I lived without a car for a long time. I could afford one but it wasn't worth it in my mind, so cost.

I commuted by metrio, lived in an apartment, walked to shopping. Used taxi or zip car as needed.

we don't drive much, but we do have a car. unless you live in a downtown AND on the metro, you usually have one car if you can afford it since being 100% car free sucks in this country (outside of NYC).

i say this as a person who things we should make 50% of DC car free right now. i wish we could go car free, but it just isn't possible for many families yet. i wish we had wider sidewalks, more bus lanes, and more bike lanes.

Anonymous wrote:We don’t have a car. For us, we prefer walking/metro/bus, we live in a dense neighborhood in DC that’s pretty centrally located, and a car would just be a headache (parking, repairs, blah blah).

We have two kids and a third on the way. I know you must get better at it if you do it all the time, but when we’re on vacation and have a rental car, getting the kids in and out of car seats and packing everything up is such a PITA. And sometimes you’re still bringing a stroller for your destination. So you’re packing everything up, carrying it out to the car with the kids and the stroller, loading it all up, getting to your destination, unfolding the stroller, moving everything from car to stroller, unloading and reloading the kids… what a hassle! Our stroller is parked right by our back door. Throw in what you need, grab the kids, and you’re off!

Also we could definitely afford a car (HHI $225k) but we choose instead to stretch our budget to buy the perfect house that we love, plus we have used nannies/nanny shares. We couldn’t do all that and afford a car.

Everyone arranges things their own way. We couldn't get by without a car because of DH's commute, a specific kid activity that requires we drive to the suburbs once a week (would LOVE if there was a way to do this activity in the city but there is not, we've tried), and because DH's family live a 5 hour drive away in a place not reachable by plane or train, and they are getting older.

However, one thing that happens when you have to have something is that you discover how to do it more cheaply. I used to think that having a car would be an unreasonable expense, but then we bought a low-mileage used vehicle for 19k (cash, not financed, if we bought an equivalent car today it would cost about 25k). Insurance is really cheap because it's not a super expensive car and the two drivers on it are middle aged with no history of bad driving. Our condo came with parking so we don't pay for parking. And since we don't drive that often, we don't spend much on gas. We're getting near the end of this car's life, but when we do the math, owning a car has cost us about 2k a year over the life of the car.

We make less money than you do ($150k) but also probably live in a much less expensive home, and that's not a huge burden. I think our lives would be much harder without a car, and it's possible it would cost more annually to do the things we currently do via alternative methods.

Anonymous wrote:Lives downtown and finds it easier to Uber.

This is us. It's easier to just be picked up and dropped off somewhere vs deal with looking for parking. We could afford it, but by the time you factor in monthly parking, insurance, and buying/leasing a car it doesn't really make much financial sense. No way do we spend anywhere close to that on Uber or the occasional car rental. Work pays for Ubers to and from the office. We live in Logan Circle and can easily walk to a lot.

I didn’t have a car for 5 years—from when I graduated college to when I got married. DH had one when we married. I lived in an apartment 1 block from the Ballston metro and took the metro to and from work. I didn’t have to pay for metro since I was a federal employee. I took an Uber when I needed to, maybe once a month. Otherwise I walked. Rather than not being able to afford a car, I figured I saved a boatload over those 5 years in car payments, insurance, gas, parking, and maintenance.

Anonymous wrote:Cost.

But cost, when living in cities, actually means a lot of money is saved in daily parking! Not everyone lives in houses with free resident parking, and not everyone lives in buildings with affordable garages.

This is one reason we DO have a car in DC though -- in most parts of the city, parking is pretty cheap. Even when we lived in a big building with expensive parking, we were able to get a residential parking permit pretty low cost, and it wasn't that hard to find a spot. When you live in an area long enough, you learn where the spots are and when to find them, so it's not a big deal. Especially if, like us, you don't use the car to commute, just for errands, excursions outside the city, when you have gear you need to transport, etc.

I have previously lived in NYC and San Francisco and it never even occurred to me to own a car either place. And in San Francisco, public transportation isn't always that great and there were definitely times when a car would have been incredibly useful. But there was no residential street parking in my neighborhood and a parking spot in a private garage was like an extra $600 a month on top of already high rents. And then many places you go in the city, the cost of parking was also very high. It was cheaper to just uber everywhere. But that gets expensive too. This is item #34 on the list of 72 Reasons I Moved Out of the Bay Area.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because they don’t want to own one for the cost, hassle and damage to the environment. She lives on a bus line that runs between two metro stations and seems to have functioned alright for 12+ years now.

I have 7,777 miles in my car I bought in July 2022, and most places I drive to I could go on Metro.

lucky number. go buy a lotto ticket

We don’t have a car. For us, we prefer walking/metro/bus, we live in a dense neighborhood in DC that’s pretty centrally located, and a car would just be a headache (parking, repairs, blah blah).

We have two kids and a third on the way. I know you must get better at it if you do it all the time, but when we’re on vacation and have a rental car, getting the kids in and out of car seats and packing everything up is such a PITA. And sometimes you’re still bringing a stroller for your destination. So you’re packing everything up, carrying it out to the car with the kids and the stroller, loading it all up, getting to your destination, unfolding the stroller, moving everything from car to stroller, unloading and reloading the kids… what a hassle! Our stroller is parked right by our back door. Throw in what you need, grab the kids, and you’re off!

Also we could definitely afford a car (HHI $225k) but we choose instead to stretch our budget to buy the perfect house that we love, plus we have used nannies/nanny shares. We couldn’t do all that and afford a car.

Cost.

But cost, when living in cities, actually means a lot of money is saved in daily parking! Not everyone lives in houses with free resident parking, and not everyone lives in buildings with affordable garages.

Lives downtown and finds it easier to Uber.

Anonymous wrote:Because they don’t want to own one for the cost, hassle and damage to the environment. She lives on a bus line that runs between two metro stations and seems to have functioned alright for 12+ years now.

I have 7,777 miles in my car I bought in July 2022, and most places I drive to I could go on Metro.

Because they don’t want to own one for the cost, hassle and damage to the environment. She lives on a bus line that runs between two metro stations and seems to have functioned alright for 12+ years now.

Both.

is it by choice cause they like going places on Metro? Or is it because they can't afford it?