not a good thing. My old truck is paid for ($2500 cash)--only expenses are liability insurance and gas, plus the odd maintenance cost (not that much when you hardly drive). Flexcar is far too expensive--much cheaper and much more convenient to hang on to my 18-year-old beater. Flexcar strikes me as something for people with more money than they know what to do with. I certainly can't afford it.

Thuja, you might want to drop into the pizza joint at NE Glisan and 28th. They have one of those little white mini cars you mentioned. I often see people standing around it talking about it. The pizza isn't that great, but maybe you can get some info about the mini-car.

[TheDude]

Cars SUCK!
I walked/bussed around Portland for 5 years. The average cost of 12 monthly Tri-Met passes would be something like $40, $480/year x 5 is 2400 bucks. Jeezus! You'd spend that much in two months on some cars I bet.
Downsides here and there of course. Sardine can rush hours, waiting half an hour in mild rain, missing the last bus to wherever (rare). I was always on my own, though. Portland's set up pretty well for mass transit; I was appaled to read that Arlington TX has 332,969 people, and nary a bus! That's just WRONG!
The insurance companies SUCK TOO!
I did heaps of reading a few years ago on electric cars/bikes. Lots of cottage industries out there, golf cart-ish gizmos that putt along at 25 MPH or so. Coventry Cycles on Hawthorne stock a bike with attached motor - the motors are set up by some dude who lives nearby, they said. Trek had an electric model too, I think. Lots of good reads at Bikeforums.net.
What does Flexcar cost on average? I've looked at some of these online car pool services, too, which I'll bet anything are the way of the future.

[TheDude]

"Pay as you drive" insurance hits roads.

Came in just as I finished posting...

[Blueberry]

That's right Dinopelo -- $500/mo for insurance and car payment, maybe a little gas and upkeep. With today's gas prices, I can't imagine what it would be. Most days we're on the train whizzing by at 65 mph past total gridlock.

I don't believe that selling your car is the secret to happiness. The secret to happiness, in my current opinion, is acceptance. But, that's another thread, lol.

Going mostly carless, however, does have many benefits. We like it, especially with kids.

[dinopello]

Flexcar strikes me as something for people with more money than they know what to do with. I certainly can't afford it.

I am not a car share member, but people around here that are swear by it. We have Flexcar and Zipcar. I guess it all depends on how often you use it. It seems to be a little cheaper than a taxi for some errands (like picking up a large item, where you have some wait time). We also see some people coming to town on business or tourism from other places that have car share not needing to have a permanent rental car because they can jump in a flexcar or zipcar if they need it - saves on a parking space.

Arlington has collected info on how carsharing works for us and put it in a report that can be had here:

http://www.commuterpage.com/carshare.htm

and more generally on services for carless people:

http://www.commuterpage.com/carfreealt.htm

[Fergus]

$500 a month for insurance? That's ridiculous. Registration + insurance costs me $46/month. I could license and insure a $700,000 Ferrari Enzo here for under $200/month.

I can see public transport being a lot more attractive when driving is that expensive.

46 bucks a month, for full coverage insurance? Where do you live? I have just basic liability on my 10 year old truck at $44 a month. Any new car or used car bought from a dealership will require full coverage at a minimum level. thats gunna be $80-100 a month minimum. thats with a good driving record driving 15k miles a year. a 700k enzo from any dealership is gunna be over $250-500 a month in insurance easy here in Texas. You can not go basic laibility on a new car. The dealer wont sell it to you without, cant by law.