Can two fairly high functioning urban U.S. adults share only one car? We're about to find out. The 19-year old Honda went off to charity (or perhaps to be melted down for scrap) yesterday. We kept the 10-year old mini-SUV.
This shouldn't come as a horrible shock to us. Neither of us drive much. My diligent professorial partner bikes to her teaching job. I work from home and walk or BART everywhere I can. And living at 24th and Mission, that's a lot of places. The exceptions are for bulk shopping at the likes of Costco and getting to pretty places with soft trails on which I can run. How ironic is it that exercise-addiction leads to my driving?
Actually, we're returning to our roots. We lived together with only one vehicle (a truck as I was working in construction most of that time) for 14 years. Then the demands of work and caretaking came to mean we needed more conventional, individual transportation. So for 14 years, we've been multiply vehicular.
We don't think we need two cars anymore. It may turn out that we do. Employment demands may change. Rainy winters might discourage the bicyclist. The daily negotiations over who might need the car might discourage us both.
Since we live only a block from car sharing lots (CityCarShare and ZipCar), if this doesn't work so well, we'll probably consider that alternative.
I feel a little lighter...
3 comments:
I highly recommend Zipcar!
(Leigh)
Congratulations, Jan, on this worthy move.
jan, i used city carshare for a couple of years in the east bay, when i was single and carless and living by lake merritt. LOVED IT. wished it could work in LA to let my partner & i own only one car. but i think it's perfect in SF to allow you to go out & do runs or get errands done. - emily h
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