August marks my 10 year anniversary of not driving a car. I sold my
car in Seattle back in 2006 and I haven’t driven since. The thing is, I almost
never even ride in a car. At this moment I can’t remember the last time I was a
passenger. I took a taxi in Madrid back in December, one trip from the train
station to my hotel. On the return I went in the metro. In Valencia I either
walk or take the bike-share to the train station. I certainly don’t miss cars
and if I never drove again I would be very pleased with that. The things I
sacrifice from not driving are more than eclipsed by what I’ve gained.
For almost a century many Americans have considered the automobile
to be the very symbol of personal freedom and expression. Cars took the place
in American mythology once reserved for the horse so we substituted smog for
horseshit without missing a beat. We were indoctrinated into a culture that not
only told us that cars made us free but that cars themselves were the
definition of freedom. Your car made you stand out as an individual regardless
of the fact that a million other people drove the same model. We built our
cities around cars, our myths and legends pounded the car into our
consciousness. On the Road was more than a novel, more than a catch
phrase for a generation, it defined us.
More and more people are beginning to push back against this idea
of the car as the essence of individual liberty as more and more millennials
are choosing not to drive. My split with the world of cars has been anything but limiting or
confining. Here is a short list of things I’ve avoided this past decade:
traffic, parking, parking tickets, car payments, insurance, break-downs,
stressful driving situations of any and all sorts, maintenance, and any and
everything to do with the Department of Motor Vehicles, by far the most Orwellian
or Kafka-esque aspect of my past life as a driver.
What I have gained is the freedom from so many nuisances that most
people feel are not only completely unavoidable but necessary in modern
society. One thing that I can never understand is why so many people choose to
drive in Valencia when I’m certain that most people could walk, ride, or take
public transportation instead of driving for most of their around-town trips. I
think that once people own a car they feel the need to use it as often as
possible to get their money’s worth without ever considering the alternatives.
It’s sort of like the elevator in my building. For every other
tenant in the building the elevator is a necessity. I live on the fourth floor
and I rarely use the elevator. I opt for the stairs for about 90% of my trips
up and down. It is 72 steps, just a trifle. Of my two bikes one of them fits in
the lift and the other doesn’t—goddamnit!—so when I use the one that fits—my
city bike—I opt for the elevator. Trips on my city bike probably represent
about 95% of my elevator usage. Sometimes when I’m loaded down with shopping I’ll
take the lazy way up but most of the time I choose to walk. I think that I have
shamed the teenage girl who lives on the second floor into walking, at least
when she sees me either going up or down. I don’t know how I’d feel about
walking up and down if I lived higher up in my building. The fourth floor seems
just too easy not to hike up and down but if I were living on the ninth I doubt
that I would be quite as enthusiastic about this habit (and I would have never
purchased a bike that didn’t fit in the damn elevator).
My physical fitness hardly needs the boost from climbing 72 stairs 2-4
times a day but I suppose that it all adds up. Even I have to admit that there
are times after returning from a three hour bike ride I will groan at the
thought of having to hump up four flights of stairs carrying my now-useless
mode of transportation, but for the most part the walk up is something I barely
consider and I put about as much thought into it as I do in opening the front
door—it’s just something I have to do. I’ve lived without a lift on a couple occasions
and it was no big deal, at least it wasn’t for me.
Driving around town seems about as ridiculous to me as taking the
elevator up a couple of floors instead of taking the stairs. Back when I lived
in Seattle I had a car but living in the downtown area made it way too much of
a bother to actually drive the stupid thing other than for trips out of town.
My car was more of a recreational vehicle, like a jet-ski or a snowmobile, than
an essential part of my life. For most of my life I have relied more on the
bicycle than the automobile to effect my day-to-day transportation needs.
In Valencia I mostly make my way around town on the bike-share
bikes. The weather here is harmonious with cycling pretty much 365 days a year
but you could hardly say that about Seattle and I cycled everywhere all year
long. I don’t expect everyone else on earth to be such an avid cyclist but
there are other ways to get around than on a bike.
Valencia has a truly wonderful public transportation system of
buses and underground metro. I rarely use either of these simply because
cycling is so much faster for the most part. In the time it takes me to wait
5-10 minutes for a bus I could already be at my destination drinking a beer.
This brings up another aspect of not driving: not worrying about a designated
driver. Biking while intoxicated is the subject for another essay. Spoiler
Alert: I’m really good at it.
I’m not advocating that everyone go without a car. What you choose
to do is your business and I really don’t give a shit. All that I am saying is
that for me living without a car has been much healthier for my body and
my state of mind, not to mention my pocketbook (do I even have a pocketbook?). Not
driving a car has eliminated so much frustration, aggravation, stress, and
worry from my life that the benefits are impossible to calculate.
