Member Articles

The Final Report

On the final day of my 30-day NO CAR Experiment, do you think I rested my newfound leg muscles on the desk and enjoyed a bottle of champagne, fended off a barrage of reporters or cranked up the jalopy and burned rubber out of the driveway? Guess you know me well if you selected champagne in my office as the correct answer – only because drinking with reporters or driving cars while drinking is a bad idea.

While I searched for a riotous subject to exploit in Value wIT, I found myself. LOL, that might be a dramatic overstatement. What about, I found peace? True, I stopped yelling at fellow drivers, but still a bit over-the-top. I found hope for the future? Nah. Honestly and simply, I discovered that life without a car is possible and enjoyable.

Myths:

Austin is too spread out to navigate without a car

My shopping habits were severely altered: new dentist, grocery store, coffee shop, cleaners, postal store and much more Internet shopping.

Capitol Metro is inconvenient

The main stop I use is one and half blocks from my house. There were certainly places I could not access without investing a big chunk of time. However, most of those places had solutions (pharmacy delivers!), got cut from my chore list (Sam’s Club) or waited until “car day”.

Capitol Metro is unreliable (someone pay attention to this)