Living Car Free - giving up the car

As I write the check to my auto insurance company, I think about how nice it would be to give up my car altogether. No more insurance, no more maintenance, no more gasoline. Right now, my car is a money sink, because I rarely use it. I would live car free if it weren't for one thing. Occasionally I have to move a couple hundred pounds of bulky equipment.

Do y'all living car free just rent autos when the need arises? How do you get the vehicles? I've thought about biking to the rental place with a trunk rack harnassed to my back. Have any of you done this?

As I write the check to my auto insurance company, I think about how nice it would be to give up my car altogether. No more insurance, no more maintenance, no more gasoline. Right now, my car is a money sink, because I rarely use it. I would live car free if it weren't for one thing. Occasionally I have to move a couple hundred pounds of bulky equipment.

Do y'all living car free just rent autos when the need arises? How do you get the vehicles? I've thought about biking to the rental place with a trunk rack harnassed to my back. Have any of you done this?
The local Enterprise Car Rental company will come and pick you up when you rent from them. You might check with your local companies to see about their policies...it'd be pretty cool if you could go completely car-free.

How bulky and how far do you have to move the equipment? Look for the Bikes at Work (http://www.bikesatwork.com/) trailers. Also if you are in a major area look for Zip Car as well as Enterprise. My son uses ZipCar and loves it.

Aaron:)

yea I just rent or borrow from family/friends if I need to move something really big or heavy.

Lots of threads here deal with moving big loads by bike. Check them out and let us know what you think, or if you have any questions.

I use Hertz Local Edition car rental. I bike to the place, put my bike in the car trunk, and away I go.

There's a locally-owned rental outfit that I use when I need a car or truck. Like the national chains, they'll come pick you up if you call them. If I'm on my bike when I pick up a car from them, they'll either stash it in their tool storage area or let me put it in the back seat of their car; I bring along a bed sheet to protect the interior from grease, and they know I've always taken good care of their cars.

If I have to rent from a corporate chain and I arrive by bike, I'll park it around the corner so they don't have to watch me load the bike into their car. Again, I just bring along a bedsheet in the panniers to protect the upholstery.

Having said all that, I've found that I need to rent a car a lot less often than I expected to when I first got rid of my own car. Maybe twice a year, usually to move heavy equipment like you mentioned.

I have an ugly bike and a good lock, so the solution that comes to mind for me is biking to the rental place, locking up the bike, and leaving the bike until I return the rental car.

I don't expect that situation to come up much for me, because Philadelphia has a great car-sharing organization with cars only about 3 minutes' walk from my apartment.

As I write the check to my auto insurance company, I think about how nice it would be to give up my car altogether. No more insurance, no more maintenance, no more gasoline. Right now, my car is a money sink, because I rarely use it. I would live car free if it weren't for one thing. Occasionally I have to move a couple hundred pounds of bulky equipment.

Do y'all living car free just rent autos when the need arises? How do you get the vehicles? I've thought about biking to the rental place with a trunk rack harnassed to my back. Have any of you done this?
Last time I rented a car, maybe 3 years ago, I walked to the rental place. The time before that, it was a group rental for a road trip so we chose a centraly located rental place and we all took the train and walked there with our suitcases.

Last weekend I picked up a book from my bookshelf and inside was a bill for the personal property tax on the car I had maybe 10 years before. I had used the bill as a bookmark. More than $300 dollars, about 9 days of car rental.