Comments on: Rental Rhetoric: ‘Can You Live Without Your Car?’

By: snowkitty

snowkitty — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 23:22:44 +0000

What car?! I’ve commuted to/from work, etc. for over 25 years on bike and still going! No car-dependency for me (not even a driver’s license)! My current commute is about 5 miles roundtrip. Previous one was over 10 miles. Oh, and I live in snowy central NY where the snow piles are often taller than a child and the temperatures can rival a freezer!

My health, wallet, and the environment all benefit from this mode of transport. In general, I also have more patience, pay attention to more detail (I literally CAN stop and smell the roses!), and am more relaxed than my car driving co-workers. Those might be unseen added perks to riding a bike.

And yes, I’ve heard the constant “How do you get by without a car?” Answer: Easy–think outside the box (aka:car) and adapt to the situation.

Though seriously, you’d think I was an alien with the reactions I get. Hasn’t anyone ever seen an adult female ride a bicycle on a regular basis before?!

By: adventure biking

adventure biking — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 19:39:04 +0000

I can relate to the parts. Life is nothing without vehicle.

By: listenermark

listenermark — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 02:36:11 +0000

A week after I had (consciously) moved closer to my job my ancient Toyota decided to die. No problem, I could walk or ride my mountain bike to work until I found another car. That was four years ago and I still haven’t found that next car. I now have more money, enjoy better health, and an extra beer or yummy cookie is never a problem.

By: josephdldad

josephdldad — Tue, 26 Jun 2012 14:36:34 +0000

I was driving a company provided vehicle for over ten years. They pay for all expenses to include tolls and gas. In return, I am expected to respond to business emergencies. Specifically, there is one week of the month in which I am expected to respond to business emergencies immediately.

As the price of operating the vehicles increased last summer (2011), my fellow workers and I brainstormed to find ways to reduce business costs without harming service to our customers. The end result was only using twenty percent of the response vehicles for immediate after hour responses.

All of us had personal cars available but we decided to use public transportation as much as possible to prevent the need for additional parking in a large city (saving more money).

The car that I would be using is now primarily for my daughter’s college commute of five miles. She also does online courses which reduce fuel consumption. Eventually, I expect her to approach me about bicycle commuting to the college. I am careful not to push as a few articles have already been written on this site about turning children off by being too enthusiastic or preaching too much.

My car is now a “ZIP” car for my family. For all effective purposes, a three car family has been reduced to two. My daughter does use public transportation whenever possible and plans to live in a city where it is available.
I have no plans to go back to driving my car for my commute. One week per month I am forced to commute and I hate it now. I end up taking my bicycle for a one hour ride or working-out for one hour on my Nordic Track on those days. My workout time added to my direct car commuting time is exactly the same amount of time it takes to bicycle to the bus station and commute by bus. That is what I find so amazing. I work my gym time into my bicycle/bus commute and use exactly the same amount of time driving my car and working-out.

$0.55/mile times 12 miles/day times 15 days/month times 12 months comes very close to $1,200/year.

Gym membership: $30.00/month (bare bones minimum) times 12 months: $360.00

Fresh air, seeing deer, and watching the sunrise on my bicycle: Priceless.

By: Karen Voyer Caravona-

Karen Voyer Caravona- — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 22:57:14 +0000

Some smart transportation wonk out there has no doubt calculated the relative cost to the taxpayer of catering to the notion that we can’t live without a car. Or just that a family of 4the can’t live w/the only one car. When I was first confronted with possibility that I might have to live w/out a car in the face of post-Katrina gas spiking I asked myself how those “other” people do it. Well, they take the bus. So, I went from being an occasional bus rider to being a most of time rider, learning new routes and how to transfer buses. When we decided the economics of Flagstaff required us to sell a car I cringed w/the fear about riding a bicycle to work. Again, how did other people do it? I investigated the blogs on how it’s done and found my inspiration.

One thing that has facilitated my ability to live car-lite has been my and Bob’s decision to live in high-density areas as much as possible. We targeted our Phoenix home search specifically to neighborhood in Central Phx, close to public transit. We wanted to live relatively close to his job and my school, close to services and places we wanted to go. If we couldn’t get there on foot, bike, or public transit, the location was ruled out.

By: Rob E.

Rob E. — Mon, 25 Jun 2012 21:42:16 +0000

It is sad but accurate that surviving without a car is pretty much unthinkable to a large portion of the population. I’ve been at my current job for 10+ years and most of the time I’ve been able to get there without using my car. Eventually that car sat accumulating mold and only getting used for the occasional out-of-town trip. Finally I hit a repair-or-ditch situation, and rather than sink hundreds into my seldom-used car, I got rid of it. It seemed like a natural decision, but every now and then you mention it and someone reacts like you just told them you now live on the moon. Last month a friend I hadn’t talked to in a while interrupted me when my car-less state came up. “Wait. Stop. Go back. What do you mean, ‘You don’t have a car?’” We actually returned to the topic a couple of other times over the course of the weekend, “Okay, explain to me again about this no-car thing.”
And truthfully, while I managed to remain car-free or at least not car-dependent for long periods of time, even I never really thought it was sustainable until I started to acknowledge that my car wasn’t moving for weeks at a time. It is a tough mindset to break out of, and while I’d like to think that Enterprise’s strategy won’t work forever, it may remain convincing for a lot of people for the foreseeable future.