I May Have No Vehicle, But I Still Have My Drive

Americans are broad-minded people.  They'll accept the fact that a person can be an alcoholic, a dope fiend, a wife beater, and even a newspaperman, but if a man doesn't drive, there is something wrong with him. - Art Buchwald

At the end of September, we parked our pickup truck because it wouldn't pass inspection. Over the summer we anticipated this and invested in our bicycles. We were faced with doing major repairs to the frame of the truck to pass inspection or replace it. We decided on a third option: Sell the truck to a salvage yard so others might get useful parts from it and instead walk, bike, carpool, or invest in our local public transportation to get where we need to go.

It has been three months since we have gone carless and the experience has been enlightening to say the least. I've learned how self-powered transportation means bearing more directly the weight (both literally and figuratively) of my choices. The consequences are more direct when I overconsume both in having to carry the weight of our shopping purchases by hand or by bike trailer and by having to move my heavier body, the result of too much consumed and a history of not enough self mobility. Little by little I am personally working on moving around through the power of my own body as I try to counteract my obesity.

Riding the buses around the city has admittedly decreased how much we ride our bikes, but at the same time it has connected us more to our community. We've come to know our fellow riders, especially the regulars on the bus. We know our bus drivers by name and they are a part of our family life as much as our family and friends are. We see them at least twice a day, two days a week. There are some limitations to the bus. It only runs during "regular" business hours, meaning buses aren't an option for evening activities. The buses don't run on weekends, which means one less option for getting to weekend social or spiritual events. Even still, the tightness of the bus schedule has prompted us to find the most efficient routes and combination of errands to run in a day to get what we need in a limited amount of time.

One of the two buses we ride several times a week to get around the city.

Carpooling has proved incredibly humbling. We live in a culture that looks down upon grown adults approaching 40 with a child that have no automobile to drive themselves around. Asking to catch rides places one in the precarious situation of needing to rely on others to meet needs. Carpooling can be great for building community and encouraging sharing resources, yet it can also place a strain on the resources of family, friends, and community members who give us rides. This strain is something that is present in our minds every time we ask for rides. We do our best to not expect we will get rides and also have to be very tentative with our plans because of this.

Being without a vehicle is not without challenges such as tentative plans based on whether we can get somewhere or not, increased careful planning to make sure we accomplish what we need without placing too much strain on those we know and on the systems we use, and the hard work it takes to move ourselves around a small rural city by our own body power (when weather permits, sometimes even if it does not). At the same time, it presents opportunities to get to know our place and the people with whom we live so much better than the solitary shelter of our single vehicle. We get to experience more directly the benefits and costs of our choices. We also reduce our impact on our environment by contributing less to the 65% of oil consumption that goes toward transportation. Instead of throwing capital away on a decaying and depreciating vehicle we spend less and gain more by investing in community infrastructure like our local public transportation. For all the challenges, I'm really enjoying being without a vehicle and find myself dreaming of ways I can contribute to my community to expand public transportation options and opportunities for sharing transportation resources such as carpooling or programs like Zipcar.