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No gas, no parking, no insurance, no licensing and registration. And there is a uniformed chauffeur who drives us everywhere we want to go in the biggest baddest vehicle on the road!
We have here what's known as the Five-College bus system, running year-round (more limited service in summer) and also a public bus that goes between the five campuses and between the towns. The college system bus is free fare, you just hop on. The bus driver will attach your bike to the front; some have folding bikes they take on board.
Although the public bus stops at the end of my street, I prefer to drive my car to campus a mile away and park it, and get on the college bus. There's often very few people on it, and the driver is usually young and not likely to have a heart attack at the wheel. Once in a while I take the bus to the next town, it is great not to have to drive and being visual I enjoy seeing all the pastoral scenery and small details along the way that normally I can't while driving.
Some local snobs look down on those taking the bus. But having lived in Boston with a great metro system, I think it's laid-back and easy and fun to observe people and chat. Now a few professors and professionals are doing the bus, so there's a real mix, not just students and those who don't have cars. For me, with a half-hour drive to the next town, that's an hour saved of using my car. Now that it's spring I'll probably do it more often.
No gas, no parking, no insurance, no licensing and registration. And there is a uniformed chauffeur who drives us everywhere we want to go in the biggest baddest vehicle on the road!
Car? Not my problem!
There has been a lot of discussion of cars versus public transit in both the Frugal Living sub-forum of the Economics Forum and in the Urban Planning Forum, so anyone wishing for a lot more reading on the subject can look through the threads in those two places.
So in a sense I am reinventing the wheel with my comments, but there is a relevancy to retirement especially as many elderly people have had to give up driving for a host of medical reasons, or sometimes for financial reasons.
Azoria, I am glad using the bus works well for you. However, for many of us the buses do not "go everywhere we want to go" at all. It depends on where we live and where we want to go! As for saving money, people who do not own expensive cars like BMW's, Mercedes, and the like frequently are in the position that the gas, parking fees, insurance, licensing and registration are truly negligible costs, and I am not talking about rich people either.
There is one poster whose name I'm not sure I'm remembering correctly so I won't say it, who reported more than once that she is simply afraid to drive. She tried to learn once and it didn't really work - she was just too uncomfortable. So who can argue with that as a valid reason to be car-free.
The place to check out the rabid, hard-core, extremist anti-car folks is the Urban Planning Forum moreso than the Frugal Living forum. For these people cars are an evil thing - the source of most of society's ills. And their arrogance and exaggerated sense of moral superiority are pretty hard to take. Azoria, I am not putting you in that group, just surveying the field of commentary on the subject.
As for your final sentence, which sort of implies that owning a car is a "problem", for me it's the polar opposite; what would be a problem is if I didn't own one.
No gas, no parking, no insurance, no licensing and registration.
Car? Not my problem!
No flexibility, not spontaneity, no personal space, no freedom of climate and music, little comfort, slow, no quick run to the emergency room or store or bite to eat.
When i moved to San Francisco i had a rude shock when i figured out that the only time i moved my cars was to avoid a parking ticket. I was paying car payments, insurance, and parking while i took MUNI. The advent of zip cars, hourly rentals, has made keeping a car that much less neccessary
We have a bus that goes to the next town. From that town we could get a cab to the train station and from there, to Boston. We're not interested in Boston, the bus doesn't run very often, so we need the car.
With the car we can take off for Maine on a whim for the day or I can go for a drive on country roads, stopping to take pictures of the scenery. I can take my dog everywhere I go and sometimes I take him to a park for really good dog walk. This weekend I spent at my cousin's and there would have been no way to get there without a car.
What I wish we had is trains. We had them in the "olden" days. Trains so that your mother could take you to visit your grandmother or your aunt. Trains to take you to NY City and back in one day--cheap. Trains that stopped in every little town and let people on and off and there were real RR stations with people there to help you. Trains were comfortable too. But buses? If they ran more often and went where I wanted to go like the trains used to do, they might be okay in a pinch.
We have a bus that goes to the next town. From that town we could get a cab to the train station and from there, to Boston. We're not interested in Boston, the bus doesn't run very often, so we need the car.
With the car we can take off for Maine on a whim for the day or I can go for a drive on country roads, stopping to take pictures of the scenery. I can take my dog everywhere I go and sometimes I take him to a park for really good dog walk. This weekend I spent at my cousin's and there would have been no way to get there without a car.
What I wish we had is trains. We had them in the "olden" days. Trains so that your mother could take you to visit your grandmother or your aunt. Trains to take you to NY City and back in one day--cheap. Trains that stopped in every little town and let people on and off and there were real RR stations with people there to help you. Trains were comfortable too. But buses? If they ran more often and went where I wanted to go like the trains used to do, they might be okay in a pinch.
I remember with fondness those New England trains.
If I lived in a city, and I was still working, I'd take a bus. But I don't and I'm not.
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An overview of opinion on the subject
