HOusehold with no car-past 30 yrs.

[Triskeliongirl]

I don't know much about zipcar, but for you students out there I know many college campuses have car rental programs. This both discourages students from having cars on campus (and saves on parking problems), and makes it easy for them to rent when they need to. At Wellesley, there is a parking lot full of these vehicles, and for a modest annual fee students can buy into a program that lets them use these vehicles for routine errands, etc. At MIT, my son's fraternity needed to drive to a retreat in Canada, and the school also arranged vehicles for them to use. This is very impt. for younger students that often have difficulty renting from commerical vendors, and something both my kids have taken advantage of (cuz there is no way we can buy them both cars and send them to MIT and Wellesley, heck that is why we also have to drive one broken down old car.......).

I did live car free for many years as a student in Cambridge MA as well, just cuz it cost so damn much even for a parking space. I lived in an apt. complex where the you had to pay almost as much to rent a parking space as an entire apt, so I bought my first nice touring bike instead......... In a city with good public transportation, it can work fine, even in bad weather. THe problem is cities without good publ. transp.

[KnottedYet]

If someone can figure out how to be a single mom and share carpool duties, take injured and sick children and dogs to the doctors, rush from work to school/hospital when child is in trouble, haul child and suitcases to grandma's, etc without a car or good taxi system, I'd love to know.

Sometimes I really miss the years I didn't have a car and did everything by bike and bus. (but I don't miss the way I had to impose on my friends to help me move or take me places when I couldn't manage by bike or bus. it's nice to be able to return the favors now)

[mimitabby]

Knot, it won't be long!

but living where you live it would be very hard to be car free! our metropolitan areas are not set up for car free living. And every time they start to plan something (for a few lucky and elite) it gets dropped.

Where we live it will be marginal being car free. It means you have to depend on stores that are nearby instead of stores you like the produce at.
I loved my time staying in Italian cities, where you could find anything you needed within walking distance of your house. and every day; all the women go out and go shopping; and therefore have fresh produce every single day.
even obscure things, like watch batteries; there were little stores nearby that carried them.

at least at my house there is a nearby bus line.
I'm still chained to my car; i'm afraid.

[Triskeliongirl]

I will add that even for us to make the transition from 2 to 1 car required becoming empty nesters. Indeed, its hard to be a parent without a car....... But again venue matters. If everything you need is in walking distance or you live in a city with great mass transit (like NYC or Boston) I can see doing it.

[Melalvai]

I will add that even for us to make the transition from 2 to 1 car required becoming empty nesters. Indeed, its hard to be a parent without a car....... But again venue matters. If everything you need is in walking distance or you live in a city with great mass transit (like NYC or Boston) I can see doing it.

It's also about choices. I think I could provide a great lifestyle for my daughter without the car even in our small town. We'd have made some sacrifices, like swim team would have been out of the question. It would have been easy if we'd done it from the beginning or very early in her life. It wouldn't be impossible now, we could talk her into it. The key words here is "we". Mine is the only vote for no car. This sort of thing has to be family-unanimous!

But I would never say that we "couldn't" do it. If we wanted to, or if we had to, we could do it.

[shootingstar]

But I would never say that we "couldn't" do it. If we wanted to, or if we had to, we could do it.

Certainly I can vouch our family did it..and keep in mind when my father could afford to buy 1 family car (mother was housewife), his job was further away and on night shift...so he wasn't around during the week when I was 15-17 yrs.

But then the family budget was such that there was no money send of us 6 kids to any fee-based post-school activity/sport. So the car-chauffeuring just never existed. But ensuring the child/teenager was safely alone riding bus or accompanied by a sibling walking to and from home was put into place.

When I see parents plunk their 6-8 yrs. old child in a stroller, I am filled with wonder. I had ..to walk beside mama with other little ones...no choice. Only 1 stroller in family and I was the eldest child.

There may be a reason why I have maintained a healthy weight. It has been.. partially...a lifestyle of which a huge part..economics...there was no choice...but go car-free. There have been times in life, especially growing up where it was abit boring to trudge home in the snow with groceries from store...but ...all good in the end. No traumas.

I know several highly paid lawyers.who cycle-commute.. (salaries probably for each lawyer over $200,000 annualy).. gave up their 2nd family car.

[limewave]

I just wanted to comment on the 6-8 year olds in the strollers. That's crazy! I've seen it too. We have a 2 yo and she HATES riding in the stroller. She'll do okay in it if I take her for a run, but otherwise she wants to walk. Even when we take a long family stroll of 4 to 5 miles, she'll walk about a mile of it herself before she rides.


I am envious of those who can live without a car or just one family car. I wish we could do it, but I haven't quite figured out how it would work. I only go into the office 2 days a week, but it's a 60 minute commute each way--too far to ride a bike and no public transportation. And DH needs his car for work--he does service and has a big work truck with all of his supplies. Maybe someday I'll find a job closer to home and we can give up that second vehicle . . .

[Brandi]

We have a truck. And a scooter. I take the scooter to the store etc.. I don't like to use the truck if I don't have to. We also have our bikes but don't really use those for tranportation to the store or anything. I wish we didn't have to use a car, but for our work we do.