storckm

I'm not car free, although I am car light: I ride more miles in a typical week than I drive, I ride my bicycle to work, I typically use the car twice a week, and my wife and I together own one vehicle and we only buy gas once a month (except when we go on vacation to visit family in other states).

I don't think being car free is likely to be an option for me any time soon. My wife is not interested in bicycling in the winter, and there certainly are some occasions where owning a car is very convenient. And since our car is paid for, it isn't a huge expense, although one I do somewhat begrudge having to pay.

But I know that some people 'here' have families of different sizes, and don't own cars. So whether you have a family or not, please take this poll IF AND ONLY IF YOU ARE CAR FREE.

For the purposes of this poll, being car free means that no-one in your household owns, leases, has exclusive use of (e.g., a company car or police car), or regularly drives a car. Regularly driving, I hereby arbitrarily declare, means driving more than twice in a typical month; if you rent a car for a vacation and drive it every day for two weeks, but only drive a car once or twice a month for the rest of the year, you still qualify. You still qualify if you ride in taxicabs now and then, get occasional rides with friends, rent a car while on vacation, etc.


Why am I asking this question? Curiosity. I don't plan to do anything scientific with the data, but I am interested in how families (such as mine) live without a car in towns that have, in this country, been too often designed or re-designed for the convenience of the personal automobile.

N.B., I'm sorry about duplicating the poll. It was an accident, and I'm not sure how it happened.

Artkansas 

I'm car-free, and in a family of one. I do have an aloe very plant that I have taken on a ride with me, but it was unenthusiastic about cycling, so the ride from the nursery to my home has been the only one so far. I have rented a car 3 times in the last year, to give a talk 30 miles away, to give another talk in the next state and to go to a job interview several states away.

wolfchild

I've been seperated for a long time and living single right now. I have a 19 year old daughter who graduated high school last year and she will be starting to go to university very soon. She lives in a different city with my ex ( 220 miles away), and we visit each other several times per year. I am trying my best to help her out financially because I don't want her to graduate with a huge big student debt loan. I also have other family members and relatives living within a 25 mile distance.

Jared.

I chuckled.

DX-MAN

I am car-free, my extended family is not; I "catch a ride" with them less than 3x/year.

I sold my last car in '04. Proved before AND since that I can haul the family groceries for a family of 8-10. Right now, there are 8 of us. My sister does the majority of the grocery shopping, though, since she isn't working.

18-y-o nephew has a bike I built him, would prefer a car, but oh well......
15-y-o daughter just got an early birthday gift, her "sweet 16 bike", the first above-Walmart(upgraded)-quality ride she's had. (About a $500 rig)
10-y-o nephew wants to ride like we do, but just doesn't have the muscle yet, so we hold back for him. He did a 25-miler with us at age 7!

Except for my sister's husband, who's not too keen on the utility of bikes, we all enjoy riding.