Mabfan's Musings

My family had no car from the time I was ~4 to ~15 (and then we ended up with one because my grandfathers sequentially had to get rid of theirs).

Boston is a good place to pull this trick. Especially when you move into a new house and they build a new red line stop on either side of you. :)

I had wondered about this. My big question was what you would do in an emergency, Gd forbid. Like a trip to th ER. Do you have car seats for a cab? Yes, I am projecting, why do you ask?

Well, if it's an emergency trip to the ER, I imagine we'd call for an ambulance.

For anything else, we have two car seats that sit in our front hall (you may have seen them). We use them for whenever we do need to transport the kids by car.

I accidentally followed the first link first, so saw the "clothing continuum" first. Very enjoyable, and I love anything that encourages less consumption. Enjoyed the piece about being carfree as well!

Glad it's working out for you!

I think some people think that my family is strange because we only have one car.

I'm glad it's working out for you. I've sometimes thought it would be nice if we could be completely car-free. But we can't really. My wife's commute would go from 20 minutes to 90 minutes. Our kids' commutes to school would also be much longer, though not quite to that extreme. I work downtown, so public transportation is viable for me, though I've had to turn down some good jobs because they would have required a car to commute in reasonable time.

However, having a bicycle does definitely reduce my need to make car trips, especially when I installed a rack and panniers to increase my carrying capacity. It also has helped my health -- imagine being able to exercise while commuting! And the bike is often faster than public transportation (especially when the latter involves buses, trolleys or significant walking).