HOusehold with no car-past 30 yrs.

[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 . . .

[smilingcat]

I would love to be car free. Another huge expense gone...

But I live in Southern California where walking is equated to being homeless of sort. I walk to my grocery store and the stares I get when I'm walking home with bags of grocery... I drive to Trader Joes. It's tad too far and public transportation is iffy at best.
This place is car-centric and just no other way.

yes I would prefer to use less car. less polution, less noise, chance to get acquainted with my neighbors, less stress (highway rage)...

Speaking of which, I saw an electric moped the other day. the rider claimed no hills on his electric moped. How cool is that!!! And you can go farther out and back. Ran errands without getting too exhausted.

smilingcat

[kat_h]

I'm spending this morning rebuilding the wiper motor on my car. Lately whenever it snows I have to bike.

[Jolt]

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.

6-8 year olds in strollers??? How ridiculous! At that age kids should definitely be expected to walk--they should be capable of keeping up with the adults reasonably well so there's no reason to have them ride. Talk about starting them off with bad habits...

As for the car-free thing, I'd have to agree with those who have said it depends on where you live and what stage of life you're in (young kids etc.). Unfortunately most of the USA is just not set up for being able to do what you need to do without a car, unless you're in a big city like Boston or NYC where things are close together and there's good public transportation. That said, I think we can all find ways to reduce our driving by using our bikes or walking for shorter trips, taking public transportation into major cities rather than driving in (if your area has commuter rail service, that is) and linking trips when we do need to drive. The Zipcar type services seem like a good solution for people who do live in major cities but need to get out of the city every so often to do certain things (or just for their mental health...).

[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.