Rebelling from car culture and loving it 🚴 😈
In 2009, I took my last drive in my Chrysler Sebring. I was on my way to a halfway house to get rid of it my car, passing it on to a family who needed it. I had decided in favor of walking, bike commuting, and taking the bus.
In doing so, I joined the ranks of the 11 million American households without a car.
My decision wasn’t some kind of martyrdom or financial hack. It was a choice to improve my quality of life. I wanted to get more exercise and have less stress around parking, maintenance, and driving in traffic.
And *blasphemy alert* I just don’t enjoy driving that much.
I felt an immediate load lift from me after the car was gone. I stopped worrying about oil changes and parking and whether I was running low on gas. Every time I heard a car alarm go off, I had a moment of panic that it might be my car. Then I remembered the I didn’t have one.
Since getting rid of my car, I spend at least 40 minutes per day walking to work and running errands, averaging a 2–3 miles a day. No more frantic lane changes or road rage: I read on the bus. (I do get sidewalk rage, though. If you’re walking and texting in front of me, watch out…😡)
Every day, I make new memories on my commute. In New York, I walked past beautiful street art in Brooklyn and ate gelato on my way in front of the Flatiron building.
I watched the sun set between the buildings from Union Square during the bi-annual Manhattan-henge event.
Now in Boulder, ducklings bob past me down Boulder Creek. I gather strength from the snow-covered peaks on my way to work.
As much as I’d like to market car-free as a utopian lifestyle, it comes with its own share of inconveniences.
In fact, I’ve hit some major speed bumps along the way. 😝
The other day, for example, I missed my bus stop and ended up walking along the side of the highway. There was no shoulder, so I was just wading through weeds for about a quarter mile.
I call problems like this “flat tire moments.” They’re the kind of occasional inconvenience you’d have in a car when your tire gets punctured or you have to jumpstart the battery.
Moving from NYC to Boulder was more of a shock than I thought. In NYC, being car-free is normal. Most of my NYC friends don’t own cars and don’t miss them. In Boulder, people consider a car a necessity — despite the fact that you can get literally anywhere in our small city by walking and biking on our wide sidewalks (biking on the sidewalks is legal and encouraged in Colorado), and everywhere outside the city by bus.
In New York, I was normal. In Boulder, I unwittingly became some kind of car-culture rebel.
I was puzzled my first month here when people started offering me rides for short distances. Obviously, I appreciate it and sometimes take them up on it. Awesome people ftw!
But overall, I don’t like the idea that I’m to be pitied, that I secretly wish I could get places faster. I’m car-free because I love it. I don’t expect other people to feel bad or help me. I don’t offer to help them out of their miserable rushed existences, although maybe I should… 🤔 Walking and biking is such a joyful way to be. Drivers truly don’t know what they’re missing.
Once in a while, I do need to rent transportation.
Vacations, for one. But even people with cars at home need to rent transportation after a flight.
For furniture moving jobs, I can rent a pickup easily on Turo or from uHaul. (Although I’d love to try hauling furniture on a bike (photo at left)…. Maybe someday I can rent one of these awesome eBike trucks! But I would have needed to do this anyway when I had my Sebring, so it’s no big deal.
And yeah, there have been a few rainy / windy days in the last 9 years when I’ve watched people drive by in their nice, warm cars and thought, “AM I CRAZY?????”
All in all, the car rebel lifestyle has been great. So many of us have wished we could be outside more, meet our neighbors, get in shape. I’m livin the dream, doing all these things while saving me $6–7k per year. You could call it the gym that pays YOU.
Nine years and counting. 🚴 👟 😊