Hiya matt! This is an issue close to my heart, as I am now 36 years old, have maintained a valid driver’s license (and a perfect driving record) since I was 18, and have never owned a car. You are absolutely right that it saves thousands of dollars a year. Hell, I spend less on local transportation than I would if I owned a car that was completely paid for and had no maintenance costs—insurance and gas alone would cost more than I spend on buses, trains, taxis, and the occasional car rental. Here are my conclusions about what makes this cost-saving scheme work, based on decades (okay, 1.8 decades) of experience with it:
High population density. Reasonably compact cities in densely populated regions, such as the ones I’ve lived in for my adult life, are poorly suited to car culture. Not only are the roads crowded and public parking space limited, but the city’s amenities are destroyed by the growth of private parking—when every two-family house needs off-street parking for four or five cars, gardens and lawns disappear under a sea of asphalt. Mass transit, on the other hand, serves many people in such settings very well with a much smaller negative impact on the quality of life. Obviously, none of this applies to locations like rural Nebraska.
Relatively modest consumption requirements. It is indeed more ludicrous than most people realize to haul several thousand pounds of metal and plastic with you just to traverse a half-mile distance—unless you’re also hauling a couple hundred pounds of groceries. I make brief trips by bus and foot to a nearby supermarket two or three times a week and lug home what I need in a backpack. It works great and provides good exercise, but I hardly think it would be as successful for some of the other shoppers I see piling their shopping carts high with groceries and small children. (Er, of course these are small children that they brought with them into the store—my supermarket offers a wide selection of many goods but they don’t stock kids at present! :))
High levels of adaptability and forethought. If you’re going to renounce the automobile for most of your transportation needs, you have to be willing to conform to the fixed routes and schedules that mass transit requires. (That doesn’t mean you can never get those routes and schedules changed to suit your convenience better—transit users’ advocacy groups are often very effective in improving service—but at any given time you’re stuck with the service currently available.) I have always had to live within walking distance of either my workplace or a transit stop on a route that served my workplace. Additionally, I have had to be very savvy and creative about figuring out ways to get to other destinations by foot, bike, or transit. I enjoy this challenge very much (and I also like my reputation as the Transit Goddess whom everybody at the office always consults when they need to know how to get somewhere while their car’s in the shop :)), but if you simply can’t bear the frustration of not being able to step on the pedal and take off for anywhere immediately, it’s probably not for you. (Parents of small children are again most likely to feel that private transportation is their only viable option—although I’d urge the ones who live near transit routes to give some serious thought to using buses and trains when they can. From what I’ve observed, parents and children who have the luxury of traveling without seatbelts and carseats, with time and attention to spare for talking to each other instead of watching the road, and with the superior safety of mass transit over cars, usually seem more happy and relaxed than the ones who always go by automobile.)
Reasonable health and fitness. If it’s really not possible for you to walk one mile or ride a bike for five, not having a car is going to be much more difficult and restrictive for you. (Though my 73-year-old mother just sold her car and moved to a more transit-friendly city, and is having a ball trying out all the new bus routes—you go, Mom!) If you are in decent shape, though, you have lots more options, especially if there are local pedestrian/bike paths (or you can get a group of people to persuade the city to build one). I’ve seen people commuting to work on everything from a skateboard to Rollerblades to a four-person tandem bicycle. (Matt, I’ve also heard that when the rivers freeze in some Canadian cities you can see businessmen with suits and briefcases going to the office on ice skates—is that true or was I just getting my leg pulled?)
Ways to use the extra transit time productively. There’s no denying that on a trip-by-trip basis, it will generally take longer to get somewhere without a car than with one (although daily traffic jams can go a long way towards equalizing that!); the upside is that you don’t have to spend that time attending to the tasks of driving. If you’re walking or biking, you’re getting valuable exercise; if you can read, work on your laptop, knit, or do your meditation while riding the bus or train, you’re that much ahead of the game. (Also, when you’re doing the comparative time estimates, don’t forget to allow for the time spent in parking and/or meter feeding, as well as maintenance and buying gas!)
No false shame about not being part of car culture. As I concede above, there are lots of reasons that car dependency might be practical or even necessary for some people; but I am always astonished at how many people are instead motivated mostly by some vague conviction that not having or using a car is somehow socially degrading. Otherwise smart and well-informed people seem to think that all transit terminals are necessarily sleazy and dangerous, that all long-distance buses are patronized mostly by filthy winos, or that it’s somehow icky or pathetic to be seen walking around actually carrying something instead of tossing it into the back seat. Personally, I’ve found that transit passengers are generally much better-mannered (and much less physically dangerous!) than many car drivers; and most buses are a good deal cleaner than most cars I’ve been in (though naturally I would never point that out to the people I’m riding with!). I also think it kind of sparks up a community to see something interesting on the street or sidewalk instead of the same boring procession of cars. So when I take my canary in his cage to the bird-sitter’s on the back of my bicycle (“CHIRRRRRRP!”), or bring home a new piece of furniture on a hand truck, or go out to a formal dinner with my date on a municipal bus (“Wow! Where are you guys off to?”), I don’t feel that I’m exposing my disgraceful lack of social status; I feel I’m making my city a more interesting place to live. (Last week I was bringing home a cabinet mirror from my former roommate’s place and a passerby asked me why I was carrying a mirror around; I solemnly assured him that it was a performance art piece that I called “Encounters with the Self.” He almost fell for it, too. :))
Oh, and just in case anybody feels like complaining that my car-free lifestyle simply makes me a parasite demanding that car-owners’ taxes be used to pay for my mass transit (come on, you didn’t imagine that Matt and I could really provide a thread with no social-democracy debate, did you? :)), allow me to point out that in fact, far more of my taxes go to subsidize automobile use than mass transit takes out of the average car-owner’s taxes. (Here’s a link to a summary of various studies of car subsidies.) So from all angles, not having a car really does make a lot of sound sense; if you fit the profile for a non-car-owner outlined above, why not consider selling the beast?
Kimstu