Car-Free in Ballard

So lots of the leadership and publicity hounds in Seattle like to talk about things like trip reduction and public transit, but how useful is that for your average person? Can normal people really do much to reduce the amount that they drive? Well, that's a pretty silly question, because of course they can, most just aren't willing to. However, one family in Ballard has taken the plunge and is finding out what it is like to live without owning a car at all.

Happenstance thus made us car free. But we decided to stay that way ... at least for a little while. OK, actually, it's more of an experiment, to see whether a middle-class family of five can live a contented life in Cascadia's largest city without owning their own car.

And from the source blog post:

Why are we doing this? Cost, conscience, and capability.

Cost: Owning a car is expensive. Replacing our car with another old Volvo would cost us, well, several thousand dollars up front plus at least $400 a month in fuel, taxes, insurance, and depreciation. Buying a new Prius would cost about $650 a month, including the same things (and more than $1,000 a month during the first year!).

I quote only the "cost" rational here because that one seems the most likely to really matter to most people. Granted, not everyone lives in a neighborhood like Ballard with 151 restaurants within two miles of their front door, and many people have lengthy commutes to work. However, much of our dependence on our automobiles is the direct result of where we choose to live. If more people thought like—and more importantly, made choices like—Mr. Durning, I wouldn't be writing a Seattle Traffic blog.

(Alan Durning, Tidepool via Cascadia Scorecard Weblog, 03.29.2006)