Has it been a year already?

I really did mean to post more frequently about my experiment in carlessness. It's been more than a year!

See, I thought the whole thing would be way more complicated and exciting than it is. Or that at least I'd have lots of hilariously funny stories to tell about it. I still do run into a certain amount of incredulousness: "You don't have a car? How is that possible? You can't do that here." But honestly? It's neither very difficult nor very interesting. And since gas prices started getting so high, people don't even think I'm all that eccentric any more.

It's true that my friends have been generous about letting me use their cars when I need to drive somewhere for something, or giving me rides to work, or letting me tag along with them to the grocery store or whatever. It would be way more difficult without that. Thanks, yall. And it's true that I don't have kids.

But even though this town has a seriously limited public transit system and is NOT EVEN REMOTELY pedestrian- or bicycle-friendly, I've been able to walk or bike or take the bus to most of the places that I need to go. Sometimes I feel kind of conspicuous or goofy while I'm walking along (especially in work clothes or carrying a bag of groceries) some weedy strip of gravel where there's no sidewalk & cars are whizzing by & the only other people I encounter are the crazy people who are shouting bizarre prophesies or vague threats at passing motorists.

Sometimes when I'm waiting for the bus, one or another of my neighbors will recognize me and wave, but the next time I see them, they'll apologize profusely for not stopping and giving me a ride. It makes them uncomfortable, I guess, to see me standing outside waiting for the bus while they cruise by in air-conditioned comfort listening to morning moron radio. I think I win, though, because I have my iPod on, and a book to read, and I'm not generally in a big hurry to get anywhere.

And then there's this one block on my way home that has a certain amount of unauthorized commercial activity and a couple of times I've been offered money to perform what I think must be sex acts, but there is some sort of code that I don't really understand and, well, I think it's best not to listen very closely or respond at all to these offers. I don't take that route home after dark.

I don't mind taking cabs from time to time, but the fare has almost doubled in the last year (since Katrina, mostly).

I do have to plan my days pretty carefully sometimes, and there have been a few things that I've chosen not to do simply to avoid having to figure out how to get there and back -- but really, that's all to the good. It's a lot less stressful to do less stuff. And I save money not only because I'm not paying for a car & gas & all of that, I also can't just hop in the car and go to the bookstore or Plaster Leopard World any old time like I used to.

The biggest hassle has been getting home from my evening classes at the (fancy, private) University campus way on the other side of town. I can get there from the research building where I work on a shuttle bus, but I can't get back to my office after class. Cab fare back to my end of town is pretty steep, and the city buses don't run that late at night, and I don't really like to ride my bike after dark.

The campus itself has well lit sidewalks & nice enough bike paths and there are bike racks everywhere, but it's pretty cut off from the rest of the city.

I got into a very silly hassle with a series of people in the registrar's office or whatever when they tried to issue me a parking sticker -- and make me pay a parking fee! -- but I was patient and I prevailed: "Where do you want me to put the sticker?" I'd ask. "On the rear bumper of your car," they'd answer. "But I don't have a car," I'd say. "Oh," they'd say, "Then why do you need a parking sticker?" And we'd start over with how I didn't want a sticker in the first place.

Most often, though, there is someone I know in every class who is going home in my general direction, and they've been perfectly happy to drop me off on their way. That's had the additional benefit of giving us time to talk about the classes and the readings, which we all complain there's not enough of when you're taking classes that only meet once a week for three hours.

Anyway, I'm trying to set a good example, and spread the word about how easy it is not to have a car, but I don't think it'll really catch on in this town. A lot of people don't really make decisions about employment or housing based on commuting issues, and very often they can't. I know more than a few couples who live in a city halfway between their respective employers and both of them have an hour-long commute each way. That would make me just nuts.

This city is extremely sprawled out, and getting sprawlier by the hour. Large employers don't tend to be located in or near the more desirable residential areas (with a few exceptions). Or if they are, there's often no way to walk across the zillion-lane freeway overpasses safely in order to get from one to the other.

The one factor I'm most glad I don't have to consider is children and their monstrous activity schedules. There would be absolutely no way most parents who can afford to have a car would consider doing without in the face of all that schlepping around.

That would blow my head gasket.

The Transportation Chronicles

• On the bus
• Biking on Wednesdays
• It's not the heat
• Week Three
• My Colt Vista got totaled
• Week Two
• Week One
• The moon is in FUBAR
• Girly girls & car repairs
• Black duct tape made my day