4 Ways to Live Without a Car
4 Ways to Live Without a Car
You've made the decision to live without a car. Congratulations! While a car is a useful solution to getting from place to place, it can also cost a lot of money to maintain. Cars can also cause a lot of unneeded stress. Without one,...
- Live somewhere that doing so is viable.
That should be any city.
The thing is it shouldn’t even need to be a city. Sure, cities can afford transit and many other amenities, but there’s no reason not to have a higher density area at the center of pretty much any town or village. There’s no reason you can’t have people in walking distance to whatever your town has to offer. Not everyone, of course, some will always want to be alone. But every town should be able to offer some sort of amenities and a reason to live there. Even if it’s just a diner and general store, you should be able to offer a compelling car-free existence.
I grew up in a town of 14,000 where there was a central business area, with houses and apartments in walking distance. My grandparents lived on a farm outside a village of 450, that had a walkable, higher density town center. If older places could do it, so can newer.
My current town is much bigger, 50,000 and a bedroom community of a major city. I live in a single family home, but can walk to the town center. We have a train station into the city, that’s a transportation hub with taxis, buses, scooters, Ubers, kayaks, and right next to the town common and city hall. We have a library, post office, and so many hair and nail salons. We have a regular grocery and an Indian grocery, and tons of shops and restaurants of various cultures. The so enter is surrounded by apartment buildings, then three deckers, and single family homes like mine are still walking distance! During pandemic, our new family activity became walking to the town center, grabbing kebabs, and eating in a bench on the Common. There are a lot of towns of this size, and you too should be able to have city-like amenities on a smaller scale.
Unfortunately I do have to use a car to goto work, but I work from home half the time. Many weeks I use my car only twice to work and once to the grocery, like three miles each, a bit far to walk. It’s an EV so a little gentler on the environment and I never need a gas station. But between the hills and my bad knees, and snow part of the year, cycling is out. I’m sure it would be cheaper to bus and uber the few places I need to, but it’s hard to entirely give up my car
OK, those are the solutions for people living in a city center. Commutes are short enough to walk or bike, and for longer trips, there is a bus or tram every five minutes. Got it.
And what would be the solution for those people living outside the city centers? Biking from here to the city is 20km, nearly an hour downhill towards the city, but at least one and a half back up. Busses go every hour, but only Mo-Fr during the core hours. In the evening or on weekends, bus traffic is spotty, to say the least. And Trams, well, we don't do trams or trains in the country.
Design better cities. End sprawl.
But it's probably too late for cities already designed to be suburban hell to make any changes that dont involve redesigning and tearing up half the city. I mean, its possible but unlikely in north america at least
That sounds like where I grew up, small town and nearest cities were over an hour by bus. Never had an issue without a car, most shopping is just food so easy enough to walk or cycle to the local Tesco.
Most weeks the only time I would leave the town was when walking the dog. Until I got a job in the next town over, which was only 6 miles away, easy distance to cycle. Moved since then, now its quicker to cycle to the next town over than get the bus or drive. Google says its up to an hour to drive there in the morning, cycling you can just go past all the cars that aren't moving anywhere.
So it's bike, bus, train and walk. I mean, yeah.
Been living in NYC for (oh no I'm old) many years. No car. No complaints.
People imagine "the city" is all times square on New Year's Eve but it's not. The streets are rarely empty, but it's also almost never shoulder to shoulder dense.
I find the suburban emptiness depressing, personally. I like other people being around.
Mmm'k, I'll take the bike next time I'll bring 300kg of concrete from the store...
The problems is not having a car. The problem is taking its car everyday for less than 5km to go to work.
Yes, you can live without any car if you live in a big city (in 30m2 apartment 😝), eat in restaurant, go to cinema, etc... and love this way of living.
But if you want a house, with decent garden, close to nature, then it becomes hard to live without car. Not that you must take your car everyday, I have an electric 50cm3 equivalent bike to go to work.But yeah, when I do the garden and have 3/4m3 of organic waste, it's hard to evacuate this by bus...
@borokov @veganpizza69
Ironically, your car is destroying the nature you want to be closer to. If you really love nature and the outdoors, using a car to access it is like being a toxic ex-boyfriend who refuses to let go and calls it love.But what's the alternative?
I'm not talking about the big national parks, which should absolutely have mass transit to shuttle people into it.
But the smaller parks, national/state forests, and public lands? I do a lot of backpacking so I'm regularly at an unnamed trailhead in the middle of my local national forest where we've been on dirt roads for the last 45 minutes. There's not really any feasible way to build public transport to service all of that, and I would very very very much not want them building actual roads for busses or rails for trains.
I’ll take the bike next time I’ll bring 300kg of concrete from the store…
To be fair, you could get a bike trailer that handles 300kg, and it would be way more affordable than a pickup truck or van.
But are you doing this often? Are most people??
When I get something large enough to require a cargo van, I usually just rent one for like $20.
It's about using the most appropriate vehicle for the job, with a priority being on the one that causes the least harm to the environment and community.
A car is not appropriate for most of the trips people take, and a truck/SUV even less.
You'd probably be surprised to know that people do just that kind of thing regularly. There are numerous videos on YouTube showing all sorts of large objects being moved by bike.
I came by bike to work during 10 years, I also have a trailer for my daughter, do regular cyclo-tourism, including crossing Scotland and Iceland with tent and bike.
Trust me, I know what a bike can do. But when you just discharge 4 tons of concrete from the delivery truck and noticed you missed a few bags of cement, you really are not motivated to drive 15km with cargo bike.
Why aren't you keeping you organic wastes on the property to make nutrituous compost?
Dude, do you have any idea if what 5m3 grass, woods and leaves represent in a 700m2 garden, and the time it would require to compost it naturally ?
There is an "organic factory" (don't know how to translate it) were people can bring their organic waste close to my home. They have big crusher for wood, and several areas to maturate the compost. You can buy premium organic compost for your garden for like 0.1 euros per kg. You can also come with your trailer and take a few tons if you want.
It is also used by townhalk to decorate round about, public PARC, etc...