Car Free Shek
My camera sits in front of me between the keyboard and the back of the desk waiting for the memory card to be taken out. I took some detailed shots of my car to put it up for sale. As I walked around the car with my camera adjusting the focal length, it dawned upon me that I am really going car-free. It is one thing to talk about selling your car and another thing to actually put it up for sale. A feeling of prudence overcame me begging me to reconsider. Ironically, it took me back on a mental time machine to the day I bought my first car, a Mitsubishi Eclipse GT 5 speed. Similar feelings of big decisions I guess. The decision to sell the car has many chapters and we must begin with history.
The first time I was exposed to wanting a car was in my fifth or sixth grade when my father acquired his first car. It was a company car and I immediately fell in love with automobiles. That was the day that I was firmly strapped onto the roller coaster seat and it has been a hell of a ride! In the further years I learned to drive on a little 800cc Suzuki hatchback and now I sit on 3.5 liters of gas-guzzling real estate. The quest was always to prosper and get a nicer car. It seems that the car had become a trophy that you gave yourself to show everyone else how prosperous you were. Just like the fake championship belt from a fake WWF fight.
A large number of citizens of the world including yours truly have come to live in a society where the car is the prime beacon of convenience. We lazy-ass-bums like our convenience so much that we couldn’t have enough of it. So we went ahead and made it a necessity. Katie Alvord has the best explanation for how Americans have come to be solely dependent on automobiles, and in return, to petroleum. I urge everyone to read her book: Divorce your Car.
I have been driving around in circles for three years now. Strip mall to strip mall and parking lot to parking lot like there is no tomorrow. It stops making sense. I am a logistics engineer and spend more than a third of my productive life optimizing. Endless driving was starting to look extremely suboptimal. Moreover, I was starting to get a closer grasp around my finances and looking for ways to streamline spending. I was gaining weight and knew my health was getting worse. Gyms did not work for me and I was starving for an out-of-the-box solution to weight loss.
In February 2008, my roommate was close to getting hitched and I moved to an apartment two miles from work. That is the time I started toying with the idea that a bicycle may be an option to commute to work. I wasn’t too serious but the seeds were sown while I continued to drive my car.
A 2007 summer wedding in Lewis UK exposed me to a walkable town. I caught a train from Gatwick airport, got off at Lewis and walked to my uncle’s house along tiny streets of an old little town in a cozy valley. There was a funny feeling of independence that I did not pay much attention to but incubated it for future thought. A trip in April 2008 to Washington DC to meet my cousin and his new born son exposed me to a walkable downtown. I took the Metro from Ronald Reagan Airport, got off at the desired station. My cousin and his father were there to greet me. We walked to his apartment, suitcase in tow. Over the next two days, we walked everywhere. There was a very similar feeling of independence. I vowed on my flight back that I would start riding my bike to work on just the business casual days which are Mondays and Fridays.
A month went by and I was still driving my car. Bike to work day happened mid May in Jacksonville. I watched. One drowsy morning walking Laya, I met a lady who rode her bike to work twelve miles one way. She stopped to pet Laya and told me about her commute. I was excited somewhat similar to a supersaturated solution in chemistry. When a mixture, say salt and water, is saturated at a particular condition (temperature, pressure etc) and it can dissolve no more at that condition it becomes a supersaturated solution. A catalyst is needed to crystallize the solution. It performs no chemical reaction, but serves as a piggy-back for the supersaturated solution to crystallize and remove the excess saturation. That lady’s story was my catalyst. All prior urges of optimum, health and independence crystallized and formed structure. I bought my friend’s twelve year old bike the next week and started riding from the last week of May.
I have been riding my bike since that time and I haven’t quit yet. A few weeks into commuting by bike, I noticed my independence from cars rise exponentially. I invested in a heavy duty bike rack and panniers. Now, I didn’t need the car for groceries. A new saddle and internally padded cargo shorts later, I was prepared for an over ten mile ride. A dog trailer later, I am set for vet visits and dog park weekends. I started maintaining a log for the few times I had to drive. I did not fill gas for two months just shy of six days. I had surprised myself. With the treacherous hot and humid Florida summer behind me, I knew that I can be prepared for any other Florida weather. I have lived a much more active lifestyle in the last four months and have lost over 20 lbs.
My car is a 2007 Saturn Aura. I bought it in October 2006. With a small down-payment and a decent interest rate, I have been paying $435 a month to GMAC, the oldest car financing company in America if not in the world. I am 26 years old and I do not have any traffic or moving violations of any sort. I am not married and I don’t own a house. Therefore, Geico gets $130 of my pay check every month. I have averaged over 900 miles a month in the last year which roughly translates to $150 a month in gas money. Pair that up with maintenance and registration and I have been averaging $750 each month towards my car. That is $9000 a year OR one Mac Book Pro + one Nikon D3 + a fleet of Huffys with money left over for weekend car rentals and a few cab rides to places that sane people would not ride their bikes to.
$750 a month was justifiable when I drove 900 miles monthly. That translates to 84 cents a mile, an acceptable number. Since May, I have been driving only 150 miles a month which is $5 a mile, a number not acceptable at all. This is the financial side of my decision.
Getting rid of the car also reduces my carbon footprint in one quick strike. The remaining biggest source of my footprint is electricity and water usage. For now, they will have to be artificially offset each year till JEA decides to invest in wind and solar energy.
I have done the math and considered my alternatives. I know it is a radical idea and may end the remainder of my social life but then, it may save mine.
I want to thank you if you have read this far. If you have skimmed, that’s ok too. I hope this motivates to go car free or even car-light. If not, that’s ok too. I will answer personal questions if you email me at abhishek [dot] n [dot] mukherjee [at] gmail [dot] com. I still love cars and motorcyces. My goal is to buy a motorcycle before I turn 30. Someday, I want to autocross. I am not against car ownership, just that my life without cars as a necessity is more enriched and fulfilled.
I encourage you to read the following books and blogs. They have been an immense source of inspiration to me and I am very grateful to them.
- How to Live Well Without a Car, Chris Balish (link)
- Divorce Your Car, Katie Alvord (link)
- Bike Commuters.com (link)
- Paul Dorn (link1 or link2)
- last but not the least, BikeJax by Matt Uhrig (link)
UPDATE: 17 OCT 2008
The car is sold to car max. Post link here: link