storckm

What about children? There may be a few places, perhaps NYC, where a family can conveniently not own or frequently use a car, but in many places, it would seem to complicate things a lot.

My family (5 children, aged 10 months through 9 years, 2 adults) owns one car, and quite a few bikes. I use a bike to get to school (except when it's icy), and take a lot of shorter trips on foot or on a bike, sometimes with the kids. My wife occasionally runs an errand on a bike, but has never (in her life, I think) ridden more than four or five miles, and isn't especially interested in getting rid of our car, especially not in the winter. Columbus, OH has public buses, but they don't go that many places, and the routes are sometimes not very practical. (For example, to take the bus to school would require going downtown and back, 45 minutes or so, and it's only about 3 miles.) All of the children older than two can ride a bike for at least a couple of miles, but we've near tried to go further than that since the just-turned-5 year old started riding with us. Perhaps if we get one of those trailer bikes and hook the trailer to that behind the tandem (newly acquired from Craig'slist), and another trailer bike for my wife to pull, we could go a bit further, but not too much.

So I really don't see us getting rid of the car for, say, ten years or so.

I'm wondering how many of you car free folk have children, young children in particular, and how you manage.

mihlbach

I live on Long Island in the New York suburbs, well outside of NYCs bus and subway system. I have two kids (2yrs and 6yrs) and a wife. I'm car lite actually, and never intended to really be car free, but year after year it seems that most of our car use is for recreational purposes only (basically getting off Long Island and well away from the city). I can easily get the kids to school, daycare, doctor, dentist, etc by bike or walking. Groceries and other stores are easily within reach by bike, and motorists tend to be respectful and careful when kids are in tow or riding with me. My six year old has been riding on his own for three years now and can easily do 10-15 miles on his mini BMX bike, so he sometimes does some of the longer errends with me, (even though this slows me down considerably!)

We were smart enough to buy a house two blocks from the nearest LIRR train station, which gives us easy access to NYC and other cities in the region.

So, yes, if we were wiling to give up things like going camping off of Long Island, car free would actually be doable with two kids. We only get off Long Island a few times a year, so I'll happily keep the car for those precious times and let it sit in the driveway most of the year.

Six years ago I would have thought car free would have been impossible here, but after years of trying to minimize car use, I've come to realize that with the right mindset, the added inconvenience is pretty minimal. The biggest challenge would be getting the family to places for recreational activities, which generally are impossible to reach by bike and exceedingly difficult to reach by public transport.

gerv 

storckm, I don't have young children any more and also am part of a one-car family, so I really haven't evolved much beyond "car-light". It strikes me that you are definitely headed in the right direction. You are working to eliminate unnecessary car trips and also to pare the car fleet to as little as you think possible.

Having said that, I hope you realize that there are still many ways to grow in the direction you have chosen. I've been gradually cutting out using a car for the last 5 years. Every year, I seem to need it less and less. And every year I get to experience some new technique. For example, I normally carry groceries in two panniers several times a week. However, recently I bought a Burley trailer hitch for an old kiddy trailer I had in my garage and made my first trip to the grocery store. It was like suddenly having a U-Haul van available. I even bought a dozen beer and threw it in on top of the groceris (well... actually more to the bottom...)

Another example: a couple of years ago I discovered what studded tires could do for my winter transportation.

Having a family and making the bicycle and walking central to family activities will let you see your kids grow in distinct ways. It will also be a valuable experience for them... much better than having to get a teenage Burger King job to pay for an old car.

Stick with it!

BIG-E

My fiancee and I are lucky to live in a nice Vermont town with full services. We're completely car free, often going over a month without riding in a car. We don't see too many changes when we have children. We plan on buying a house in town. I work from home and she has a local job. Cars are evil.

Torrilin

We don't have a car. Madison winters are far safer without... too many college students and adults who barely know how to drive in snow. Rockmom is a voice of great experience in being car free and handling Madison winters with kids. Like us, she falls back on the city bus fairly often. Walking is also a big deal.

A 6 mile commute would not be my favorite thing to walk, but it's doable if there are sidewalks. It might also be possible to use the bus to cut the trip short on one end or another. It might take a couple years of practice to get your commute down to bus/bike/walk only in the winter.

Until we'd moved to Madison, I had never biked more than 3 miles. Walked sure. By the time we left LA, we both considered it a big treat to walk from Palms to Santa Monica and back, so about a 10 mile round trip. For most of the world's history, humans have walked. It is a great fail safe mode, whether you're trying to get rid of a car or not.

storckm

I'm impressed.

Winter isn't that bad in Columbus--there are only five or ten days when I don't ride because of weather. Because of the bus routes, walking would be no slower than biking, so if I don't go for studded tires (which I'm considering), I would just walk. The bigger problems are things like trips downtown, to the dentist, and to my parents house, a bit more than ten miles, with no good bike routes. I do these things on my bike sometimes--usually, when I'm alone-- but with the kids (which I suppose is just a matter of learning to be patient) or my wife, we usually drive. She isn't comfortable arriving sweaty to a lot of things that we can't walk to, and would prefer to drive anywhere more than a couple miles. I suppose I should just be patient with her too.

rockmom

I have very sturdy children (10 and 7) and lots of winter clothing. A lot of making car free family life possible is planning and practice. We also had the advantage of being car free before the kids came along so we had the basics down. From experiences in non-transportation related areas of life, it is hard to get spouse and kids used to new patterns and routines.

csimons

I am married with a daughter and consider myself to be car-light. I commute to work and run errands by bicycle when possible. The wife has no interest in being car-free, but lately I've been thinking about and trying to sell her on the idea of getting rid of the car and having a sub-50cc motor scooter for the times when we really need to get somewhere farther away or at a fast pace (emergencies, etc.). There are fairly new (model year 2007) used sub-50cc scooters selling here right now for slightly more than $1000, and they get > 1000 MPG, so that seems to be much smarter than owning a car anyway.

wahoonc

Rather than ditching the car right away and getting something that is a bit of a maintenance pig, perhaps get your wife an electric assist bicycle? I am not a huge fan of scooters for a variety of reasons, the biggest one being safety. Don't get me wrong, I have owned and ridden scooters many, many miles and do consider them a decent alternate in many cases.

Aaron

69tr6r

Did you really mean to say >1000 MPG? I think those scooters are likey around 100 MPG, certainly not 1000.

Lieren

I have two children, 8 months and 3 years, and have been car-free since before the first was born. We have the advantage of living somewhere very well served by public transit (which is why we moved to this neighborhood) but the disadvantage of living in a city where motorists are fairly hostile to cyclists. We use our trailer (a Chariot Cougar, I looooooooooove it) extensively for kid and grocery transport, and plan when the older child is big enough to get a trailalong and a bike seat for the younger.

For your wife, I would strongly recommend looking at what she's wearing to cycle in and how fast you're riding. I commute to work in office-appropriate clothes, but choose light-weight, fast-drying synthetics. On really hot days I just slow it down and carry a hankie for my sweaty face. At my destination, I use the little rice-paper facial blotters made by a few companies (like Burt's Bees) that mop up sweat. I find I'm more sweaty and uncomfortable wearing what many casual cyclists think of appropriate, such as cotton t-shirts.

Like someone upthread said, our biggest problem without a car is getting to recreational opportunities. We use rental cars or carsharing for that, since even destinations served by commuter rail wouldn't be possible for us if we wanted to bring the trailer.

csimons

Doh! Yes, most definitely.

csimons

Thanks for the great idea; I'm starting to check it out now. As I would imagine is true with nearly all cyclists, I have loads of fun modifying my bike and learning about the mechanics behind it, and using an electric bicycle definitely seems like a better way to go in this regard. It also seems that an electric bicycle would be suitable for all but the longest commutes (which a scooter probably wouldn't be great for anyway).

coffeecake

Unless you are making lots and lots of trips, usually using taxis works out to be cheaper than owning a car, for in-town errands. Also you don't have to buy it and eat depreciation. I know several people who are car-free here, and a couple with kids here in my city, which covers the same area as Columbus but only has 200 000 people. They use a combination of bikes, taxis and buses, and our winter is fairly severe.

sevenhills

The ammount of time that some children watch TV or play on the computer, if this time was spent instead cycling or on public transport; they would learn more about their surroundings and be healthier.
It is hard word, not being lazy and going against the rest of your piers, but the right way is CAR-FREE!

S