Hi, I'm new here. My partner and I both commute to work by bike in Philadelphia. We use our car mostly on the weekends for big shopping trips, or when it's snowing out or otherwise unsafe to ride. We've put not quite 30k miles on the car in 6 years. Even so, the car has cost us A LOT of money. Insurance is $1300 per year in the city, and we can't seem to go a full year without a $1,000+ repair. By my estimate, it costs between $2000-$3000 to maintain the car which is now worth (at most) $3500. In 6 years, the car has been broken into, stolen, hit by a drunk driver while parked, vandalized x 4, and backed into on both sides while parked. It's this kind of BS that makes me HATE owning a car here.
Since we have a decent public transit system here and live within one block of two car share company cars (Zipcar and Philly Car Share), we are seriously considering ditching the car in favor of a cargo bike and car share membership. I have a Brompton, she has a Surly Steamroller fixie, and we'd share the cargo bike for errands. Right now, we're leaning towards a Kona Ute and will be test-riding the Ute and Big Dummy this weekend. We're also planning to find a used Jamis or something as a back-up to our commuter bikes.
Though I'm excited about the prospect of living without a car, I do have some concerns/hesitations. This would be the very first time in my life that I've been without a car. There are days when I'm tired, sore, sick, hungover (let's be honest!), or just plain lazy, and those days it's really hard to get on the bike. I've been commuting on my bike for a year, but I'm still a newbie when it comes to maintenance--I just learned how to change my own flat last month! So...there's a lot to think about.
Anyway, I'm really looking forward to reading more and participating in this forum as we try to live as car-lite as possible in anticipation of a car-free existence.