Taking the plunge... Bye bye car...
 

I'm doing it. I'm really doing it.

The car goes.

Barring some major flip, my dad is gonna take my car off my hands. I figure that's gonna be about a $1,200 savings for a car I used to only use 8 days a month. Of course, I'm nervous about this.

Comfort me! If you've done it already, your encouragement would be much appreciated! :o

Look for a support group in your area.
Here is a link to the one here in Cleveland:

http://carfree.meetup.com/4/

Enjoy

i'm in my 5th year without a car. it's been great so far, i just rent if i need something - which ends up being a lot cheaper and it turns out i never really need an auto anyway. maybe once or twice a year at the most. of course, i live in manhattan so it's very very easy for me to do without.

I have been without a car for 41 years so beat that.

wow! that's great...in what area do you live?

My car's been parked in the driveway with a dead battery for 3 months now. I haven't replaced the battery not because I'm cheap (which I am) but because I just keep forgetting about it.

You'll never look back.

Freedom!

:)

I lived without a car for years. You build a lifestyle around it. Walk more; bike more; carry more; shop locally when ya can. You'll find some of the auto savings go into buying local stuff at hiher prices, but perhaps thats better for small businesses in your community. I found grocery shopping to be the toughest nut to crack..makes it tough to buy glass items and frozen foods! ;)

roughstuff

I'm lucky that way. I live next door to a train station, two blocks off a main artery, and around the corner from a shopping district. It's just getting harder and harder to justify the costs of a car that I'm using less and less. Damn bike went and blew my relationship with my car :-)

To me the WHOLE reason I would live in a city like NY or Boston etc. is so that I could get around without a car. When I was in London I would leave my house, take the tube to the theatre district, head back home after the show to change into my late evening stompin' gear, take a bus back to my favorite Gay hangout (bar would be too fancy to describe it), take the night bus home after a couple hours of debauchery, and fall asleep around 4 AM.

I had a sainsbury's down the street, a Starbucks across the street, and my favorite football Pub in the building next door. Who needs a damn car!

Paradise. :)

roughstuff

I'm 33 and have never owned a car. We're a household of three adults, 2 cats, and assorted caged pets: no car. Between bikes, public transit, and the occasional cab (maybe once every other month) we don't need one.

I'm 25 and I've never owned a car either.
Don't have a driver's licence.

I do it in a suburb of Dallas, you can certainly do it in the Bronx.
I had a moment of "What did I just do?" after I came home from selling my car--it went away pretty quickly and never came back.
Now I can hardly see why anyone in a city would bother with owning one. (Unless you have to have on for work, not to get to work.)

I swear, if I hit the lottery tomorrow I wouldn't by a car.
But I'd buy some suh-weet bikes.

Congratulations! Welcome to my world! :D ;)

No car here either for me. You may find it difficult at first, but just keep an open mind, be creative, and you'll find a way to live without the car.

Koffee

Interesting notion. I think I am going to begin the discussion about gettin along with one car rather than two, tonight. It probably won't happen right away, but I think it would be healthy to begin the listing of pros and cons.

Great thread. Thanks

nocomfortforyou!

you'll get used to it. ;)
esp. now with warm season a-comin...you won't even need the trains.

<--10+ years without car

Three months shy of eights years since owning my last car, and until then I was very car oriented. If I truly needed one since, I hired or borrowed. Some people think I don't have a driver's licence.

You will find planning your travel will become highly attuned. You'll also pare down to the riding essentials as you gain more and more experience. You will get creative with your solutions (as per Roughstuff and others). Eggs, glass and frozen goods? Adequate padding and insulation are among the answers.

You won't regret the decision. The amount you save in registration and insurance costs will mount up over time... looking back over eight years, there's a LOT of money involved there. And your health and well-being will be better in the long term.

Of course, giving up motor vehicles is *among* other lifestyle decisions. It's not for everyone. Location, as discussed, and proximity to services such as shopping, as well as public transport, roads with cycling amenity, bike parking at work, and family commitments all have an influence on the final decision.

There also are drawbacks. Owning a car is a measure of social and economic success. This is much more so if you are male. Voluntarily giving up ownership of a vehicle is tantamount to mental and financial instability (which may be true; or not ;) )

Anyway, enjoy the freedom you will find.

Vince I am sooooo happy for you. I have not had a car for 11 years since I moved here, but the decision was financial not practical. I didn't need it, but I really could not afford it as a student either. So you have made a conscious discussion I wish I could claim to have made. Like TimH said, renting is so cheap and easy, you will be dying to dump the rental as soon as your trip is over. You can bring your bike in a bag on Amtrak and on buses, and ride out of the station once you get there. I have found shopping with the largest timbuk2 bag I can fit more stuff in it, than I can actually carry. You should go buy a "suh-weet" bike as a reward. Congrats!!!

I'd love to be carless, but we live in a semi rural area with no public tranist. While this isn't the perfect solution, my wife (who is from Russia and has never had a driver's licence and has physical issues which keep her from riding a bike) and I share a gas-sipping Honda Civic. We both work at the same place, so we commute together. She has the summer off, which is when I get to commute by bike (about 30 miles round trip, YES!). In addition, we grow a good bit of our own food in the garden. On weekends, I often never drive anywhere, but use the bike for recreation and shopping. As I say, this isn't perfect, but with the family situation I have, I'm really trying to make every mile count. Good luck!

I'm 50, have been without a car at least half of my adult life (off and on). I have lived in small to medium cities with fair to crappy public transit. Using a bike the last couple years has added a lot to my carfree life. I bet you have already checked the Commuter forum here. It will be very helpful to you.

ALL of you are awesome for doing this. I dream of doing it too, but with my aging mom 1 hour away by car, and I visit once a month min., I'm not sure how. But I love reading all of you that can do it.

havent drove for over a year now....and still loving every minute of it.

The one thing you will notice is how much smaller the city you live in feels once you get used to biking around so much. I used to think San Jose was huge...but after biking everywhere in that area, from downtown, to greatmall,ldowntown to campbell, milpitas, sunnyvale, blah blah, fremont blah.....it really shows you how bad having a car skews your idea of how far things are.

We went from two cars to one when our son took the Corolla to college with him. My wife uses our remaining car to drive across town to get to work. I walk to work (2 blocks) and ride my bike on errands. I don't miss the old Corolla at all (except maybe when I have to make two trips to *Mart to get everything on the list). Two years ago I envisioned buying a third car. I bought the bike instead and have never regretted it.

Holy crap, how old are you?
I'm 22... I can insure a $1000 honda accord for $4500 a year.

I don't have a $1000 Accord, though. I have a 2001 Chevy Malibu LS that's still being financed (after coming off the lease, I decided to buy it; it was before I bought my first bike) which means, as you know living in NYC, I have to insure it out the wazoo. Add the insurance, car payment, EZ Pass, maintenance, gas, and parking spot on the car, and there's your $1,200.

Needless to say wifey and I are considering taking some of our newfound money and moving to Manhattan; an option now that we don't have a car to worry about.

We are also in this place. We are in small urban area where public transportation is not so great, and we have young kids, so I don't think we can go completely carless. But with me biking almost every day now, I tentatively brought up the idea of having just one car to my wife a few weeks ago, and somewhat to my surprise, she said she had thought about it too, and it was a great idea if we could do it. So now we're basically just waiting for better weather to arrive to start advertising it. There'll probably be the occasional inconvenience, but we want to try.

Anyone interested in a '95 Windstar minivan with a 2-year-old engine?