Confessions from Riding Phrius and Support of Fellow Car Freers

I started our Riding Phrius blog to share the day-to-day joys (and challenges) of a young family living car free. It has been a gratifying means to share our experiences with family and friends and hopefully many others. But on Friday morning I got an especially gratifying comment from Henry's teacher. "Andy, I love your blog, it has helped inspire us to remain car free." Henry's teacher and her husband recently had a baby. They were on the verge of buying a used car. In fact they were so close that her husband found a car, went to the dealer the next day expecting to buy it only to learn that they had just sold it to somebody else! So car freedom, desired or not, prevailed. I am really glad that Riding Phrius can help inspire and confirm the unique quality of life that comes from being car free.

I must confess that Hillary and I have had many discussions in the last few months about the emerging constraints of not having a car. Believe it or not, we have been "Riding Phrius" for over 8 years! Neither of us thought we would go that long. We knew that as the kids got older and more and more involved in activities, the desire to have easier access to a car would increase. Hillary would really like to be able to get out of the city more regularly to visit regional parks and friends. Theo recently announced that he wants to do a kids cross-country ski race next year. There is this awesome Minnesota Youth Ski League that Theo could join to really learn how to ski, but it meets at a park on the other side of Minneapolis. (Note: we could actually get there on a single bus from our neighborhood to the park, but it would be a 50 minute ride-- kind of long to do every Sunday with kids, especially if we want to get to church or anything else that day). And the kids are getting bigger and heavier to pedal around in the Winther Kangaroo. Theo is riding much more, but not in the winter, or the pouring rain, or when the trip is longer than a few miles.

If an HourCar hub was near us on Lake St... if we still had a closer car to borrow...if the recent winter hadn't been so snowy and long....we might feel this less. Still, I think those days when we need to make those longer trips inside and just outside the city are relatively few in number, like maybe 20 extra days a year? To own a car for those extra days, would compromise so many of our prime biking days. We would lose many more biking days to driving short trips around town simply because a car was right in front of the house. We would lose out on so many days of short bike trips and the attendant surprises - a fresh breeze, a glimpse of a flying Cooper's Hawk, bike to bike conversations with the kids, etc.

The draw to have a car is so strong. Cars are embedded in American culture and individual identity. For most people, whether it be a sports car, a hybrid, or an SUV, their choice of a car sends important messages about them. They like speed, they want to be green, they want be seen as "outdoorsy". NPR's Marketplace just noted this in the beginning of a series that will be exploring the costs of car ownership over the next few weeks. I look forward to hearing that discussion.  Here is the kickoff, that I paraphrased in this paragraph.