Car Free with Kids? and a few Updates

I've been thinking a lot about what it will take to to truly heal our planet and our society. I honestly think going to a car-free or at least car-lite society would be the quickest and maybe largest change we could make towards this goal. I just finished a book called How to Live Well Without Owning a Car by Chris Balish. It was an extremely quick, entertaining and thought provoking read.

He spends a good portion of the book proving that you will definitely save money by not owning a car. I believe that. But in our case, not as much as he makes it out to be. Our 1999 Subaru Forester was paid for in cash 5 years ago. Our insurance is $400 a year. The registration fee is around $100. I pay $80 a month for gas and $80 a year in oil changes. During warm weather I generally wash the car myself, but in the Winter I wash it about4 times including a vacuum which totals around $20. So I'm looking at $660 a year I would be saving. Nothing to scoff at, but he consistently claims it will save me around $8000. One way not having a car would save me money is in shopping expenses. Hard to really total that up though.His next biggest point is that it will give you less to worry about. You don't have to worry about registering it, getting gas, parking, maintenance, traffic, etc. And I buy that. I'm just not sure that figuring alternate transportation would be any less stressful for me.

The thing that irritated me however, is something I find common in environmental and simplify you life type books. He glosses over how a family might be able to do this in the very last chapter and gives it all of 4 pages . He starts off with all the reasons a family might find this difficult: sports practices, lessons, doctor appointments and the like. Then he basically just says that people in Oregon have done it and that it will save you money. No list of tips or practical ways to integrate car-free living into your life.

I find that if you have made the choice to have children, and happen to also be interested in simplicity, sustainability, or environmental issues, you are pretty much on your own to figure it out. There don't seem to be any gurus out there for people like me. There are blogs which leads me to believe that there is a decent size population of people who have children who also want to lessen their impact on the earth. I'm grateful that I at least know there are people like me and that I'm not totally on my own. Most of my friends give lip service to the idea but don't plan on making many changes.

When we moved to our current home 2 years ago it was everything I wanted. It is big, around 3400 square feet. It is in an established, high value area. The public schools are the best in the state. It has an incredible view almost 360 degrees. I look over the Salt Lake valley at the Great Salt Lake and the city, I also have a gorgeous view of Mt. Olympus. Across the street from me is mountain and we get all manner of wild life marching past our front door. The neighborhood is diverse and fairly liberal and our neighbors are wonderful. We live on a cul-de-sac. And there is practically nothing within walking distance.

I honestly do love this house, and my neighborhood and our schools. It is also a great investment. But our house payment is definitely a stretch. If I could do it over, I would pick a more walkable neighborhood. I think this is the only way a family could go car-free. Our good friend is "flipping" a house about 2 miles from us. It is smaller and older, but he has redone it completely. It is within easy walking distance from: a park, a library, a youth rec center, the firestation, several gas stations, 2 dentists, a preschool/daycare that also picks up from our elementary school, a vet, several restaurants and cafes, a convenience store, a drug store, a grocery store, several fast food joints, a dry cleaners, a shoe repair, a bank, and 2 strip malls. I could. We could feasibly sell our house and make a lateral move to the other property. The other great thing about it is that it has a large yard that would be perfect for a large garden and city chickens. But alas, R won't even consider it. He loves this house and I can understand why.

So my next best option is to figure out ways to go car-lite. Even though we live on some seriously steep hills, I finally feel that both my kids are capable of walking them. I look forward to the day they can bike them. Talk about fighting childhood obesity. M's school is just under a mile away. R drops him off which is on the way to work, but we should be walking home. The store is within walking distance as well. The big area I could improve upon is combining errands when I take Z to his preschool. It is about 5 miles away. I should plan on heading that way and staying that way until I pick him up. My gym is right there. So is a major shopping area. I could easily park my car by his school and either walk to the gym or walk to do my errands. That would cut my mileage for sure and give me some exercise. I also should figure out some bus routes for places that are just a little too far to walk, like the library. We could easily hop on the bus by M's school and then walk home from the bus stop. The biggest obstacle, and he makes this point in the book, is that with a car in the garage, it is just too easy to depend on it. If you don't have it, you are forced to make the change.

I'm going to set a goal for reducing our mileage each week. I'll be posting updates.