And it wasn’t even difficult, although this morning was chilly without gloves. One month without using my car.
The other good news is my Zipcar application was approved. Now I just need to wait for the card in the mail.
Today is the day
Assuming I don’t use my car today, then I have made it an entire month. I must say it was no big deal. There was no desire. Therre was no pain or wishing. Actually I feel better, a lot happier.
I was going to wait until the end of November before starting to talk about selling my car, but now I don’t think I’m going to wait. I think the fact that zip car is now in town flipped me over the edge.
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Good Sunday Ride
I went out Sunday morning to ride around town, go to the farmers market, and coffee shop. This was one of the best rides I’ve had all month.
Part 1:
Riding through campus I saw a zip car parked behind the library. Curious I kept looking as I got closer. It’s not unusual to see one in the area as people visit. As I got closer I noticed the sign in front of it wasn’t an ordinary university sign. Then I saw it! My heart doubled it’s pulse. The parking space and it’s neighbor were designated as zip car parking. Has it really come true? I’ve always said that all I needed was a car share in the area to ditch my car.
After I got home I checked it out and indeed zip is in town. I signed up. I should have my pass next week. The stars are aligning.
Part 2:
We’ll call this the “I’m not crazy part”. A curious couple came up to me interested about the brompton. We talked briefly, but not much. Honestly I wasn’t too friendly, I get a lot of weird looks and get tired of answering questions from uneducated people. The fact that his pants were tucked into his socks and that he knew it was a folder should have alerted me.
Fast forward 20 minutes and I saw the women parked with their cool tandem recumbent and trailer by the bank. I stopped to saw hi and gawk at their bike. Turns out they were a pretty cool couple. They like bikes too and ride most places. I think they still have a car too, but I feel like they don’t use it much.
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Cost Analysis
I will most likely update this several times. I tried to be fair with the calculations. I actually drove more miles on my car per year than is listed. I didn’t include all those miles because my family isn’t giving up all their cars. My wife still uses her car and instead of making certain trips in my car we now make them in hers. So I have only included the miles offset by the biking.
The cost saved per year comes out to $2,774.44. Please note this number won’t match the number below as the price of fuel keeps changing it gets updated in the good docs spreadsheet below. If I don’t start using my Y membership again I’m going to add that to the savings. My use of this died when I started riding my bike. Not quite sure why. I’m giving myself a few more weeks to figure that out.
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Emotional High
While waiting for my train home today I ran into Michael. He was waiting for the Amtrak, I was waiting for SEPTA.
He walked up to me beaming. A huge grin on his face ogling the Brompton. We talked for a good 5 minutes. Then I had to run to catch my train on a different platform. They switched tracks today.
I had the good thought to ask for a business card before I darted off. Hopefully he emails back and we can finish our conversation.
It makes me feel so good when other people get excited about a car free life too.
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