Comments on The Year of Living Carlessly

Should we all wear hair shirts while we're at it, too?

This proves little more than the fact that an avowed anti-car activist can make some personal lifestyle adjustments so he doesn't have to feel like a hyprocrite.

I'll be keeping both of my vehicles, thanks.

I do love my job, but I regret that it requires a vehicle. At the same time, I really, really, really wanna make my damn husband give up his car and make him take the fucking bus to work.

Still, Durning’s yearlong experiment proves even a two-income family can make do without even one car.

Sure you can, if you can both live and work in a densely populated urban neighborhood, as it sounds Durning does. For those of us who don't have the luxury of choosing that lifestyle, this remains a pipe dream. Carpooling? Driving less? Possible. Carlessness? Not gonna happen.

Live and work in the same neighborhood?

No thanks.

-- i think this a great and interesting post... i am quite happy with no car, no family, no big bills and no guilt.

I wish I could get rid of one of our cars if only to save money. I would rather stick that $1,500 in a high-interest account. I hate parking, paying for parking and generally dealing with a car. It's a drag.

Comment #1 == Modern America in a nutshell.

I lived on Capitol Hill and commuted to the East Side for 3 years, sans car. It occasionally sucked, but it wasn't a huge deal. Actually, one of the only depressing things about it was that I was usually the ONLY person walking from the bus stop to the building I worked in. It's pretty crazy that this is considered an "experiment". I think getting people out of their cars has far more to do with detaching them from the social status they feel as car owners and drivers than it does with inconveniencing them.

Then again, the bus does suck. Real transit would have made a huge difference (I know you know blah blah blah).

Living in an urban setting (Seattle) without a car is EASY. I had a car in Seattle for a couple of years for my job, and living without a car is EASIER, and I have a whole lot more extra money. Since I've signed up for FlexCar, there is absolutely no disadvantage to not owning a car unless you need it every single day (ie, you deliver pizzas or work on a farm without a bus stop nearby). Even a week-long car rental for a road trip is cheaper than a month or two of insurance, car payments, upkeep, or whatever.

I work in the sprawliest part of Redmond -- to get to the Subway nearby, I have to walk through the lawn because there isn't a sidewalk. I take the bus to/from work and my Eastside coworkers think I'm insane for walking to the bus stop a mile away. There's a reason they have the Eastside Pudge and I don't. Even after a transfer, my commute takes less time than people who drive alone due to the HOV lanes -- plus it's free (FlexPass) and I get to read a book or use the free WiFi if I wanted instead of glaring at traffic.

My mother has never driven a car (she's scared of them) and she lives and works in the "densely populated urban neighborhood" of TUMWATER -- 15,000 people strong. There are plenty of bus stops, grocery stores, and other stores within this sprawling paradise for her to have no problem not driving. In the case she needs a car, she has friends she can ride with.

There's no reason you need to own a car in the Seattle area unless you live in a rural area, it's a requirement for your job, or you need to make frequent long-range trips (caring for an elderly relative in Spokane?). Otherwise, the benefits of not owning a car (free extra money, fitness, social responsibility) vastly outweigh the benefits of owning a car (laziness).

ECB is so dead set on convertnig all of us, perhaps she should have a car for a year and blog about her life with a car...

carlessness does work best if you live/work in the city AND have occassional access to a friends car...

BUT I so don't miss daily traffic, and parking hassles and insurance and taxes and upkeep and fear of theft and damage and....

people who drive, when they don't need to, piss me off...i see people who live THREE BLOCKS from Trader Joes who drive there...

Otherwise, the benefits of not owning a car (free extra money, fitness, social responsibility) vastly outweigh the benefits of owning a car (laziness).

Oh, the sanctimony. I know all too many people who say things like this, and they all seem to have one thing in common: there's a relatively dependable bus line from near where they live to near where they work.

Me, I live on the Hill and work in the U District, so I have it easy. My girlfriend works in the suburbs, and would be spending about 90 minutes of every day waiting around for buses that come a few times daily (and aren't always reliable to start with) if she went carless.

What are the odds that the happily carless all just happen to live and work near good bus lines? It's not like a person can just plan it like that on purpose.

I didn't own or drive a car until I was 40, and I did it in cities that were easy to live carfree (Oakland, Boston, New York) and cities that were hard (San Jose, Seattle). I have a car now. It's better.

If we get smart and combine our planned ST2 light rail lines with a full fledged station car program, we would eliminate the limitations that assholes who love to complain about masochistic hippies always bring up.

Imagine, driving a Flexcar hybrid from your McHouse to the nearest rail stop, and dropping it off for others to use during the day.

If your commute is suburb-suburb, you can pick a hybrid up at the nearest stop to complete your trip. When you get back to your hood, you take one home overnight, and so on.

But of course, this doesn't fit either the "CARS BAD!" or the "FUCKIN STINKY HIPPIES!" zeitgeist, so I'm sure this concept will continue to languish (cept in Urup).

@15 - or we could just build a monorail and do the same thing.

"What are the odds that the happily carless all just happen to live and work near good bus lines?"

Perhaps the happily carless just have the good luck to find work near a bus line and an apartment they can afford along that same line. Or the privilege to choose to work and live wherever they want. And that, you see, is a choice that not all of us have ... though some of the more smug carless folk might not realize it.

I have been living without a car for the past 6 years. At first it was in Green Lake, then First Hill, the International District, and Pioneer Square. None of these were terribly difficult, although for some time I worked in Kirkland, which is an annoying commute from Seattle no matter what method you use.

Since mid-2006 I've been living on the outskirts of Olympia, about 2 miles from the nearest bus stop. However the nearest bus route doesn't run after 8PM (and only runs once an hour anyway), so I frequently have to walk 4-5 miles to get home at night.

I was actually biking everywhere when I first moved to Olympia, but in November I got dangerously close to getting frostbite a couple times and didn't feel like spending $200 on winter bike shoes, so I started just taking the bus (and spent $60 on walking shoes).

I don't take anyone seriously when they say they "need" a car. What they really mean is that they are not willing to put up with the inconvenience - not willing to move to difference place, get a different job, walk more, etc. The thing that bugs me most is not that most people decide to use a car (I don't expect that many people will want to live like me), but the rationalization - people explain that the inconvenient is the impossible. I think the choice to use a car is reasonable, given our situation, but hardly anyone wants to admit that it is a choice.

Will -

How would a monorail serve suburbs designed to the classic low density cul-de-sac spec?

Light rail has "facts on the ground" and will form the spine of our transit system. But we also need:

Local circulator lines in high density areas like Seattle & Bellevue. Link serves the hubs, streetcars serve the medium density neighborhoods.

Some way to get commuters to/from remote office parks and subdivisions. Suburban buses suck, and will always suck, becuase of density and layout issues.

The carsharing model leverages existing suburban infrastructure, and expands the range of destinations without a personal car exponentially. Whats not to like?

tsm@17: You don't get to choose where you work or live? Are you incarcerated and/or enslaved? Or do you mean you just don't like the other easily available alternatives to your current choice of home and/or work?

Christopher@18: Yes! Too many people refuse to accept that their choices are their own.

You don't get to choose where you work or live? Are you incarcerated and/or enslaved? Or do you mean you just don't like the other easily available alternatives to your current choice of home and/or work?

Are you really this myopic? This is analogous to when conservatives say "You don't think your working conditions are safe or fair, huh? Well, why don't you just quit and get another job, whiner?"

Yes, people tecnically have the "choice" to move or find another job in the name of not driving a car. To pretend as though their decision to not do so is not an rational choice, and that the carless alternative for millions of people doesn't often carry costs heavy enough to make it absurdly impractical, is showing extraordinary obliviousness.

How many people honestly enjoy commuting by car? Most people look either miserable and/or homicidal during rush hour.

I cannot wait for the first stretch of light rail to be completed in 2009. I have a feeling it's going to really change some people's minds. It's all about alternatives to driving, not forcing people out of their cars.

Ah, so when you said you didn't have a choice and that choice was a privilege of the lucky few, you meant that making other choices would require more effort, sacrifice, and other changes in your life than you're willing to endure. I just wanted to be clear.

Ah, so when you said you didn't have a choice and that choice was a privilege of the lucky few, you meant that making other choices would require more effort, sacrifice, and other changes in your life than you're willing to endure.

Yes, I did. The difference is that you seem to think that not making that huge sacrifice is somehow a sign of laziness. Whereas I don't see why anyone has any business demanding that, for example, a parent working long hours at a low-paying job trying to feed their children spare an extra hour and a half of their day (time which they will be required to find some sort of childcare for) waiting at bus stops, or that they quit their job in the hopes that they might get lucky and find one closer ... all so that they might spare the rest of us the tiny, tiny percentage of CO2 emissions their lifestyle produces. You want to help save the environment? Can the elitism and push for a society that makes it at least SOMEWHAT economically reasonable for people to give up their cars. For millions, right now, it is not.

People don't "choose" to drive. They're born that way.

tsm: I actually don't care if you drive or not. I have two cars and I hate the bus. I was just afraid that someone was forcing you to work or live somewhere against your will.

I hate commuting so much I found a way to work mostly at home. There was some luck involved, but I wouldn't have been able to take advantage of it without considerable planning and effort.

You seem to weight luck and privilege very highly. The happily carless described above have made choices and worked toward making them reality, by finding or creating situations that are compatible with their goals. Some things are harder to get for some people than for others, but it's amazing how luck and privilege seem to increase with planning and effort. If that makes me a smug sanctimonious myopic elitist conservative, so be it.

Regards.

Nothing touches a nerve in Seattle like suggesting maybe you could do without JUST ONE of your cars! Maybe you could just drive a little less. People just go apeshit. Name calling, excuses, self-delusion, outrage, etc.
I've been carless now for 5 years and it's awesome. Not only has it improved my life, but I can be as smug as I want, knowing my carbon footprint is one-quarter the average American's and I have a BMI of 20.5. Go ahead, all you lazy fatsos in your planet-destroying cars -- tell me how smug I am -- I love it! I'm smug alright. 'Cause I know when you die you're all gonna be driving the expressway straight to hell for what you've done to our planet!

i lost my car when a beam decided to fall on the car next to it and tip over during the windstorm. i had a rental for a bit but for the last month or so have gone carless. my lifestyle's pretty set up for it (i live on the hill, my office is a block away) and so far it's been pretty painless. i have yet to figure out mass transit or flexcar, but once i need to do either, i'm optimistic it'll go well. i always wondered if i could do it without a drop in quality of life, and so far it's working out well.

keep fighting the good fight ecb. i'm hardly as dedicated to the cause as you are, but i'm glad somebody is.

“When you’re strapped into the back of a moving car, hills are an abstraction, not a reality that you feel in your muscles.”

I agree completely. When I first started commuting by bike, I got a whole new appreciation for the terrain. What just seemed like slants before now became hills I was having to huff and puff to get up (well, at the speed I wanted).

When you start biking or walking places, you also get a much better sense of how the city interconnects. I went from traveling between "places"—small sections of land I knew intimately, but wasn't familiar with how they connected—to living in the whole region. On foot or bike, it is just as fast to travel on small streets or to zig-zag through new neighborhoods, so you explore much more territory.

I'm proud of Alan Durning.

I've been completely car-free for four years. My husband has never owned a car. We can easily afford to live in the city, near a "convenient bus line" (several, in fact) because we’re saving thousands and thousands of dollars every year.

We live in a car-centric country and city. The expectation is that you have a car unless you can't afford one. If you plan your life around the assumption that you will drive a car, then yes, it will be difficult to go without one. Even if you don't plan your life with the expectation that you will drive a car, it will sometimes be inconvenient to go without one. But I’ve found that the benefits of car-freedom far outweigh the inconveniences.

I, like many people who have "converted" to the car-free lifestyle, find my life to be much easier and more enjoyable than it was when I was driving. I have a job, several freelance writing gigs, and an active social life. I also volunteer for several nonprofits and spend lots of time with my family. I do all of this without a car, without spending more time traveling than the average person. And unlike drivers, I get exercise, have time to read books, and get to know the amazing (and not-so-amazing) people I share this city with. (Did I mention the extra money?) I don’t have kids, so I can’t speak to that, but I do know a few car-free parents who get by just fine.

Many drivers read the satisfaction of the car-free as sanctimony, but I'm not sure why. A few voices advocating for a choice that works for us (and the planet) can hardly compete with the car culture that we are all expected (and encouraged) to conform to.

#27 and we'll be doing your girlfriends who need that ride home from the clubs. Or like when she wanted to go on that ski trip, Or who wanted to go to the coast this summer and get out of the Big Stinky City. Thats me humping her down the express highway to hell you speak of in my Co2 gas guzzler. Girls like cars always will and when we drivers get her pregnant, that kid will be driving and fucking his/her way to oblivious abandon and your planets screwed.
Hows that for smug. thing is, its so true. Cars will always be pussymagnets, no matter how many green loving hippy girls at the gorge hug trees. they hug our bodies when they want a ride back home.

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