I’m guest posting over at Steady mom. Get your learning on and check it out.
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Two days ago we sold our truck. It was F250 Super Duty and the reason I never talked about it is out of eco-embarrassment. We bought it a year and a half ago thinking it could act as a work truck and family car thus making up for it’s monstrosity. We also dream about having a camper to take on family adventures and we thought the truck could pull it. Thus in our minds we were downsizing from potentially driving three vehicles (work truck, family car and camper) to one.
Things haven’t gone exactly how we planned.
We didn’t know we were about to get pregnant and put our camper dream on hold for a few more years. We didn’t know that after a few improvements Stone’s current work truck would still have a few more years left in it. Instead we found that most of the time we were using this gigantic truck for around the town errands and play dates. We live downtown in a small city and to drive this monster three miles to get groceries felt silly. Very silly. It was also really hard to find a parking spot. And people gave us a lot of dirty looks. (You know that whole eco-judgement thing. eh.)
We also had many, many good times with our truck.
It finally seemed like the right time to let her go and have some time being carless. Well, we still have the small work truck, but it means the kids and I don’t have a vehicle while Stone is working and since we don’t all fit there will be no more family car trips.
Transportation Solutions
The city buses drive right down our road so I’m going to try and get super bus savvy.
There is also a pretty awesome car share in our town. They have cars parked in various hot spots all over the place. You pay a reasonable joining fee and then pay an hourly rate to use it. When we did the math it seems like it would still be cheaper than what we were paying for insurance and upkeep. They have a car parked three blocks down on our street so if we want to go visit friends or hang out at a state forest we can manage it quite easily.
My neighbor stopped me yesterday to chat and mentioned that we were welcome to borrow their car. They sometimes borrow our work truck to make trips to the truck and we have a nice respectful neighborly relationship with them. I felt really thankful for their generous offer and I can see us taking them up on it once in a while.
Going without a family car is going to push us to get more creative and way more likely to walk when we can. All good things in my book. We’ll see where we go from here.
What’s the car situation in your family? What would your ideal transportation system look like?
{ 15 comments… read them below or add one }
We have two cars – my husband’s 8-year-old Rav4 and my 10-year-old Civic. We bought them when we were both still working totally across town from each other.
I like the idea of going down to 1 car. We can all easily fit into either. But I find the idea of having to walk 3 blocks to the bus with my kids anytime we want to go anywhere daunting. And so we keep both cars. But I dream of it not being that way. I would like to be able to get rid of at least one of them.
This is awesome Hillary. I admire your determination and creativity in this regard.
We are a one car family (small Toyota SUV that has the same gas mileage as our old Honda) but it seems easy to me because my husband walks to work. So I always have the car, which seems like no sacrifice at all. If you were my neighbor you could borrow it!
http://fimby.tougas.net/car-poetry
We do a lot of camping and adventuring and we’ve chosen to do that simply so we don’t need a big truck and trailer/camper option (not saying that’s a bad dream just answering your question).
Having no car is not an option for our family of 5 who likes to adventure so I think we are already living our ideal in this regard. Our vehicle takes us where we want to go, safely and in one piece, is paid for and because it’s old doesn’t cost a lot to insure. It’s a great situation all around.
Was the truck a hybrid? ;-)
ha ha ;p
When we pulled into our coop parking lot we received glaring judgements. I was at first horrified and Stone used to joke that we should put a bumper sticker on it that said, “F(*%& off! It’s a hybrid!” lol.
After being on the receiving end of so much eco-judgment I did learn some valuable lessons. 1)thou shall not judge. And 2) Get over yourself.
Little did people know we drove the truck 2 miles home to our 750 sq foot home, kwim. Judgement just sucks. You never know so try to keep your assumptions to yourself please.
pretty, please ;)
My “car” is the Q train, plus the B train on weekdays. I’m not sure that I could ever leave Brooklyn, because it would mean that we would probably have to get a car, which I might actually have to drive on occasion. But not having a car makes it awfully hard to leave the city. We’ve taken the bus and train to New England and planes to Minnesota, but oh my goodness it’s so much harder with the Critter. It’s easy enough to carry him … but carrying around the car seat (in addition to any luggage) is another story altogether. Best wishes for your adventures in new transportation solutions!
i miss living car-free…we just bought a car earlier this year (after living without one for two years), and while i admit it does make life more convenient, i feel a lot of eco-guilt about it. good for you guys getting down to one car!
we have two cars. well actually three. my husband drives a 10 year old jetta diesel (bought used last year to replace his 10 year old honda accord). i have a small station wagon (after downsizing from a mini-van last year). and we kept our old honda for transporting trash / recycling to the transfer station.
we live in a fairly rurual setting and my husband works out of state so going down to one car is really not an option at this time.
this summer i am driving a ford 250 for work and also a giant cargo van. crazy getting used to driving those monsters! i’ve yet to experience any eco-judgment kind of stuff (that i know of). most of the farmers i work with at the market also drive large trucks / vans so i guess we fit right in.
my kids also thing driving the truck is the coolest thing ever. the other day on the way to the market my daughter said…
i used to feel left out. i would see all these kids driving in trucks with their parents and i always wished i could too. now i’m part of the truck club. i just can’t believe how cool it is!
looking forward to hearing about your car-free adventures!!!
xo
~erin
I know that feeling you are talking about. I particularly liked getting the double take from the other truck dudes when they saw a lady rolling around confidently in a big ‘ole truck ;)
Ok, time for me to admit I’ve always wanted to drive around in a big ‘ole bad a** truck but it’s not in the cards for our family. For the longest time I lusted after a Dodge Ram. We are small vehicle people (small in actual body size also) but there’s just something about those big trucks…
ahhhhh! Renee! That is so funny. I can’t tell you the kicks I get from it. A friend of mine borrowed our work truck once and came back beaming! lol.
we have one car, a civic, but i don’t have a driver’s license. i never needed one, until now, sort of — this month john is working instead of me, so he’s not available to drive us much, and i have to get out of the house and around with mars, so we need to learn about the city bus system too, and maybe look into getting one of those bicycle trailers.
I’m finding the bus to be a little tricky. Route 17 that goes right down our street doesn’t loop so if I took the kids to the library to get books I would have to walk all of them + heavy bag of books across the commons.
Bicycle trailers rock! We found ours on Craiglist back in Boston visiting family. We didn’t find many used in Ithaca in decent shape–they are too popular.
We’ve never really been car-free; when we sold my eco-sinful gas-guzzler (it was work related dammit! I had very little choice!) we kept Justin’s work truck and he had his motorcycle. The motorcycle commute was awesome; $12 for a 3 gallon tank that would last a week. And we were always very careful with our use of the truck: hypermiling, combining errands, etc.
Now that we have a veggie diesel, I don’t think we’ll ever go back to gasoline. And we look forward to finding a home more walk- and bike-friendly in the future. :)
I have six licensed drivers in my family, including me. The “baby” is getting his permit tomorrow. That all said, #1′s car is sitting in the drive with a cracked axle. #2 lives in Buffalo with his g/f and she has a car they share. #3 has her own car. She needed it to get back and forth to student teaching. It was her father’s old car. #4 lives with her g/f in Pittsburgh and they share a car. #5 owns a car also. You notice who does not own a car – me. I use the kids’ cars when I need one. I am perfectly able to walk the 3 miles to the closest grocery. I take a car when I need to do big shopping or when I come to Ithaca. You notice I haven’t been over much this summer? The kids have had the cars. LOL!
Nicki I love it! Another great benefit of having lots of kids.
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