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., The poll only allows 10 options.

P.S., I'm sorry about the duplication--I'm not sure how it happened.

Roody

What are you trying to prove or demonstrate with this poll?

Roody

Oops, sorry, I see now that you gave as a reason, "Curiosity."

storckm

Just to clarify, Roody: I've seen it assumed that to live without a car, it's necessary, or at least much easier, to be single, or at least not have children. I know that there are a number of people who are car free and do have children, and I'm wondering how whether this is a tiny minority, or a significant number. I'd also find it encouraging if a lot of people who have more than just a few children were able to live without cars. Myself, I'd appreciate the encouragement, as well as any practical advice about how it's managed.

Roody

I think you'd get your questions answered better if you asked them directly.

For example, it might be better to start a thread titled, "Please give encouragement and advice about living carfree with young children." I think that would give you much more useful information, and also be more fun for the rest of us (probably the majority) who don't fit into your categories.

GodsBassist

I have a 7 year old who just lost his training wheels, so we don't ride the trail a bike anymore. I live in suburbia but made a conscious effort to select my apartment based on its proximity to different things.

The most empowering thing is that we live literally across the street from his daycare where he gets transportation to school and back. This means I can drop him off and ride away during the week. I'm military so we move quite a bit and the last 3 apartments have been either across the street or on the other side of the parking lot, hundreds of feet away from his daycare providers. Every time we move I find a place to live with this as the most important factor.

We go shopping for groceries once a weekend, and it's 3 miles away on the bike trail. Normally we live much closer to a grocery store, but just couldn't manage it this iteration. He can easily ride 6 miles out and 6 back, as long as there's enough of a distraction where we're going... lunch, a park, movie theatre, ice cream. The first time we went that far, I was worried that it would be too much for him but when we got back home, he wanted to play outside some more. On his bike of course.

gerv 

I was looking for carfree, married, wife lives outside the country, kids moved out, cat dead... couldn't find it.

I know several people in my area who are carfree. One of them is married and has about 5 kids. Last time I talked to him he was complaining about the local store being surrounded by nasty traffic, so he now prefers to travel 5 miles over to my grocery store which is just off a bike trail.

I think where you life matters more than the number of kids.

gerv 

I was looking for carfree, married, wife lives outside the country, kids moved out, cat dead... couldn't find it.

I know several people in my area who are carfree. One of them is married and has about 5 kids. Last time I talked to him he was complaining about the local store being surrounded by nasty traffic, so he now prefers to travel 5 miles over to my grocery store which is just off a bike trail.

I think where you life matters more than the number of kids. Carfree living would be so easy if you lived a couple of blocks from schools and groceries and if you were situated either on a nice bike route or a good transit route.

Roody

Sorry about the cat.

Me, I'm single, lived alone but grown son moved in with me, along with his wife, their young son, wife's mother and two cats who are very much alive (especially around 3 AM).

My DIL's mother owns a car, so I'm car light after being carfree for many years. They do most of the shopping and we usually take the car for family activities, but I do my own activities on bike, bus, or walking. I do a lot of fun things with my grandson and less often my son. The grandson will be 14 next month. For the last couple years he has been able to keep up on the bike, but now he has done the growth spurt so he will be faster and stronger than me this summer. And so it goes....

Zedoo

I am carlighter while my truck is a crash loaner. If that is crashed too, that would raise my insurance rate, which I plan to stop paying soon. If it still runs later I can drive to bike events next month. After delivering it I had a nice ride home past rush hour traffic. I saw two cars with hoods up and one steaming Beemer. I will never be completely carfree as long as I live in Metro Detroit.

rockmom

I've got a husband, a 13 year old daughter, and an almost 10 year old son. We belong to a car share, which mostly gets used to take the 13 year old to orthodontist appointments. Mostly we bus, bike, or walk and have since before the kids were born. The kids do get rides with friends' parents when the husband and I have to be somewhere else.

gerv 

Sounds like an extended family... rare in North America to be living under one roof.

If you keep doing it you will be car lighter and lighter. Which is good.

gerv 

I like all these stories. Each one has a little lesson or idea for me. Sort of glad the posters here are from a varying backgrounds and have widely varying stories to tell.

Nakedbabytoes

I was carfree before I had kids and got married. Hubby has ZERO interest in riding a bike or being "car light" in any way, shape, or form(we literally live 2 miles from his work ON A BIKE TRAIL and he won't even consider commuting. But that doesn't mean that I can't live carfree or "car light" when it is my choice to do so. I have a home daycare and transporting children to/from school is part of my job(so I don't count that as a choice either) but for groceries...bike. For errands...bike. Fun.....bike. I basically choose the bike whenever I can.
We have 2 sons, ages 12 & 5. If they wanna come with me, fine. If not, we work around when I can go alone.
I can't force someone to be car free or light. But in the same token, neither can I be forced to take the van. So we have sortof came to an understanding in our house. I have a fat bike for winter, cargo bike for groceries, and road bike for fast & light trips(like depositing of income checks, etc). Would it be easier if we all agreed...yes. But we don't and respect it. Period.
If I didn't have daycare, hubby knows I wouldn't own a vehicle. I didn't before and was fine. I even had an infant and toddler on my own for a while with no vehicle. We took a cab or a city bus if it was cold. I used a trailer for him and small groceries. We also lived within 6 blocks of a grocery store.

cycleobsidian

I am impressed with your commitment to live a lifestyle that is important to you when it would be much easier for you to just go with the flow.

Cheers to you!

Roody

I would say the same to you. Cheers!

Newspaperguy

The closest to my situation is the first option, but it's not fully accurate.

I'm car-light, not yet car-free although close. Also, I'm a widower with no children. For the first couple of years I was married, we were nowhere close to car-free or car-light, but we made the transition towards car-light living after that. When my wife was diagnosed with cancer, and especially towards the end when she required more care, car-free and car-light were no longer possible.

Without the cancer diagnosis, it is likely we would have had a car-light life, but not a car-free life. We were already at the point of trip planning and combining errands.

Today, the car is used almost exclusively for work and for a few out-of-town trips each year.

CarFreeFam4

Married with two kids, ages 5 and 10 here. We've been car-free since the littlest was under a year old. Living car-free with kids is undoubtedly more challenging than without kids. However, I'm not sure there is much in life that is easier with small children . . .

rockmom

Everything is harder with small children. Except getting puked on, that becomes disturbingly easier.

Artkansas 

Divorced. Was car-free when single, car-light when married, now back to car-free. Now that I'm unemployed, I'm even bike-light. I hardly go anywhere.

storckm

That's pretty funny, and quite true. All squeamishness regarding bodily fluids seems to disappear.

My five year old learned how to ride her bicycle about three weeks ago, and want to bicycle everywhere. She went on a short ride with her mother this morning (about 3 miles round trip) and then, when I announced that I was going to go on a little bike ride before eating lunch and then settling down to some grading, she wanted to come with me. The other children all decided to come too, and we ended up riding about four miles before she decided she wanted to turn around. It took more than three hours in all, with a few stops. She had insisted on riding her purple bicycle with 12" wheels, rather than her 16" wheel bicycle, which fits her better and lets her go a bit faster.

wahoonc

I used to schedule family rides with another family that had two children of similar ages to mine. We knew the littlest guy was good for about a 12 mile ride max. The two main rules were: it had to be fun and the slowest/smallest riders set the pace. We had some great rides that way and explored a lot of countryside. FWIW the littlest guy was about 7-8 years old and rode a BMX style bike with a 5 speed gear cluster.

Aaron

Machka 

Out of curiosity, let's see the status of this year's car free forumites.

Ekdog

Carfree, one grown child who lives with us.

I was out early this morning and saw dozens of parents taking their kids to school on their bikes. This is something I never used to see before we built our physically separated bike lanes.

Astrozombie

TC are you fishing for broke people who still live at home?? Then I will just come out and say it......jeez
We are the 99%! *Raises fist in air*