Last month marked the beginning of my third year of living without a car, and I don’t miss it at all. Though we are raised to think of a car as a means to be free, I find I am much more free now than I was when I had one. Free of debt, free of gas expenses, free of responsibility, and free of insurance, a practice where you gamble your money assuming you’re going to lose.
My path to being car free is not exactly how you might imagine it. For the year before I sold my last car, I experimented with alternative forms of transportation. I avoided using my car as much as possible to the point where some people were even surprised when they heard I had one since they’d only seen me arrive by bicycle. In fact the car I had at the time was pretty much the opposite of a bicycle. I had a Lincoln Towncar. This in itself is a story.
The first car I bought wholly with my own money was a Toyota Prius. Like most Prius owners, I played the game of seeing how much I could drive solely on the battery power of this hybrid vehicle. At times I was able to get as much as 50 mpg, but there was always something nagging me about this car: it didn’t broadcast my big personality. It was designed to provide as little wind resistance as possible which also seemed to make it invisible as a declaration of who I was, something particularly important for men. It was a responsible vehicle with little passion, and did not represent me.
At one point, I attempted to give it some personality by painting the wheels black and gold. My passengers were often embarrassed, but I was validated one time when a young boy standing in a group of school kids yelled out, “Nice wheels”. Who I saw myself to be and how I realized that in an automobile is the next story.
About twenty years ago, my wife and I were complaining that whenever we went to a friend’s wedding, we never got to spend any time in the nice hotel we’d reserved for the weekend, so we decided “why not go away for the weekend and make the hotel the destination?” Since we had neither a pool nor cable TV at the time, those would be the luxuries we could finally enjoy without the hassle of having to show up for someone’s wedding.
We lived in San Francisco at the time, and it was known for its cold summers so another requirement was that the destination be somewhere hot. We settled on the Town House motel in Chico, California. In addition to having cable TV and a pool, there was a Dairy Queen right across the street so there’d be no need to get out of our slippers for the entire weekend. We named our holiday White Trash Weekend.
When our good friends Vince and Mayanne heard of our plans, they asked if they could join us. At the time we all owned cheap compact cars, and I didn’t fancy a 5 hour road trip with 4 people in one of those klunkers so I decided to surprise everyone by renting a Lincoln Towncar. I had to take public transit all the way out to the airport to get it, but it was worth it when I saw the expression on everyone’s face as I pulled up in front of the house to pick them up. Vince later told me that Mary Anne called to him, “Tom’s here, and I think he’s driving his grandmother’s car”.
Attitudes changed quickly as we floated up the interstate on air suspension, wrapped in leather seats. It was so spacious that we felt like we were flying first class to Chico, ironic given what we had named the weekend. After that, whenever I rented a car, it was always a Towncar.
Several years later, while giving a tour of Seattle, I pointed out the number of Towncars driving around the city. When asked about my obsession with the car, I shared the whole story of White Trash Weekend. After listening to me talk glowingly about the vehicle for 30 minutes, one of my tourists asked, “when you are on your deathbed, will you regret not having owned that vehicle?” It was then that I realized I had to have one.
It took me less than a month to find what I was looking for, and I delighted in the irony of trading in my Prius for a Towncar. Finally, I had a car big enough to display my personality. I loved that car and drove it every chance I could. I found it especially suitable for camping, where you could just throw everything in the trunk without having to worry about strategic packing. The trouble with owning a car, however, is that you have to take care of it.
I spent about half of my year traveling overseas, yet I had to pay insurance on my car for the whole year or pay to store it off the street. In addition to that, there always seemed to be some maintenance issue every time I returned costing me just under a thousand dollars, so three years ago, I decided to try living without a car.
I didn’t want to go cold turkey, so I actually kept the Towncar while I experimented in car free living. I already used my bike for most of my transit needs. For wet weather or greater distances, I used the bus or light rail. Portland has an excellent transportation system that costs only $2.50 for 2 hours or $5 for the whole day. With this system, I could travel downtown, to the airport, or as far as 35 miles to the end of the line.
Amtrak could get me even further, to places like Seattle or Vancouver in about the same amount of time as driving and at less than it would have cost me in gas. Additionally, I got to relax instead of stressing out on the road. I could drink a cocktail in the lounge car as I enjoyed the view rolling by.
Another catalyst to my car free living was the onset of car sharing. This is where you can rent a car for just the amount of time you need it. Several companies have cars dispersed throughout the city, and you can find the closest available one using an app on your phone. It’s not usually more than a couple blocks away.
You can reserve the car for up to 30 minutes while you walk to it. You then unlock the car with your phone, and the key is inside ready for your trip. At the end of your trip, you lock the car and are only billed for the number of minutes you used it. The per minute rate is somewhat high, but when you consider that gas, maintenance, and insurance is included in the cost, it seems reasonable.
The shared cars also have flat day rates, so I could take it to the beach for the weekend as well. I looked into renting from traditional car rental companies for longer trips, but I had to keep the rental for a week before it would become more affordable that way. While advertised rates for rental cars are cheaper, you now how the price doubles by the time you’ve left the counter. Plus with a rental car, I had to go to pick the car up. With the shared cars, I could pick one close to me and didn’t have to worry about business hours.
At the end of a year, I compared my costs of owning versus using alternative forms of transit, and the latter was much cheaper, so I went to car free living.
I had been able to live my dream of owning a town car before I died, and almost three years ago I gave it to my brother in law. He had always been kind enough to watch it for me while I was traveling and expressed a love of it despite the fact that he was from Europe. Maybe it was the novelty of being able to drive such a big car on wide highways that motivated him, but I found it ironic that I was going the European route while he was going the American route.
While most Americans see a car as access to freedom, I find living without a car to be more free. I never have to worry about where my car is parked or whether the meter is running out. I don’t have to work extra hours to pay for gas or insurance.
I am just able to pick and pay for the form of transportation that is most convenient when I need it.