5 ms·

I'm planning to live a car free life soon. I'll be moving in to the city so almost everything is within walking distance and just about everything is accessable

I'm planning to live a car free life soon. I'll be moving in to the city so almost everything is within walking distance and just about everything is accessable via public transport. The only thing I haven't been able work out is how I will continue to go mtn biking since bikes aren't allowed on the bus. But I just can't justify the massive expense of owning a car and a car park for one activity.

nickik 7y ago
You can rent a car for a one day trip.
jedberg 7y ago
I know lots of car free people in the city who just rent a car for weekend trips. Still cheaper than owning a car.
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  That actually sounds like a really good idea for camping trips and such.
- nightfly 7y ago
  Living car-free for about 5 years I _dreaded_ whenever I'd need to rent a car. Cars that were good enough for rural driving were $$$ and often not available, so I was stuck with super compact cars for $$. Plus the whole experience of renting cars is awful. And that was with renting a car ~3 times per year. If I wanted even monthly trips it would have been cheaper to buy a car and park it the rest of the time.
- _jal 7y ago
  Also less stress. I use Zipcar for random errands and rent one for overnight trips. Last year I think I spent around $1500 on cars, all in. Zipcars are parked nearby, probably closer than I'd find a parking spot on average and basically always available. The rental place I use is 1/4 mile away. They know me by name. I never move a car for street cleaning, deal with a busted window, or pay tickets. If you don't need one for work, or have mobility issues or kids, they're entirely optional and (at least to me) life is better without them.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
mumblemumble 7y ago
Mountain biking is one of the things I gave up when I moved to the city. I thought that maybe I'd occasionally rent a car and drive out to a state park, but what I quickly discovered was that, once driving stopped being a part of my daily life, the idea of regularly driving out to a forest preserve lost its palatability. Largely because I am no longer inured to driving, so any plan for how to spend my leisure time that involves devoting a significant percentage of it to being stuck behind the wheel on a freeway is kind of a non-starter. So instead I road bike 4 seasons and take a few camping trips per year. So far it's working for me. Less time stuck in a car and more time out walking in my neighborhood means I have a greatly reduced need for things like mountain biking to help me unwind in the first place. That said, I think that when I originally calculated it out, I figured out that renting a car 4-5 days a month was still cheaper than owning an inexpensive car. And not too much of a hassle in most cities - out of 4 urban addresses I've lived at, only one wasn't close to a car rental office, and even then it was only about 15 minutes by bus.
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  I think I'll likely end up the same as you. I also enjoy road cycling so I think I will probably just sell the mtb and go full time road. A bit sad but the other benefits I expect to see will make it worth it.
- justinator 7y ago
  Consider doing multi-day trips from your front door during the weekends (bikepacking). I used to live in Denver and never understood why people would find the need to drive 10 miles to the nearest trails when you could just ride to them. Then I realized, once you're done with those initial 10 miles, you could link up routes that covered practically the entire rest of the state. Now I'm writing a guidebook on those routes. Bummer about buses not accepting bikes - that sounds crazy to me. They just don't have room underneath or a bike rack up front? I can hardly understand how that could be true!
  - Polylactic_acid 7y ago
    >10 miles to the nearest trails when you could just ride to them. Because they are usually up in the hills so its a fairly large effort to get there and by the time you are there you have no energy left to do the trails unless there is a ski lift to get you to the top.
stevenwoo 7y ago
How did you pick the city, and if you do not mind revealing what city or general location?
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  Its just the one I currently work at in Australia. I have a semi plan to move to Melbourne for the higher availability of jobs but I think I want to test the waters somewhere more local first.
fulafel 7y ago
Taxi?
asdff 7y ago
You should see if the bus has racks for bikes on the front. Most do in the U.S. at least. Keep the wheel locked to the frame so if someone ambushes the bus for your bike they won't get very far.
peter303 7y ago
I live in the state of Colorado where there are a thousand interesting and fun places to drive to. Ditto when I lived in California. Life is too short to be sanctimonious. P.S. I have a vehicle that gets almost 50 mpg, nearly triple the popular hulking SUVs here.
OrgNet 7y ago
rent a bike wherever you plan on using it
cactus2093 7y ago
YMMV, but as someone who lives in the city in SF and hasn’t ever owned a car before, I just got a car a month ago and so far it’s been a great decision, I’m loving it. Before this I did zipcar or other services for the occasional trip, and sure, it’s convenient enough to physically get to the cars (unless they get fully booked in my neighborhood which does happen) but it’s still quite a bit of overhead. It’s a pain always having to know exactly how long you’ll be gone to book the right number of hours, since someone might book right after you so you can’t rely on being able to extend it at the last minute. And every time you book one for a day, you have to do the calculation - is it really worth spending $100 to go to a friend’s bbq in the suburbs? You also don’t have specific gear you may need like snow chains or mountain bike racks. I just ended up not using it all that often, only for specific big planned trips, and even then it adds additional stress. Owning a car will certainly be more expensive for me overall, but I‘ll also use it a lot more. And I consider myself an urbanist, I’ve always been proud not to own one. Now I feel like I’ve been tilting at windmills all this time and it’s nice to give it up. SF is an insanely car-centric place for being so-called progressive, which sucks for density, and walkability, and street life, and pedestrian and biker safety. Public transit, especially on the weekends, is pretty bad. For instance getting from the east side of the city out to ocean beach or land’s end, would take over an hour on muni, but it’s a 20-30 minute drive. Public transit to get to even very popular destinations close to the city, like Napa or Muir Woods, is often non existent. Instead of being annoyed by it, now I can take better advantage of the perks of living here and do more with my free time, which is absolutely worth it to me right now. My goal this year is to get out more, do more day hikes and other short trips, and so far it’s going great. I feel kind of dumb now for holding out this long, actually.
sershe 7y ago
I feel you, I'd really love to get rid of the car but it would be impossible to go climbing/hiking (begging for carpools gets old fast). Even in a car-centric place like the US (Seattle) it's possible to live in a house and still accomplish things cheaper and more conveniently via walking/bus/bike/Uber/Zipcar/rentals, except for the mountain trips, because it's so hard to get a car for 2-3 days at a convenient time and/or on a short notice. It's a chicken and egg problem... if most people didn't own cars there would be much more reasonable and convenient ways to rent a car. But given that most people do anyway because even groceries without a car are a chore in a poorly design city, the market for the good rentals is not there.

nickik 7y ago

You can rent a car for a one day trip.

jedberg 7y ago

I know lots of car free people in the city who just rent a car for weekend trips. Still cheaper than owning a car.

Polylactic_acid 7y ago
That actually sounds like a really good idea for camping trips and such.
nightfly 7y ago
Living car-free for about 5 years I _dreaded_ whenever I'd need to rent a car. Cars that were good enough for rural driving were $$$ and often not available, so I was stuck with super compact cars for $$. Plus the whole experience of renting cars is awful. And that was with renting a car ~3 times per year. If I wanted even monthly trips it would have been cheaper to buy a car and park it the rest of the time.
_jal 7y ago
Also less stress. I use Zipcar for random errands and rent one for overnight trips. Last year I think I spent around $1500 on cars, all in. Zipcars are parked nearby, probably closer than I'd find a parking spot on average and basically always available. The rental place I use is 1/4 mile away. They know me by name. I never move a car for street cleaning, deal with a busted window, or pay tickets. If you don't need one for work, or have mobility issues or kids, they're entirely optional and (at least to me) life is better without them.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]

mumblemumble 7y ago

Mountain biking is one of the things I gave up when I moved to the city. I thought that maybe I'd occasionally rent a car and drive out to a state park, but what I quickly discovered was that, once driving stopped being a part of my daily life, the idea of regularly driving out to a forest preserve lost its palatability. Largely because I am no longer inured to driving, so any plan for how to spend my leisure time that involves devoting a significant percentage of it to being stuck behind the wheel on a freeway is kind of a non-starter. So instead I road bike 4 seasons and take a few camping trips per year. So far it's working for me. Less time stuck in a car and more time out walking in my neighborhood means I have a greatly reduced need for things like mountain biking to help me unwind in the first place. That said, I think that when I originally calculated it out, I figured out that renting a car 4-5 days a month was still cheaper than owning an inexpensive car. And not too much of a hassle in most cities - out of 4 urban addresses I've lived at, only one wasn't close to a car rental office, and even then it was only about 15 minutes by bus.

Polylactic_acid 7y ago
I think I'll likely end up the same as you. I also enjoy road cycling so I think I will probably just sell the mtb and go full time road. A bit sad but the other benefits I expect to see will make it worth it.
justinator 7y ago
Consider doing multi-day trips from your front door during the weekends (bikepacking). I used to live in Denver and never understood why people would find the need to drive 10 miles to the nearest trails when you could just ride to them. Then I realized, once you're done with those initial 10 miles, you could link up routes that covered practically the entire rest of the state. Now I'm writing a guidebook on those routes. Bummer about buses not accepting bikes - that sounds crazy to me. They just don't have room underneath or a bike rack up front? I can hardly understand how that could be true!
- Polylactic_acid 7y ago
  >10 miles to the nearest trails when you could just ride to them. Because they are usually up in the hills so its a fairly large effort to get there and by the time you are there you have no energy left to do the trails unless there is a ski lift to get you to the top.

stevenwoo 7y ago

How did you pick the city, and if you do not mind revealing what city or general location?

Polylactic_acid 7y ago
Its just the one I currently work at in Australia. I have a semi plan to move to Melbourne for the higher availability of jobs but I think I want to test the waters somewhere more local first.

fulafel 7y ago

Taxi?

asdff 7y ago

You should see if the bus has racks for bikes on the front. Most do in the U.S. at least. Keep the wheel locked to the frame so if someone ambushes the bus for your bike they won't get very far.

peter303 7y ago

I live in the state of Colorado where there are a thousand interesting and fun places to drive to. Ditto when I lived in California. Life is too short to be sanctimonious. P.S. I have a vehicle that gets almost 50 mpg, nearly triple the popular hulking SUVs here.

OrgNet 7y ago

rent a bike wherever you plan on using it

cactus2093 7y ago

YMMV, but as someone who lives in the city in SF and hasn’t ever owned a car before, I just got a car a month ago and so far it’s been a great decision, I’m loving it. Before this I did zipcar or other services for the occasional trip, and sure, it’s convenient enough to physically get to the cars (unless they get fully booked in my neighborhood which does happen) but it’s still quite a bit of overhead. It’s a pain always having to know exactly how long you’ll be gone to book the right number of hours, since someone might book right after you so you can’t rely on being able to extend it at the last minute. And every time you book one for a day, you have to do the calculation - is it really worth spending $100 to go to a friend’s bbq in the suburbs? You also don’t have specific gear you may need like snow chains or mountain bike racks. I just ended up not using it all that often, only for specific big planned trips, and even then it adds additional stress. Owning a car will certainly be more expensive for me overall, but I‘ll also use it a lot more. And I consider myself an urbanist, I’ve always been proud not to own one. Now I feel like I’ve been tilting at windmills all this time and it’s nice to give it up. SF is an insanely car-centric place for being so-called progressive, which sucks for density, and walkability, and street life, and pedestrian and biker safety. Public transit, especially on the weekends, is pretty bad. For instance getting from the east side of the city out to ocean beach or land’s end, would take over an hour on muni, but it’s a 20-30 minute drive. Public transit to get to even very popular destinations close to the city, like Napa or Muir Woods, is often non existent. Instead of being annoyed by it, now I can take better advantage of the perks of living here and do more with my free time, which is absolutely worth it to me right now. My goal this year is to get out more, do more day hikes and other short trips, and so far it’s going great. I feel kind of dumb now for holding out this long, actually.

sershe 7y ago

I feel you, I'd really love to get rid of the car but it would be impossible to go climbing/hiking (begging for carpools gets old fast). Even in a car-centric place like the US (Seattle) it's possible to live in a house and still accomplish things cheaper and more conveniently via walking/bus/bike/Uber/Zipcar/rentals, except for the mountain trips, because it's so hard to get a car for 2-3 days at a convenient time and/or on a short notice. It's a chicken and egg problem... if most people didn't own cars there would be much more reasonable and convenient ways to rent a car. But given that most people do anyway because even groceries without a car are a chore in a poorly design city, the market for the good rentals is not there.