Things You'll Need:
- Walking shoes and/or bicycle
- Backpack and/or reusable grocery sacks
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Step 1
Driving everywhere is a hard habit to break, but the benefits are plentiful. Better health, less traffic, less road rage, less money spent on gasoline. If you can completely rid yourself of a car, you also rid yourself of expensive maintenance, insurance, car payments, and licensing fees.
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Step 2
Start by setting a 'within' range for distances you can travel without a car. Reasonable goals for many people is anything within 1 mile is walkable, within 5 miles is bike-able. Beyond that you probably need public transportation or a carpool.
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Step 3
Time yourself walking a mile and riding your bike one mile. Take a route that has a fair amount of cross-lights and stop signs. Now you have a benchmark of approximately how long your travel will take.
If you already think the extra travel time will be unbearable, take this same route in your car. Compare your car travel time at rush hours with your on foot or on bike times. Many will discover that the commute times are not so different. -
Step 4
Bring a bag with you in case you need to carry groceries or do some window shopping. Backpacks are great for evenly distributing weight across the back and reducing muscle fatigue or soreness.
Speaking of bags, break your grocery shopping into smaller more frequent trips. Amazingly, people who make more trips to the grocer also tend to buy more fresh fruit/veggies/herbs and really improve their dietary choices.
Knowing you can only buy what you can carry also curbs tendencies for last minute junk food/magazine/candy purchases in the check out aisle. -
Step 5
Still not convinced you should quit driving? Use this as an opportunity to lose weight.
Ditch the expensive gym membership and commit to walking, jogging, or riding bikes. Even if you use public transportation you are increasing incidental exercise. Encourage your family to participate and watch their waistlines decrease as well. -
Step 6
Develop a car-free budget. Add the amounts you spend in average week in gasoline and calculate what that expense is in a year. What about annual maintenance, emergency maintenance, car insurance, car detailing, car licensing?
Now compare this to the cost of new shoes, a new bike, and a monthly pass on the local public transit system. Do you still think a car is worth such a huge chunk of your income? -
Step 7
No car is a great way to help mother nature, but did you ever think how it also decreases your taxes?
The frequency and expense of roadway care is dependent on the amount of traffic on the road. Be one less person contributing to congestion, pollution, ever-increasing taxes, and the general stress of driving.
Public transportation is largely supported by taxes, but the more people who take advantage of it, the less it costs tax payers. So if you are choosing to ditch the car, start using the bus or train systems in your area. -
Step 8
Take the train for your next road trip.
Road trips are family fun and far less expensive than flying. Sometimes. With gas prices it may be just as cost-prohibitive. Look into AmTrak trains which travel throughout North America and offer get-on-get-off tickets.
