We Sold Our Car Five Years Ago. Here’s Why It Works for Us.
This article is part one in a three-part series. Read part two here.
(Source: Unsplash/Vahid Kanani.)
This month marks five years since my husband and I sold our only car in order to give the “car-lite” life a go. Arriving at that decision was a culmination of a bunch of factors, the biggest one being that we had replaced our previous vehicle (an automatic) with a manual transmission, which I never got comfortable driving. The car sat parked a lot of time, while I started riding the bus, biking, and walking a lot more. Eventually, our mechanic suggested that we might want to re-think car ownership, as our vehicle was starting to have problems as a result of not being driven enough!
So, we sold our car and, for better or for worse, freed ourselves of car ownership. We saw it as an open-ended experiment; a bit of an adventure. Could we make it work?
A lot has changed in those five years. A global pandemic, for one (more on that later), but also our kids are all older. The car co-op in my city has expanded dramatically. I feel more committed to my personal values, but I also have come to accept and embrace the notion that perfect is the enemy of good. We have made it work, for the most part.
Other people ask me how it is, living without a car, especially with kids. After about three years of our new life, I began to say it’s 90/10: 90% absolutely fine, 10% giant pain in the butt. On some of those 10% days, I would be very happy to throw the towel in.
I think it’s important to state right off the bat that while many folks use the term “car-free,” for us the term “car-lite” or “car-less” is more apt. Whether it’s a taxi, a borrowed car, a co-op car booking, or a rental car, we still find ourselves inside cars often enough. We just don’t own one.
What makes it work?
When people find out we don’t own a car, I often find myself pre-emptively explaining all the reasons that it’s possible for us. I’ve noticed that some folks seem to almost get a little defensive about how it couldn’t work for them, as if they think I might be judging their choice to have one. I’m not. For a lot of my peers, it clearly wouldn’t work to not own a car based on a lot of factors, like where they live and work, where their families live, what hobbies or activities they do, etc.
Anyway, for us, here are the factors that make it possible.
My husband and I both work from home and have done so since before the pandemic, and our kids get bussed to school (they’d love to bike, but there isn’t a safe and convenient bike route to get them there). And, most of our family lives not only in town but right in our neighborhood.
Groceries—“but how do you get them?!” This is what Not Just Bikes creator Jason Slaughter said was a common reaction when his family ditched their car. This one’s easy for us. There’s a major grocery chain here that runs its own delivery service with online ordering and excellent customer service. It’s not perfect all the time, but it’s popular enough that I see their delivery vans out and about all the time, and I know a lot of other families who get their groceries delivered at least some of the time, even if they do own a car. If I need something between deliveries, there are major grocery stores I can take a short bus ride or bike ride to, or even take a longer walk to if I’m keen for the steps.
This last one is maybe the least obvious but is probably one of the biggest keys to why it works. Our neighborhood has a pre-automobile development pattern; one of the city’s original streetcar suburbs. Within a short walk of home, there are about 50 destinations: professional services, retail shops, restaurants, recreational sites, places of worship, etc. Of course, I wish there were more (groceries and third places, in particular), and I don’t frequent them all, and the built environment (i.e., stroad) to get to them all often leaves much to be desired. But they exist, and that makes a huge difference. Also, the layout of this part of town, along with the population in it, supports a bus line that has about as frequent service as it gets in Winnipeg (8–10 minutes during peak times, 15 minutes at its lowest) and runs a half-block away from our home.
Our decision to try life without car ownership dovetailed naturally and nicely with becoming more involved in our neighborhood. We had already started to intentionally live a more local life, seeking out and supporting local service providers and recreation opportunities, as well as spending a lot of time volunteering in our own backyard. And for us, it seemed like a small thing we could do to care for the earth.
So all that said, here’s what I love about our car-lite life:
We’ve become attached and attuned to what’s happening with businesses, restaurants, etc. in our own area, rather than habitually driving elsewhere. I’ll talk more about this later in this series, but this reflex—gravitating to local options—has led to a very deep attachment to our neighborhood and the people and places in it. We want to be part of a prospering place, and by spending a lot of time here, we are able to humbly observe every day what is going well and what needs work.
We get exercise naturally, in the course of going about our daily lives. I’m no fitness buff, but especially as I approach middle age, I really value getting daily movement and my favorite way to do that is with a useful walk or bike ride.
We save a lot of money. Even when factoring in co-op car bookings, rentals and taxis, the occasional new bike, and, of course, bus fares, our current transportation spending is way less than what we previously spent on insurance, maintenance, gas, etc.
We’re also freed from a lot of hassles related to car ownership: where to park the car during overnight parking bans (common in the winter here), car alarms (it’s lovely not to have to worry that it’s mine when I hear one go off), shoveling a driveway, flat tires, or mystery car issues.
That said, despite all the positives of our new life, it’s not all sunshine and roses. In part two of this series, I dive into the challenges, both predictable and unexpected, that we deal with.
Car companies have been talking about making cars a third place for years, and the concept has been engrained in North American culture for even longer. But can cars actually function as a third place? More importantly, should they?