Yes, biking in the summer is hot, but you’re going to be sweaty when you get there no matter how you get there.

Getting in some biking every day (or almost every day) gave me a lot of energy and reduced my need to find time to exercise – it was built in!

That said: “Even if you could decide on a monthly basis whether to activate insurance or not, you would probably keep a car insured (“just in case”).” When I did become a car owner again, I was charged a hefty surcharge for being an “uninsured driver” the previous two years, despite not owning a car during that time. It surely wasn’t the same cost as owning a car during that time would have been, but it didn’t make me happy.

My husband and I for a while were both traveling teachers (on more than one campus each day), so biking or being a 1-car family were not options. We’re looking to work it out so I can stay home with our baby next year and will hopefully go to one car at that time.

But honestly, I hope to never own a car again. I’ve done two things by not owning a car:
- Been able to live in walkable, transit-rich neighborhoods in cities that I love.
- Evened out my transportation expenses. No more surprise repairs, car maintenance, license fees, accidents, and thinking about gas. I pay about $50 a month in transit, and use my bike the rest of the time. Ok ok, and I probably spend $30/mo in cabs. At points in my life when cashflow mattered, this mattered a lot.

Has it saved me money? Eh, maybe, maybe not. It’s hard to quantify the cost of living in a more expensive city, because it’s also where I found a well-paying job that wouldn’t have been an option in the place where I had been living. But it sure has saved me a lot of stress, and as someone who’s not naturally active, the extra walking does not hurt. So for me, there’s a lot more value in what I’m choosing to spend my money on (location).

For vacation, sometimes we fly and often times we’ll go out to the coast. If we’re going with friends or family, we share a car. For our honeymoon, we travelled for two weeks along the coast with our dog, and the rental car was about $350. No reason to buy when we can rent so easily.

My partner and I got completely drenched in the 10 minutes standing/walking in the rain, with winds too strong to use an umbrella. When we got to our stop, the entire intersection was so flooded that we had to walk back two blocks to cross the street between lights on a blind curve where no one would be expecting a pedestrian. By the time my partner and I realized there was a less-walking-heavy way for me to get to my day’s only appointment, I had missed the bus that would have allowed me to do that, and then the bus didn’t even take the route that the Metro website said it would! Asked the bus driver whether it connected to my transfer bus and he said he didn’t know, and it was my responsibility to know the routes–when the information is only available online, which disenfranchises so many of the lower-income and disabled folks who need the bus system. Another passenger helped me out and this detour actually cut some of my walking out which was nice. But then I had to rush to my appointment, walking WAY too fast for comfort, although I was able to take the longer, less direct, but less walking route home, passing my car on the way which was done just in time to let me pick it up on my way and avoid the flooded intersection again.

My arthritic joints are angry, and I spent half an hour in the shower trying to scrub away the dirty smell of being on the bus with unwashed masses. To top it off, after a year of crappy evening commutes, my partner found out on his last week of work at this job that there had been a faster transit option if only there were directions that had included the train that was a block away from his bus transfer.

I’m so grateful for my car, and I’m glad I was able to give her a day at the spa.

But certainly with Schools of Choice, if you’re sending your child to a school in another district than where you live, there’s no such thing as a school bus for your child AND the school with typically be further away than walking distance.

at least when I lived in DC (pre/early Metro) and commuted 2 hours in a car, I traveled 35 miles.

My household is “car-free” in that we don’t own a vehicle. However, we are members of a car-sharing service that allows us to rent out cars near our home in 15 minute increments. In a very heavy-use month we’ve paid up to $250. However, that isn’t normal, and we’ve also paid as little as $20 a month. For me, the best part of car-sharing is not having the 24/7 responsibility of car ownership in an urban area. Car-sharing is the best!

In regards to paying for transit tickets for many family members, all of the transit agencies I know of in my metro area (SF-Oakland, CA) offer discount tickets for those under 18 and over 65. Most are free if under 5 years old.

I live near Warsaw, and we have to pay for each way or buy an all day pass, or a monthly bus pass, etc. The only way to not pay for two transfers would be to stay on the bus til the end and then just ride the same bus back to the point of origin–which seems rather pointless to me.

I am also curious about people who go carless–what do they do for vacations? Do they always just go where they can go by train or rent cars or fly or what? No family trips to the state park that’s just out of town? Do you take trips to someone else’s house (not near a bus or metro station) for dinner, etc? I’ve been kind of curious about that. But then, we had 5 kids and the cost of bus tickets quickly added up so that having a car and the cost of bus passes were about the same (per trip) and the convenience of carrying groceries for 7 in a car/van cannot possibly even begin to be compared to carting them–esp. with little kids. At least teens could help carry the groceries.

Most professionals in this area that I know that go carless during the week still own one or have access to one when they need to go somewhere besides the big city.

IMHO the best option for most people is transportation cycling plus one car per family (or a hire car scheme) for the occasional journeys that can’t be done by bike. Public transport can form a gap fill but it is unpleasant, expensive and slow.

Someone probably just hacked the corporate Internet giant’s bulletproof, redundant servers and slipped in the malware.

Weird that it was ONLY this one site, and I’ve never seen that warning anywhere else on the Internet, ever. Also weird that while JD was just running this site on his own, no one seemed able to hack it, but once it was handed over to experienced experts, managing dozens of similar sites on an industrial-scale server farm, it was so easily compromised.

I am taking a new job in a couple months that is in the heart of DC (my current work commute is 60 mi RT daily to a no-metro area outside DC) and I’ve struggled with the decision to move inside the beltway due to high C.O.L. (and my future temporary decrease in income). In agreement with your (and other commenter) thoughts, I think it’s worthwhile for me to do this cost comparison (esp. w/P’N'R option 5 mi from where I live now). Thanks for your insight.

JD, I know you said you alerted QuinStreet, but has anyone considered the possibility that they already know? That it’s deliberate? That they’ve purposely embedded some shady, questionable marketing component that they may consider to be “fair game,” but Google (and the broader audience) would consider to be intrusive malware?

What’s the harm? They’re just trying to learn more about the site’s visitors … by probing their personal files, browsing history, geographic location, etc.

Hope the big payday was worth it, JD. I predict many more “incidents” like this going forward, as QuinStreet tests the limits of just how much we’ll put up with. After all, they didn’t buy this site to leave it alone – it’s a cash-cow, just waiting to be milked dry.

Anyway, I’m in New Orleans too! I have to say that for a New Orleans summer, it’s really not that tempting to be doing anything physical outside. But fall, winter, and spring are all doable if one is interested in biking/walking. I’m hoping I’ll actually be transferred to a closer school so that I can at least try biking to work.

But as far as public transportation, it’s just not dependable enough. I don’t think the steetcars/buses make their circuits frequently enough to eliminate the inconvenience of waiting for them. It might be 20-30 minutes of waiting between arrivals. Adding that on to commute times (or heck, the time you were using to meet with friends at a restaurant) can seem really unappealing).

I currently have the nicest commute in the world – a 10 minute walk to the bus stop, and a 50-minute (seated) ride that leaves me 2 minutes’ walk from work. I have 2 hours a day to read, sleep, etc.

Things that can make public transit miserable? 1) Transfers. 2) Trains not running on schedule. 3) No seats available. 4) Too long of a ride. 5) Too long of a wait for the next bus/train.

All of these factors contributed to my passionate hatred of commuting in New York City. Now that I live in Japan, I adore my public transit.

And note, I spend $15 a day for this bus ride. Transportation is expensive in Japan. But it is SO WORTH IT.

And while I realize anacostia is a stretch, although it is becoming gentriried. I agree with the “bad neighborhood” rap. there are allkinds of nice places, and my husband and I always said we were going to retire (on a government pension, mind) to capitol hill or adams morgan

Anyone who has to pay for parking, or park many blocks from work to avoid paying, would probably save money and time by choosing an alternative (even if it’s carpooling).

however did that happen?

I will say, i know an awful lot of women who gave up on public transit because they couldn’t take the sexual harassment – the inappropriate nudity, the being touched, the guy getting off at your stop and following you, etc. Making transit FEEL safe is one of those important friction points that transit authorities have a hard time addressing.

You might want to check out jdroth.com as well.

THe Google warning is here :

http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=http://www.getrichslowly.org/&hl=en

It says that jdroth.com may be acting as intermediary for malware.

It has some more specifics.
It refers to some domain I’ve never heard of with a .tr extension.

The warning thankfully says that getrichslowly.org has not hosted malware itself.