(Editor’s note: Completely reckless use of linguistic devices ahead.)
Quietly, like a new years eve celebration that goes to bed at 9:30, we celebrated our one year anniversary of being car free.
There was less fuss to going car free than I would have anticipated - the lease was up, so I put the bike in the back, went to the dealership, gave them their car back, and rode home. That was pretty much it. Not a lot of planning. A little gearing up in terms of a good rain jacket and gloves. We did go big on the fenders now that we didn’t have car or gas payments.
A couple of days into it, we were still pretty pleased with ourselves to the point where even the steady spring drizzle didn’t seem to dampen our moods. When you need to go somewhere, and you can only go by bike, then you go by bike. The simplicity was oddly comforting. When we didn’t ride, we found ourselves walking around the city noticing things we hadn’t really noticed before.
The first hitch came when we dearly wanted to cash in a coupon from the Portland Nursery across town. How were we going to haul plants and mulch? That is when we discovered the beauty of the Zipcar. Like 823-BUMP, Zipcar filled the hole in our transportation options in no time. We took those big trips to the store, and ran luxuriously quick errands on dark rainy nights. We went to the coast when we wanted to. We got a puppy - who we now haul around in a Burley.
We admit that we have it lucky: we are close to a lot of services and there aren’t kids to schlep around. And while we miss hitting the trails as much as we used to, we now have a closer relationship to our travels. Like living on a farm, we know where our transportation food comes from.
I saw an interesting comment the other day, about the cognitive disconnect that people feel when they start to really understand the impact of cars. But I don’t feel any smugness in being car free, nor do I feel like I have escaped the disconnect. We use cars, and might have to buy one someday. But I can say that going car free was easier than I thought. Kind of like taking off the training wheels.
Looks like I will be car-free in a matter of days or weeks. Can’t wait to join the club!
Which Burley do you use for canine transport? Not quite car-less but my car is so fuel inefficient that I’m trying to limit its use and switch over to more bike/cart type transport. Now looking at the many trailer options.
Main carless problem for me: getting up to PDX and Seattle areas for remotely located brevets. If only train/bus service were more affordable/speedy between Eugene and Portland. As Portlanders–you guys have it made in terms of urban access to recreation, shopping, etc..
We use the Tail Wagon from Burley. Its pretty good, but not a great design. It has a rain cover which is handy, but sometimes the little puppy wants to bail. And sometimes she can. That is a little troubling.
As for getting to those brevets, we totally lucked out with the Zipcar. $60 bucks for 24 hours and they cover gas. But then again, friends with cars help also.
I wonder if it counts to call it car-free if you use zipcar. I’m not trying to be a stick in the mud or anything, but for the purists out there I suspect that the idea of being “car-free” means not using a car at all, even someone else’s. I suppose this is a matter of degrees, like almost anything else.
Congratulations on dumping all those financial headaches of car ownership!
(That’s why I sold MY car nearly 20 years ago, and I haven’t looked back once.
Saving 4 to 5 grand a year can do that to a gal.)
Go for a celebratory bike ride!
Cheers–BH