A Weekend in the Carless Life

I’ve recently begun an interesting personal exercise in my life - living without a car. This is a pretty jarring experience, especially considering I’ve been more or less a car nut my entire life. I’ve owned some great sports cars, sedans, and even (gasp!) an SUV, but now I’m trying my hand at a car-free life. It’s interesting, to say the least.

This weekend I traveled from San Jose up to Marin County which consisted of: San Jose’s free downtown shuttle (called DASH), CalTrain to go from San Jose to San Francisco, a San Francisco Muni trolley to get to the Embarcadero, and then a ferry ride - all just to get to Marin County. From the ferry I was left with basically no choice but to get a cab to hop over to my hotel, and then my weekend involved a mix of buses, cabs, and rides with friends. Needless to say, Marin County is a very car-centric place in that it’s essentially a wealth community that’s spread along a 20 mile stretch of Highway 101.

All these machinations have different standards of comfort, reliability, and appeal. At 6′ 4″, leg room is a big deal for me. The Larkspur Ferry features large, comfortable seats, and it’s a joy to ride. The Muni features plastic seats with essentially no comfort whatsoever, and even less room to stow my suitcase that I had in tow. CalTrain was adequate - the seats were cramped but possibly a little more comfortable than the average coach class seat on an airplane. And between cabs, there’s little difference - the standard issue Crown Victoria is pretty predictable.

Sometime along the way I began thinking about the transportation model of the future. Will personalized transportation be able to make a leap from cheap-abundant-petroleum? Or will we all be sitting on communal transportation vessels running on a pre-determined grid like the rails and trams of this weekend?

The automobile provides transportation without the dependence on nodes. In essence, our route is whatever we decide it will be - with opportunities for rest stops, meals, a private conversation, and a musical / entertainment release. Of course, conversely, transportation services provide ample time to sit with a good book or newspaper, plug in an iPod, and go. So what really are the features of cars? A few key points come to mind:

• Cars provide an expression platform for individuals.
• Cars provide universal destination options. If you’ve got the gas, the car can get you there.
• Cars provide comfort options. People buy cars with seats and interiors that suit their needs and as the price moves up, provides greater comfort and luxury.
• Perhaps most importantly, cars provide privacy. The notion of “personal space” isn’t foreign to me - I’m the first person to admit that I like my personal bubble. Public transportation really requires people sacrifice their personal space to subject themselves to the whims of everyone else on these public modes of transportation.

Truth be told, my train ride back home to San Jose this evening was frustrating in that there was a screaming baby sitting just a few seats away. I know the mom isn’t necessarily to blame, but it is obnoxious, nonetheless. I was involved in a personal phone call to boot, and the person on the other end of the phone could barely hear me through the wails of the disgruntled infant. To make matters even worse, I didn’t necessarily want the rest of the train hearing my conversation, either.

I can predict that if somehow we’re going to move towards more efficient communal transportation, one of the key issues we’ll need to address will be issues related to privacy and personal space. People desire isolation from strangers, and that’s just part of human nature. As oil prices rise and supply continues it’s coarse towards depletion, innovations in transportation will need to account for our inherent desire to be left alone.

More about the carless life coming soon!