Don't all IKEA's deliver? That's the only way I shop there. I take the bus there, pick out my stuff and then go to the service desk to arrange delivery for a fee.
It's nice that Toronto is turning into a less car centric city, they have converted a lot of streets to one-way and add bike lanes, which is really great
Only Old Toronto and to some extent East York are becoming less car-dependant. North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke, and parts of City of York, are still very unwalkable.
As another member of the car-free gang, I'd also point out that you can pay for a *lot* of cabs and rail tickets before you even get close to a car payment. Heck, if you factor in fuel, insurance and taxes, you can upgrade to first class and still be better off taking transit rather than driving.
Yep. I joined a local "car club", so if I do need a car for a bigger shopping trip or whatever, I can rent one for a couple of hours, and even splash out for a few days rental for events like Christmas. As you say, with the significant savings from not owning a vehicle, it's not so bad paying a bit more for the occasional journey. Most of my local travel is done on a bicycle.
Fuel alone is about $400-$700 a month these days even if you just commute a couple times a week. Plus $250 for insurance and you are looking at least $1000 to maintain a vehicle.
It was costing me nearly £1000 a year just to keep the thing on the road, that's just for insurance and taxes. So it's already looking good before considering fuel, repairs & maintenance.
In addition to the usual car expenses: payments, fuel, insurance, and maintenance, a car makes you spend more money because of the convenience of going to different restaurants, cinemas, destinations etc. When you don't have a car, you tend to eat a home cooked meal more often, enjoy watching a show at home etc. I've been car free for 17 years now and it blows my mind how much money I've saved which in turn I get to spend on lavish luxury items and nicer home furnishings.
It’s actually nice to meet someone from North America who doesn’t have a car. Me from New York, I have lived a majority of my life without my car, but as I moved out, I needed it
Of course in NYC you have good MTA transit. Sketchy with homeless and gun toters... After this last week I pity Americans. Things would be so much better WITHOUT the guns!
@@jetfan925 my issue with the LIRR is: outside of rush hour the service pattern can be awful. 30-60 minutes between trains, when you’re used to the subway being at most a 15-minute wait outside of late at night, when you look at the timetable and see that missing a train means the next one is in an HOUR, is brutal, especially if you aren’t familiar with the bus map (we were in Great Neck, missed the train by about a minute due to a slow traffic light and tons of traffic so we couldn’t just jaywalk and run. Thankfully that time it was only 30 minutes to wait, and not an hour because it was getting close to rush hour, so they probably were moving the trains back into Penn Station for the crowds.
I’ve actually stored my car during the winter to avoid dealing with snow removal and I didn’t missed it once! So now I’m selling it and planning on living car free!
@@Mgameing123 i do my 2km commute on a regular bike in at most 10 minutes, which is faster than by car (if you factor in rush hour traffic, it's often less than half the time). I would say that unless it's a steep uphill climb of more than a few hundred of meters or you gotta be on that bike all day every day (delivery guy) you don't need an e-bike. They are meant to be niche products for edge cases. But then again, i'm quite fit. If you're just starting out you might feel the difference a lot more, aldough i wanna point out that buying a regular bike and getting fit (either at the gym or at a park) is like 10 times cheaper than buying an ebike.
You missed one really important aspect of living car-free: the freedom it offers children. I grew up in the suburbs of NYC. I could walk into town, but only because the house my parents own is close enough to the town center. If I wanted to see my friends or go anywhere other than town or NYC (accessible by LIRR from town), one of us would need to get a round-trip ride from our parents. It made it much harder to set up anything. I live near Boston now, and even fairly young kids around here take the bus or the T to see their friends any time they want, taking advantage of reduced fares for youth. They also almost all live close enough to town center to just walk it, and sidewalks make it safe to do so. They have much more social life than I did because of this, and their parents aren't acting as taxi drivers for them. Also, with gas near $5/gallon here, I definitively do not regret selling my car.
That is really cool, but 5$ per gallon? That's incredibly cheap for European standards, at the moment it's like 7-8$ per gallon. Driving everywhere with these prices will make you poor, you choose transit anyways. Or just bike/walk
@@haisheauspforte1632 Yeah, the USA subsidizes gasoline to make it cheaper at the pump. And then watch the same people buying the subsidized gasoline ask why we should pay for public transit "with their tax dollars." 🙄 Of course, we Americans are generally averse to spending money on anything that would be considered a public good. Education? healthcare? Transit? Nope. We don't want anything that could lead to us being mistaken for a first world country.
The opportunities too. Propel channel made a great video about someone who pointed out that their children have easy, car-free access to the local library, which is great for education and such.
@@DiogenesOfCa I am a car enthusiast. But I detest driving on north American roads. The problem is not that some people drive... It is just that there are more cars than people. And fact is, some people do not actually like driving. Fact is, if you even took just the people who don't actually like driving, and allowed them to commute in any way they pleased, traffic would not be a problem, and only those who actually like driving, and those who know they can would actually drive. Think about it; in an economy as wrecked as this one is, most people are going to want to save money. The only reason why everyone drives is because the infrastructure only allows for driving. So, Americans choosing the path of least resistance over the best monetary value, they just keep driving because it is easier. And not to mention the propaganda that being car free is "anti freedom". Is it truly anti freedom to have the freedom to choose how I get around? Free to save money how I see fit? Free to live in a place that isn't hostile, and stinks like gasoline?
I've lived car-free in the US for 10 years now, and in a variety of cities in the midwest and south that people would say are car-dependent. It is entirely possible if you plan your life around it - similar to how people in the 'burbs plan their lives around needing a car. People vastly underestimate the cost of car ownership and underestimate the cost difference between living closer to a downtown compared to suburbs.
Well done. I last owned a car in 1986. Since then I've relied exclusively on public transport plus the occasional taxi or rental vehicle. Cars are bottomless pits that gulp money voraciously. I've paid off several mortgages on the basis of not having a car.
I bought my first house when I was 23, I wasn't rich. I was able to afford it because I didn't own a car. Seven mile bike commute to work and a bike rack for groceries.
I lived my first 18 years without a car in a small town, and things were good and walkable, up until a walmart moved in and killed off alot of the retail in my town when I was 10 years old. There was a general store downtown that died, so now everyone has to drive 5 miles away to get to the walmart.
@@linuxman7777 I understand. I lived in Guelph, Ontario during the decade they fought Walmart. I think at the time Guelph had some kind of record for keeping them out so long, but unfortunately, they lost eventually too. 😢
I live without a car and am in one of the much, smaller cities in Ontario - Kingston. Transit here has gotten SO MICH better in the last few years with the express routes that have nicer, dedicated stops, stick to major streets and have service every 10 minutes or quicker in peak times. (I think they won awards or set records a couple of years ago? Pre-pandemic. Might make a neat video) For the most part, I manage just great. There's a grocery store nearby for frequent, small trips, transit gets me to the bus and train stations for intercity travel, and I get my steps in. There's really only two stroad-like areas that aren't the most pedestrian friendly, but otherwise everything is pretty easily accessible - and I don't even live in our downtown! Fun/sad fact: We DO have an airport, but it ISN'T accessible by transit, so I've never actually seen it or flown out of or into it despite the number of years I've lived here.
We definitely need more cities like this: smaller to mid-sized towns with high quality local transit (connected with reliable regional intercity rail). That should be the goal of every smaller city in Canada.
I went on exchange to the Uni there, and in hindsight I was incredibly lucky that it was so pedestrian-friendly and well-connected by bus relative to other places like it. I just checked the map thinking 'Surely there must be a bus to the airport. Look, there's one that stops nearby!'. It stops 2 kilometers away, and the roads to it are just hard shoulder. I forgot to adjust for the scale of North America. Why doesn't Kingston have a bus service to its own damn airport???
I'm 41 and have never owned or driven a car. But then I do live in a city with 'okay' public transport and some fairly decent bike infrastructure. I live in the UK. If I need to visit family in other towns or cities, I just take the train. There are occasional times when use of a car would have been helpful but it's nice not to have that millstone around your neck. Although granted I could just occasionally rent one if I had a licence.
Earn and secure your driver’s licence. More people would take you _more_ seriously if you had your licence. People in Australia who cannot drive are frowned upon. 🇦🇺
@@jillengel4124 Travelling overseas without access to a rental car can be frustrating. Most places around the world are not accessible with public transport.
My nan has lived without a car for over 60 years and still doesn't. Despite litterally everyone else in the family drives. For a deprived town in the north east theres better bus service than entire US Cities... And there is the ability to walk everywhere though cycling infrastructure is very little to non existant.
Moving from Windsor to Toronto soon and I'm looking forward to selling my car and getting around by transit. Really hope smaller Ontario cities start taking transit and walkability more seriously
I jumped from Windsor to London for school (no car), to Hamilton for work and needed a car (driving for the job) and then to Toronto and back to car free. It's pretty awesome. East or West end are pretty solid choices, west end has been really enjoyable for me, been here about 2 years.
Agreed. Fortunately it seems more and more cities, towns and governments in general across Canada are taking transit seriously and really investing in it.
I live in Toronto. I have my driver's license but rarely drive since the age of 18 ( I am 55) because I suffer from dyspraxia and driving is a challenge. I use transit and Uber and I love walking. And I bought my condo across from Lawrence West subway station.
Its also worth mentioning that an electric cargo bike is a big help in going car free. I can get to work 8 miles away without breaking a sweat, and pick up the kids and a load of groceries on the way home.
@lwf51 it's a bike with cargo carrying capacity, some have a large space up front for large things, others have the rest end extended so you can hang extra bags on the sides or put some kids on top. The possibilities are endless.
I so wish I could fit a cargo bike into my building's elevator. Alas, they're a bit too long lol. A cruiser ebike it will have to be, at least for now.
I've lived without a car for almost 20 years. I survived in FL, OR, And CA without a car. its a different way of living, and you do have to do planning as mentioned in the video. But its really not hard at all to do it in the US especially in the urban areas.
I’m in an awkward place. I live in Toronto and do so pretty happily without a car. However, I often have to make long trips across the city and for that, transit is kinda lacking. Most of these trips are definitely possible, however they take up a significant part of my day. For example a trip to and from the airport takes up to 2hrs one way! That’s 4 hours of transit per day! Not to mention it’s expensive as ever! Toronto would definitely benefit from fare integration on a region wide scale.
@@michaelrmurphy2734 Prssto works for pretty much all transit services within the GTHA, however each agency has their own set of fares. Meaning when you cross the borders of municipalities, you often have to tap again to pay said transit agencies fares. Some have discounts from agency to agency transfers but some do not.
@@cmmartti as of two months ago, there is some fair integration. For example, if you switch from GO to one of the others then the non-GO first leg of the trip is free. Most transit systems except for TTC are part of this
@@cmmartti ah I had no idea Barrie had already been fare integrated. I was curious about how the $10 GO weekend pass specifically works with the various agencies, here's what I'm guessing. All the transit agencies where you can show a day pass you may be able to show the weekend pass. Brampton, Burlington, Durham, Guelph, Milton, Oakville, YRT are listed on the GO website. I've never tried with the $10/15 weekend passes myself, I'll have to see if they accept it. If so, it means you can travel vast swathes of lower Ontario just for $10 or $7.50 a day on weekends. Worth a try
You don't have to live in a city with rapid transit to live car free, i live in Quebec city which isn't that big or transit-oriented, yet I've never had a car in my life and I get along totally well with the bus! (tho that's probably because i live right next to two brt lines)
I also live in TO without a car. I'll never buy one, the cost seems insane for the privilege of likely driving it to work and paying for parking. I bought my cart for my groceries years ago and it is fantastic.
I bought a backpack, well 2, one is a little one like most students have and one is a serious camping backpack - which I use for large shopping trips - thing can carry a lot if carefully packed.
for the section about groceries, i'd also like to add something i picked up on in a Not Just Bikes video, which is that when people live in car centric places, they are forced to make weekly trips to the supermarket because of how much effort the trip to it is everytime; whereas in a denser, or otherwise walkable/bikeable/transit-oriented place, where supermarkets are well dispersed and accessible, smaller trips and smaller purchases can be made multiple times a week. living in NYC, my family goes to the supermarket 2-4 times a week, and we usually walk to it. we have like 5 supermarkets within walking distance and tons more by transit lol
Public transport has alot of benefits despite my parents both owning cars they never use them to go to the city and there is one main reason, parking. Parking tickets cost a considerable amount of money espacially in the city urban centers. Here in melbourne the vast tram network can take you to every corner of the city and since the cbd is entirley in the free tram zone you dont need to pay money to use it
When I was young in China (before the subway boom), riding the bus was actually pretty quick and simple. But moving to California, if you don't have a car, you're very limited in location and stuff.
I’m American and I spent 7 days in Hong Kong and I never rented a car cause I never drove on the left. There was so much public transportation and ferries it was not necessary for me to have a car or hail a cab.
I have one but purely for ID purposes now - The fact that driving is such an integral part of our identity that a driver's license is seen as the de facto piece of ID really is part of the problem!
@@RMTransit Do you not have just an ID that would work? In most (all?) states here in the U.S. you can get just a state ID card. I also have a drivers license, because I still drive others' cars (when I visit family, rent a car, car share, etc.).
@@kennantjessavi7648 Osaka, Sendai, Kyoto, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Hiroshima… there’s so many cities outside Tokyo with urban rail systems, not to mention excellent regional rail and high density mixed use neighbourhoods making walking and biking more practical. And buses seem decent enough in most Japanese cities?
Also worth mentioning is if someone is close enough to the grocery store that they can bike to it, it's possible they don't need to get a huge mound of groceries in the first place (this could also help reduce food waste) since they can make more small trips, as opposed to a single big trip.
Agreed: in the bigger cities a car isn't really necessary. I've lived in Vancouver, Victoria and Toronto without a car, renting one every now and then as needed. Even with a car, if my destination was downtown I'd still use transit. Faster, cheaper, less hassle. If I rented a car one weekend a month it would be cheaper than owning and maintaining (and insuring) one of my own. It's different in the smaller centres, of course. Here in Kamloops (second largest city in the B.C. interior, after Kelowna) a transit-only life would be extremely limited.
I problem I see in American cities moreso (though it can apply to Canada too) is that the downtowns are very small. As you go west or south the historic and walkable downtowns only stretch for a small area, or they're just for commerce and office space. With rising costs of rent all around it makes it harder to live in such areas since only a few fortunate ones can get in at all. Toronto even in its suburbs has big transit-oriented developments along rail corridors and this hasn't happened yet really at any noticeable scale in the US. There are cheaper cities to move to, but then that starts getting into gentrification and its effects. Though even in those places I like to think less in terms of going car-free and looking at individual trips. Maybe _some_ trips can be done via bus. Maybe you can park-and-ride your way to downtown instead of going all the way and stressing over parking. The car might still be in your life but it can be lessened a bit. Transit coverage in sprawl areas isn't fantastic but sometimes just the stress of not having to be the one driving is worth it if you can afford the time.
The biggest thing I've found being car free for about 10 years in greater Vancouver is that having area knowledge to inform where you choose to live is the biggest key. Even in neighbourhoods that are less walkable, you can usually find a place that's near groceries, a transit hub, and a couple other anemities and easily get along car free just fine. It won't work everywhere, but if you know your area you can often do okay. I'd also be mindful of the apparent trajectory of your neighbourhood. Is it getting denser? Are there new midrises being built? Does your mayor care about improving core areas? Denser neighbourhoods tend to be more resilient to economic shifts, but are certainly not immune to them.
I live and work in Scarborough and is proud that I am the only person in my company who bike to work everyday. I do not like the car centric Scarborough design. However, I absolutely love to bike myself everywhere. I also love taking the streetcar. Toronto streetcars are amazing. They are smooth and quite as a subway but beautiful looking out the windows. Especially, they go through some toronto suburbs where it is not car dependent!! That is amazing. Finally, car insurance in Toronto is ridiculously (reasonablly) expensive. I feel very happy that I do not need to pay it every month.
Preach! I don't have a car either. Life is easier this way! Living in the core of a big city (Seattle) does help of course, even if it's not a top transit city. Going car-free is actually pretty popular here...in 2016 the local paper figured out that the average new apartment had 0.6 spaces per unit, because a lot of residents don't have cars.
I used to have a car but due to medical issues, my doctor said I can't drive anymore. I was about to fight him but I decided to try it out with taking transit only. It turns out I actually like it plus it saves me a ton of $$.
@@fluorite1965 Isn't it depressing without a car. I'm 31 no car. Can't go places unless it on the bus and people ask for gas Eben if I don't have gas money. It's so depressing. I envy people with a car.
I’ve always loved driving. I’ve made a career out of it. However, I have learned that I get much more joy out of a long walk or bike ride. Just like when I was a kid.
I live in Melbourne, I'm 64 and decided some 10 years ago that a car was a waste of time and money. I estimate doing without is saving me AU$5-10,000 per year. Buses run outside my unit, one tram line is 2 minutes walk away, another is 5 minutes away (& Melbourne trams are sensational) and the nearest train station is 7 minutes away. I don't actually use public transport much because everything I need to buy for day to day living is within 3 minutes walk - literally around the corner. Even the nearest mall is only 15 minutes walk, or quicker by tram. I cycle to work, although since COVID I've been working mostly from home. The biggest hassle is visiting friends and family who live out in the suburbs. If worse comes to worst, I can always use the share car that's about 30 seconds from my front door. Best of all, I love the variety and atmosphere of the inner suburbs, and Melbourne cafes are justifiably famous. Cars are a trap.
And of course, Melbourne is a "big city" of several million people. Transit is easier to access. And I live in the province that has a Sydney. No, not New South Wales. The "other" Sydney!
Thanks for your perspective. Many people I know have a car, but don't use it for commuting. Certainly commuting downtown for work is expensive and stressful. This is a reaonable compromise for people who use both urban and suburban parts of the city.
Little wonder work at home has taken off during the pandemic. Now workplaces want workers to come back downtown again to offices. Why? Depending on the job, not everyone needs to.
@@Xenomorph-hb4zf You could say the office leases ARE the waste of money. Have a decentralized workforce. Empty office buildings downtown? Not a bad idea. And rents and leases are a tax writeoff. That all the rest of us pay for!
As a former New Yorker, I get all these points about how to live car-free. However, it's not for everybody. The farther south you go in the U.S. the more car-dependent it is. I now live in Central Florida, and while I love it here, the thought of being car-free doesn't exist; mostly, because it would be impossible.
Now I know I made the right decision to move to Salt Lake City, Utah for a job. I can walk to work, even if it takes 20-25 minutes to do so, and lots of places are within easy reach thanks to the TRAX light rail, and I can walk to other, closer places if I want to. While I do have a car, it's back east in Virginia. All my life, I've lived more or less in car-dependent suburbia, so living near downtown has been kind of a dream for me. And SLC rents are nowhere near as bad as some cities in the US.
Thank you for your heartfelt words! I'm actually a Portuguese international student from UBC currently in the final year of my Master's degree, having lived in Vancouver and Kamloops. Although Kamloops is a small city, it is not bad, and the shopping bus can also meet the demand. I currently live in the neighborhood of Dubar and I would say that the upgraded Vancouver public transit system is great! I own a Camry and have a Class 5 license the year before, but I often have to deal with super congestion nightmares! I don't drive very much at the moment, I cycle and hike a lot and use public transportation. BTW: The ICBC examiner for my level 7 road test was really rude and ridiculous, but my level 5 road test examiner was awesome! In the powerful and big ICBC, they really have the ability to ruin your life and life plan (my Chinese roommate was unlucky to fail the road test four times before getting his driver's license). Objectively, it still depends on your personal needs (I'm not criticizing any driver), but "you have a car, you have to drive" is not a reason to morally kidnap and ridicule other people.
I live in Los Angeles without a car and while it may sometimes be annoying because many bus routes are hourly and the bus route that serves the street in front of my apartment has a headway of 15-20 minutes (which is pretty good for this place) it can sometimes be hard but on the flip side, I spend only $50-60 a month on transportation (excludes occasional trips on Amtrak or Metrolink).
I lived in Pittsburgh for nearly three years without a car (clutch the pearls!) and, because i was located one block away from the city’s busiest bus lines and near grocery, shops and my job- i made it work. however, i knew it wasn’t a long term solution and i do drive and own a car, but i still live 20 minutes from my work sites.
The last point you mentioned is so undervalued. One of the things I missed most during the pandemic probably is just running into people, meeting vague acquaintances that I enjoy speaking but am not really close to. Those vague connections all completely fell away during covid. I am now doubly appreciating the time I spent walking and biking around town and waving to people I vaguely know from a bar or a venue or so. By the way, another nice social thing about being car free is the amount of time it offers to spend with friends chatting. Suppose you've been at the movies and you'd like to go home; chances are you have another 10 minutes with them or so while you walk or bike in the same direction. Those minutes are 100% of the time lost if you both go to your own car. Especially for teens and children this really is valuable social time.
I live in Pittsburgh, and I totally could live without a car here except I really like to go camping, and I need a car to get out to the camp sites. Otherwise, my car pretty much sits idle most days.
So last week we had RM sneaking a cameo with Jago Hazard. Now we have him name dropping NJB. Elsewhere on my UA-cam feed I see he has done a collaboration with Geoff Marshall. It looks like my entire UA-cam consumption is slowly coalescing into a single entity! Just need to find a way to bring The Tim Traveller in, and the singularity will form.
Never really thought about it, but in my country its normal to go skiing/into nature via public transport, actually insane how those rural places are connected
5 months ago I got rid of my car after about 25 years of nearly continuous car ownership. So far, I haven't missed it. My bicycle with luggage rack can carry enough stuff for most of my regular shopping needs, plus I'm saving money and getting a bit more exercise! Public transit isn't great around here, but it'll do, usually. Obviously it's not an option available to everyone - for many years I've had to drive to work, usually to places with poor or non-existent public transport. I live in a fairly small city in the UK. A few years ago I visited Canada (BC), I remember it being pretty treacherous trying to walk from the Airbnb in suburban Vancouver to the nearest supermarket. There were however regular trolley buses and metro services into town, which was great, but outside those service areas it was very car dominated. Pedestrian access seemed like an afterthought.
I'm 60 and have never owned a car which shocks many people as my city is not particularly transit friendly. I live in the downtown core and ironically when I purchased my home it was considered an undesirable location and was cheaper than the suburbs. Unfortunately the downtown is slowly getting hollowed out with more and more businesses moving to the big box locations but I'm managing.
I also do not have a car but I live in a suburb. I live close to a metro stop and close to an area where there are a lot of buses. Plus I can bike and 2 grocery stores in walking distance. Save a crap load of money.
A lot of people have this sort of knee jerk reaction where they bring up all the trips that they can only make by car. I think it is valuable to point out all the trips that they could be making without one. Reducing car dependence does not need to mean everybody gets rid of their cars tomorrow. Allowing multi-car families to become single-car families is already a huge improvement.
I've live my whole life without a car. I have lived in Oakland, San Francisco and Berkeley California, Jakarta, Riyadh and a suburb of Karlsruhe. One just has to learn the local transportation options.
Hello! As a European living in East Asia, I find your channel really thrilling. It's so exciting to come across a North American like you and to listen to your experience and analysis. Your insight is really interesting and I'm slowly becoming an addict of your videos. I hope that more people in North America will start thinking like you and that you will get more TOD and more decent urban and interurban transit in the coming years. All the best to you and your fellow countrymen!
I don’t even have a license lol. That said living in Mississauga, every 5 minute journey by car is a 30 minute trip by bus. Sadly in the GTA some trips are faster by bike or even walking than using the bus. Even downtown Toronto, if you don’t start AND finish your journey on the subway, the bike is still much more convenient. Living car free is great if your a bachelor, but this won’t work for your average soccer mom working a job and running errands for her family. Ps welcome back to Toronto :)
My brother has a wife and three kids and they rely on the Dodge Caravan van. Of course, the kids want to drive now. My niece does NOT want a bicycle! BTW, do you miss the JR Shinkansen?
@@michaelrmurphy2734 I definitely miss the Shinkansen. It’s nuts that that I can travel from Nagoya to Osaka (166km distance) in less time than it takes to go from Cooksville to Union.
@@japanesetrainandtravel6168 HAHAHA!!! My friend Ami is from Nagoya. And I love Japan! I follow a lot of the Japanese UA-camrs. If I were to go to Japan I would go to the countryside. I'm used to it now.
In Canada and the US you almost HAVE to have a car if you have a family. In Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, Japan, you do not. The key to public transportation is whether families can use the system to safely get where they need to go in a timely fashion.. It is different for single people, for couples without children or for empty nesters. Children change the entire equation.
This context is important. Age and family status matter just as much as urban/suburban/rural. So does climate. Vancouver and Toronto have some of the mildest winters in Canada.
I live in Brisbane, Australia without a car. Petrol, registration, insurance and maintenance is so much more expensive than taxis, Ubers and scooter rental. I can walk to my local supermarket and department store too.
Respect for being able to do this in North America. I live car free with my family in Amsterdam for the last 25 years. It is easy here. The only period I owned a car was when I lived in LA for six months. We considered it to dangerous to cycle in LA due to the extreme traffic.
Using transit for buying food was always a huge hassle, most of my shopping wasn't planned so I barely had a trolly to help carry my bags so I ended up carrying multiple heavy bags around and keeping them wrangled on the floor of a train or bus was annoying (mostly to other passengers). Plus buying an expensive item..like a playstation 3 and lugging it across town (even though my city is pretty safe) made me feel a little vulnerable to being attacked and robbed...especially when walking down some empty and or dark pathways/tunnels from train stations. Now (even though public transport has gotten better here) it's worse because I have to shop for three adults and I have to attend meetings at a place that has got public transport access...just not from my direction...and I dislike riding to the city core just to ride back out in a direction almost back towards where I originally came from and vice versa home. But my city only has 1.3 million so there really isn't much high density housing (there is a little but kinda stretched out). I suppose there is one good thing our government has done about 15 years ago is make it harder to just keep building new houses on the fringes that also destroys our fertile farmland market gardens...this has boosted infil development within existing suburbs adding more population density. So maybe in a few years we'll see then.
@@londo776 Maybe, but delivery charges can be rather high...can cost up to $18 to deliver groceries...Ikea is $70. Maybe some time in a few years things will become more competitive but using my old car for shopping hauls and most small to medium Ikea flatpacks and just the comfort of not having to carry the shopping bags every week or fortnight on transit or if I buy an expensive item the relative safety of not carrying it around the neighborhood.
@@stevenbalekic5683 I ordered a bed from IKEA last year 18 pounds delivery, had my groceries delivered from Asda today £3.00 delivery charge, I also ordered a Rotary clothesline at Argos 10 am for same day delivery, delivered 3:00 PM only cost me £3.00 delivery seems we are a little bit cheaper than you. So much better than catching a bus, or taxi or batting through the traffic and wasting a couple of hours, probably cost a little bit more than the petrol but the convenience of not going to the shop it's worth every penny
@@londo776 Since my city is relatively small (population wise 1.3million), the traffic never gets insane (unless roadworks or an accident has slowed or blocked roads) Ikea is around 10 mins away by car in normal traffic...about 9 kilometres away...delivery is $70. The local supermarket is actually really close...maybe 500 metres away but with a haul of groceries that costs $150-$200 I definitely ain't carrying it. Also I think it's cheaper to keep a car here compared to the UK...my registration and insurance comes to $170 every 3 months...and petrol while expensive now at around $2 per litre it's usually around $1.29 to $1.49 per litre....if it ever goes back down.
We lived car free in Kitchener, ON. It had its obstacles. Having access to car share. What bugs me, is not people who own cars, who might not need them. But a city which refuses to make it easy not to own a car.
I also live in Toronto without a car. I was always fascinated with the streetcars and subways in Toronto as a kid when I would visit in the summers of the 1980s before I moved here from Quebec City. I have kept mementos from those times such as old bus/subway transfers, tickets and passes.
Yeah, I noticed that a lot of Europeans don't seem to get how nice Old Toronto is to walk / bike / get transit in. I lived on the Danforth and walked basically everywhere except Costco, it was pretty great.
That point about not wanting to go into the nature with your own car... Very true. My friend purchased a new car and we wanted to go hiking, but he was too afraid to take it on Mountain roads. My wife ended up driving her older car instead. The only reason she still owns it is for getting to the nature ...
Great to hear that also North American cities allow for a car-free life. I live in Brussels, and at 39, never had a driving licence. There are moments I miss having access to a car (unless it's a taxi or someone is giving me a ride), but those are far in between. Most trips I can make quite easily by bike, transit, train or a combination of those. Shops are a 10' walk max, so even if I forget something, I can quickly go back. When I went to the grocery store with my parents back in the days, it was an outing, at least 20' by car each way, in heavy traffic (like end of school) often more. I have repeatedly stated that I would try to get my driving licence, but a car is just too much of a hassle to own. Just a parking spot in the underground garage here would be €90/month, and I'm not living centrally.
I lost my car in an accident over a month ago, and when I'm fully recovered I'm HEAVILY considering just getting a bike. I live in LA and I've been getting around by bus lately, which has its cons, but I think pairing it with a Brompton might be a good middle ground.
If I could live without a car, I 100% would. But my city just doesn't have the infrastructure to support it. The bigger cities in my country do though for sure.
Been living w/o a car since I was born. Don't even have a license. You just gotta know where to live to survive, if not thrive w/o that expense. And no NYC isn't the only US city where you don't need one.
Car free for two decades and mostly loving it . The occasional inconvenience is completely outweighed by no longer having to consider car payments insurance fuel costs etc.
Hey, Reece! Nice video! Would you make the next one about governmental fuel subsidizing? Because, it's a theme that majority doesn't understand (because they don't get a straight subsidy, of course) and that is sad. A lot more people should realize this issue.
Communauto in Toronto is amazing for Winter. I feel great that 1 car has several owners and in the Winter I usually use 40-80$ a month, occasionally $120 but it includes gas and parking, insurance, etc.
Most Europeans don’t say it’s impossible to live in the US without cars. In big cities it’s reverted. But if you live in (modern) suburbs or rural areas it’s really different.
GREAT VIDEO!! 🤗🤗 I've lived CAR-FREE for 40 years now and never looked back! You failed to mention all the money you save and can enjoy elsewhere because you don't have the burden of car payments. I live in the suburbs of New Jersey, and you have to be a diehard fan of the CAR-FREE community to not be so car dependent. 🍷🍷😎😎
Living in London, there is simply no need for me to have a car because of the points you raise in your video - particularly the bus but also the tube and rail networks get to me everything I need whilst my job is only a short walk away. As such, I've never learn't to drive
I tried living without a car the first year I lived in Chicago. It is doable depending on where you work. For me, it was simply too inconvenient, and I reluctantly bought a car.
Great video Reece! I too lived without a car, albeit for only about a year. I found the biggest issue was not getting around within my city, but instead between cities. North America really needs to work in better intercity connections. Cheers!
Not owning a car in many north american cities is pretty common. In Montreal, most people I know don't... And those who do don't use it for daily trips. Even those who are not living downtown, as long as you're within range of proper transit options. It just sucks that some politicians don't recognize that we're actually doing just fine like this (I'd even dare say better than people in car centric suburbia) and thus not willing to improve/expand walkable/bikeable infrastructure or transit at the expanse of some driving lane or parking space. Though I think the tables are now finally beginning to turn!
I live in Toronto too. I love being able to walk down any inner-city street, not just the known ones like Danforth, Bloor West, etc, but also places like Shaw or Queen. It's amazing how many little shops there are, all the culture, and the great time spent browsing local retail. You CANNOT do this in a suburb where your only option is the giant strip mall with the same big box retail you see everywhere. But in Toronto you can go down a different walkable street on another part of the city and see a completely different culture in the storefronts. Also the true cost of living in the city is definitely cheaper than the suburbs. Taxes tend to be much lower because you have higher density, amenities are closer, etc. A lot of people say that you can't own a spacious house in Toronto and that is true, the place is live is about 1,500 sq ft where you can get massive houses in the suburbs. But living in the city: (1) you feel a desire not to be home because of all the amazing places there are to see, and (2) with shorter commute times you get to enjoy your house more when you are home. People in the suburbs commute two hours in and two hours back. They have no time to actually "be at home".
My 70 year old, single brother, has never owned a car nor had a driver's license! He has used public transportation for 44 years to get to his job, some 7 miles away, at a local N.Y. airport! Yes, it seems costly, but he has never spent a penny for car payments; car insurance; repairs, depreciation; tolls; tickets, etc.! Not owning a car, in urban areas, makes sense for singles, but the cost of public transportation quadruples, for families of four, which is cost inefficient!
Ever since I've moved to Chicago I've never felt the need for a car. Everything I need I walk or take transit to. I was worried about groceries too, but it's really not that bad. I live a 10 minute walk away from four different grocery stores, and you just load up your backpack, and take one or two grocery bags if you want to do a larger haul.
It's, again, true in Central Auckland. With the city speed limit slowing down, parking spaces decreasing, price of yearly car checks and all that, if it isn't for my parent's cars for groceries, I'd sell the cars and give up my license.
i found a place in my city thats right next to the bike path and in a surprisingly walkable neighborhood. i love it here. its possible to have walkable neighborhoods even in the USA
I'm Australian, and I don't have a car. I've actually never bothered to have one. I live in the inner city and it really isn't difficult at all. I would much rather be able to go to a park than have a back garden. I can grow chilies on my balcony and it takes me 3 to 4 minutes to walk to my nearest station. I think if I had a car, I'd probably end up being lazy and would gain a lot of weight. Better to use your feet and maintain your health.
I live in Long Beach, California without a car. My home is less than a 15 minute walk from a park, a library, a bar, a waterfront, parks, shops, cafes, restaurants. Many areas of the city are very walkable and our city bus is well integrated, connecting with the Metro Blue line downtown and connecting with LA Metro brt and Orange County's transit at CSULB.
Same. I'm in NYC. I've had my driver's license for 8 years now but haven't really had to drive for any reason at all. The times I've driven since then have been for leisure and just to feel what it's like to drive since I rarely have to. I will say I do live in a neighborhood where the grocery store, the gym, favorite restaurants, etc. are all within walking distance, and places like the theater or Madison Square Garden or Citi Field are all very accessible by public transit.
Same question we have when we moved in Auckland. Yes, my current house and my previous one is only a 15-minute drive away, but where I live now has a bus stop less than 300m away. The only issue? We live in the lowest-lying area (risk of flash floods) surrounded by steep roads back to the main shops and supermarkets. My local bus almost solves the problem.
I live in Toronto. Before having kids I usually got around without my car within the city. My work though requires me to traverse the GTA from Toronto to Mississauga, Scarborough, Brampton, Vaughan, etc. Transit does not suit this at all. And I mentioned kids - after-school programs and appointments are hard to reach on-time via transit. Toronto has great walkable neighbourhoods and ok transit but one thing it requires is time (which maybe a young, single guy has more of but that is not what I am anymore, haha).
I can't imagine having a family with children and not having a car. It would be very difficult to get them around. I can see no car for a single person if you live someplace with decent transit. But with an average family? Nope..unless you lived in NYC, Chicago, San Francisco and like cities. Still then it would take a lot of planning. I wonder how many responding to this thread have children? Curious. I live in a medium sized Midwestern city with poor public transit. The bus only runs Monday to Saturday in 20 minute intervals. Never on a holiday and when it does run the routes close down at 18:30(6:30pm)
I live like a two minute walk to the bus both directions right across from each other. South and North. It's great. I do hate that the last bus is to early I feel at least one or two more would be better. There is another bus down the street I can use that's longer running but the walk is about 10 to 15 minutes and I know it's not that much but I live in Florida and I am not good with heat or humidity. So just being right by my apartment is great. Now I can take that same bus to multiple shopping options. 5 in fact which funnily enough are all different price points. Ranging from Save a Lot to Whole foods. I can also get to my local mall, which is a bus hub, that has a movie theater too. I'm about 10 minutes to the beach if I take a Lyft on a good day or the bus and trolly instead. I can easily go to the local Walmart either with a Lyft that's 10 minutes from me that way, or take the bus. The bus would be the lowest options but limits what I can buy. Another reason I order Walmart delivery for my groceries instead. Saves me time and money. My bus has WIFI and has transitioned to no longer offering paper passes, now it's touch pay either through your direct Debit or credit card, I advise against it, or through either the app or the physical pay card of the same app called Flamingo. You can buy passes and it has fare caping. If I take 4 busses in a day, which a do Monday to Friday, then by my fourth ride it's free. After spending 70$'s you get unlimited free rides before the new month. For me that will be the 19th of June, 2024. Now if i use it on the weekends I can cap early but I tend not to have anything planned to do so I just relax at home. I don't drive so I live off of Public Transit. I hope to get a bike in the future so things might change.
I'm surprised you didn't mention having a bike, or bike share. I use my bike downtown, all year round. More and more bike lanes, and the beautiful 30 km Martin Goodman Trail on the waterfront. Bikes are allowed on the subways at all times now instead of limited hours like before the pandemic.
I live car-free in Halifax, Nova Scotia... A less transit-oriented city than Toronto, but easily doable on foot, bike, bus, and/or ferry. A lot of my coworkers also commute via transit or self-power. I manage to do everything on foot, having used fewer than 20 local bus tickets over the past year. For me, it's a ten or fifteen minute walk to two full grocery stores, and shorter to pharmacies or convenience stores if I desperately need something outside of normal shopping hours. There's a library nearby, and every few days I walk to a climbing gym (which, like the one at 5:59 is built in an old theatre). There are a ton of parks and museums, sports venues, and pubs. When I want to visit family out of town, I just take the intercity bus (which typically costs the same as the equivalent distance in car fuel, but is more relaxing). I spend my days at an architecture firm designing new apartments, because thousands and thousands of people are hopping onto the urban, post-motorized life.
I have a car and mostly use it to get out of the city. In the city, I mostly use transit or bicycle, and I appreciate having the options. It is much nicer than contending with traffic-clogged suburban stroads, and this time of year I can literally stop and smell the flowers on the way to/from the bus stops. Have lived car-free before and could see doing it again. Main reason I have my own vehicle is for camping (it is configured to camp in). If there were more options for small, reasonably-priced camper rentals (instead of huge, expensive, awkward, gas-guzzling RV’s), I’d probably live car-free right now.
I own a small sports car. Its quite expensive to maintain, insurance is about $100pm, petrol is about $70pm got slapped with a $1000 repair bill this week for some major servicing items. My biggest gripe is that people will damage your car in parking lots, finding parking, constantly worrying about your when parked somewhere, stressing about the next repair item, just the general cost of everything. It's tiring. I own my car and only pay for insurance + cost of usage but my gawd selling the car and buying a bicycle seems like a fun idea.
I should mention, Toronto even just opened an "urban" Ikea in the downtown where you can try stuff out and have it delivered!
I have to go there and take a look.
Oh, I didn't know it was a different setup! Oh dang, I'll need to check it out as I never go to IKEA as it is in Vaughn.
What is with you. What are you doctor who that must not be named . Little boy 👦
Don't all IKEA's deliver? That's the only way I shop there. I take the bus there, pick out my stuff and then go to the service desk to arrange delivery for a fee.
Yeah he lives on an air craft carrier
It's nice that Toronto is turning into a less car centric city, they have converted a lot of streets to one-way and add bike lanes, which is really great
What do one way streets do?
@@lincolnabraham4695 they remove one lane making space for bigger sidewalks, bus lanes etc, e.g mill st and the esplanade
Also, Toronto has the TTC which makes it easy to get around without a car.
I'm really loving it!
Only Old Toronto and to some extent East York are becoming less car-dependant. North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke, and parts of City of York, are still very unwalkable.
As another member of the car-free gang, I'd also point out that you can pay for a *lot* of cabs and rail tickets before you even get close to a car payment. Heck, if you factor in fuel, insurance and taxes, you can upgrade to first class and still be better off taking transit rather than driving.
Yep. I joined a local "car club", so if I do need a car for a bigger shopping trip or whatever, I can rent one for a couple of hours, and even splash out for a few days rental for events like Christmas. As you say, with the significant savings from not owning a vehicle, it's not so bad paying a bit more for the occasional journey. Most of my local travel is done on a bicycle.
Fuel alone is about $400-$700 a month these days even if you just commute a couple times a week. Plus $250 for insurance and you are looking at least $1000 to maintain a vehicle.
It was costing me nearly £1000 a year just to keep the thing on the road, that's just for insurance and taxes. So it's already looking good before considering fuel, repairs & maintenance.
@@igotes Me too. But I live in rural Nova Scotia and the nearest town is 10KM away!
In addition to the usual car expenses: payments, fuel, insurance, and maintenance, a car makes you spend more money because of the convenience of going to different restaurants, cinemas, destinations etc. When you don't have a car, you tend to eat a home cooked meal more often, enjoy watching a show at home etc. I've been car free for 17 years now and it blows my mind how much money I've saved which in turn I get to spend on lavish luxury items and nicer home furnishings.
It’s actually nice to meet someone from North America who doesn’t have a car. Me from New York, I have lived a majority of my life without my car, but as I moved out, I needed it
Of course in NYC you have good MTA transit. Sketchy with homeless and gun toters...
After this last week I pity Americans. Things would be so much better WITHOUT the guns!
@@michaelrmurphy2734 I agree.
It really is a privilege for folks who live in the city, but I'm slowly seeing this change as well!
I'm from southwest Nassau County (West Hempstead) with bus routes and a train station nearby.
@@jetfan925 my issue with the LIRR is: outside of rush hour the service pattern can be awful. 30-60 minutes between trains, when you’re used to the subway being at most a 15-minute wait outside of late at night, when you look at the timetable and see that missing a train means the next one is in an HOUR, is brutal, especially if you aren’t familiar with the bus map (we were in Great Neck, missed the train by about a minute due to a slow traffic light and tons of traffic so we couldn’t just jaywalk and run. Thankfully that time it was only 30 minutes to wait, and not an hour because it was getting close to rush hour, so they probably were moving the trains back into Penn Station for the crowds.
I’ve actually stored my car during the winter to avoid dealing with snow removal and I didn’t missed it once! So now I’m selling it and planning on living car free!
Have you considered replacing it with an ebike?
@@rudinah8547 why not a regular one?
@@superj8502 because some journeys are too long to use a regular bike! But its just a kilometer away you might aswell get a regular bike!
@@Mgameing123 i do my 2km commute on a regular bike in at most 10 minutes, which is faster than by car (if you factor in rush hour traffic, it's often less than half the time). I would say that unless it's a steep uphill climb of more than a few hundred of meters or you gotta be on that bike all day every day (delivery guy) you don't need an e-bike. They are meant to be niche products for edge cases. But then again, i'm quite fit. If you're just starting out you might feel the difference a lot more, aldough i wanna point out that buying a regular bike and getting fit (either at the gym or at a park) is like 10 times cheaper than buying an ebike.
@@superj8502 I bike alot aswell but im thinking more about 6 - 12 km
You missed one really important aspect of living car-free: the freedom it offers children.
I grew up in the suburbs of NYC. I could walk into town, but only because the house my parents own is close enough to the town center. If I wanted to see my friends or go anywhere other than town or NYC (accessible by LIRR from town), one of us would need to get a round-trip ride from our parents. It made it much harder to set up anything. I live near Boston now, and even fairly young kids around here take the bus or the T to see their friends any time they want, taking advantage of reduced fares for youth. They also almost all live close enough to town center to just walk it, and sidewalks make it safe to do so. They have much more social life than I did because of this, and their parents aren't acting as taxi drivers for them.
Also, with gas near $5/gallon here, I definitively do not regret selling my car.
True, I grew up in San Francisco and by 10 I was pretty going everywhere on my own.
That is really cool, but 5$ per gallon? That's incredibly cheap for European standards, at the moment it's like 7-8$ per gallon. Driving everywhere with these prices will make you poor, you choose transit anyways. Or just bike/walk
@@haisheauspforte1632 Yeah, the USA subsidizes gasoline to make it cheaper at the pump. And then watch the same people buying the subsidized gasoline ask why we should pay for public transit "with their tax dollars." 🙄
Of course, we Americans are generally averse to spending money on anything that would be considered a public good. Education? healthcare? Transit? Nope. We don't want anything that could lead to us being mistaken for a first world country.
people might hate me for this, but i kind of want gas prices to go up more if it means more people will choose public transit and bikes
The opportunities too. Propel channel made a great video about someone who pointed out that their children have easy, car-free access to the local library, which is great for education and such.
Even if you *need* a car, giving everyone else alternatives helps ease the load on the roads you take. So it's a win win.
If 10% of drivers were to switch to bikes/public transportation there would be no traffic jams.
Car-centric people don't get this.
@@DiogenesOfCa I am a car enthusiast. But I detest driving on north American roads. The problem is not that some people drive... It is just that there are more cars than people. And fact is, some people do not actually like driving. Fact is, if you even took just the people who don't actually like driving, and allowed them to commute in any way they pleased, traffic would not be a problem, and only those who actually like driving, and those who know they can would actually drive. Think about it; in an economy as wrecked as this one is, most people are going to want to save money. The only reason why everyone drives is because the infrastructure only allows for driving. So, Americans choosing the path of least resistance over the best monetary value, they just keep driving because it is easier. And not to mention the propaganda that being car free is "anti freedom".
Is it truly anti freedom to have the freedom to choose how I get around? Free to save money how I see fit? Free to live in a place that isn't hostile, and stinks like gasoline?
I've lived car-free in the US for 10 years now, and in a variety of cities in the midwest and south that people would say are car-dependent. It is entirely possible if you plan your life around it - similar to how people in the 'burbs plan their lives around needing a car. People vastly underestimate the cost of car ownership and underestimate the cost difference between living closer to a downtown compared to suburbs.
Well done.
I last owned a car in 1986. Since then I've relied exclusively on public transport plus the occasional taxi or rental vehicle. Cars are bottomless pits that gulp money voraciously. I've paid off several mortgages on the basis of not having a car.
"Cars are bottomless pits that gulp money voraciously."
couldnt have said it better myself
I bought my first house when I was 23, I wasn't rich.
I was able to afford it because I didn't own a car. Seven mile bike commute to work and a bike rack for groceries.
I lived my first 18 years without a car in a small town, and things were good and walkable, up until a walmart moved in and killed off alot of the retail in my town when I was 10 years old. There was a general store downtown that died, so now everyone has to drive 5 miles away to get to the walmart.
That's so sad. 😢
@@n.b.3521 It is, and we fought the walmart, but in the end... if we didn't have it, some other town would have gotten it, and taken the business away
@@linuxman7777 I understand. I lived in Guelph, Ontario during the decade they fought Walmart. I think at the time Guelph had some kind of record for keeping them out so long, but unfortunately, they lost eventually too. 😢
This happened to my dad's hometown in the rural south. It killed nearly all the local businesses, made it a ghost town.
I live without a car and am in one of the much, smaller cities in Ontario - Kingston.
Transit here has gotten SO MICH better in the last few years with the express routes that have nicer, dedicated stops, stick to major streets and have service every 10 minutes or quicker in peak times. (I think they won awards or set records a couple of years ago? Pre-pandemic. Might make a neat video)
For the most part, I manage just great. There's a grocery store nearby for frequent, small trips, transit gets me to the bus and train stations for intercity travel, and I get my steps in. There's really only two stroad-like areas that aren't the most pedestrian friendly, but otherwise everything is pretty easily accessible - and I don't even live in our downtown!
Fun/sad fact: We DO have an airport, but it ISN'T accessible by transit, so I've never actually seen it or flown out of or into it despite the number of years I've lived here.
We definitely need more cities like this: smaller to mid-sized towns with high quality local transit (connected with reliable regional intercity rail). That should be the goal of every smaller city in Canada.
I went on exchange to the Uni there, and in hindsight I was incredibly lucky that it was so pedestrian-friendly and well-connected by bus relative to other places like it.
I just checked the map thinking 'Surely there must be a bus to the airport. Look, there's one that stops nearby!'. It stops 2 kilometers away, and the roads to it are just hard shoulder. I forgot to adjust for the scale of North America. Why doesn't Kingston have a bus service to its own damn airport???
I still need to check out Kingston's transit - university towns definitely do a better job to cater to folks who want to live without a car!
GRT (KW) was on a roll until COVID.
ive visited kingston once - was really impressive how well the transit was
I'm 41 and have never owned or driven a car. But then I do live in a city with 'okay' public transport and some fairly decent bike infrastructure. I live in the UK. If I need to visit family in other towns or cities, I just take the train. There are occasional times when use of a car would have been helpful but it's nice not to have that millstone around your neck. Although granted I could just occasionally rent one if I had a licence.
I’ve kept my driver’s license in case I’d need a rental car.
Earn and secure your driver’s licence. More people would take you _more_ seriously if you had your licence. People in Australia who cannot drive are frowned upon. 🇦🇺
@@jillengel4124 Travelling overseas without access to a rental car can be frustrating. Most places around the world are not accessible with public transport.
@@user-kc1tf7zm3b "Most places" minus Europe and east Asia, so that doesn't leave many places left.
My nan has lived without a car for over 60 years and still doesn't.
Despite litterally everyone else in the family drives.
For a deprived town in the north east theres better bus service than entire US Cities...
And there is the ability to walk everywhere though cycling infrastructure is very little to non existant.
Moving from Windsor to Toronto soon and I'm looking forward to selling my car and getting around by transit. Really hope smaller Ontario cities start taking transit and walkability more seriously
I jumped from Windsor to London for school (no car), to Hamilton for work and needed a car (driving for the job) and then to Toronto and back to car free. It's pretty awesome.
East or West end are pretty solid choices, west end has been really enjoyable for me, been here about 2 years.
Agreed. Fortunately it seems more and more cities, towns and governments in general across Canada are taking transit seriously and really investing in it.
I live in Toronto. I have my driver's license but rarely drive since the age of 18 ( I am 55) because I suffer from dyspraxia and driving is a challenge. I use transit and Uber and I love walking. And I bought my condo across from Lawrence West subway station.
Its also worth mentioning that an electric cargo bike is a big help in going car free. I can get to work 8 miles away without breaking a sweat, and pick up the kids and a load of groceries on the way home.
@lwf51 it's a bike with cargo carrying capacity, some have a large space up front for large things, others have the rest end extended so you can hang extra bags on the sides or put some kids on top. The possibilities are endless.
I so wish I could fit a cargo bike into my building's elevator. Alas, they're a bit too long lol. A cruiser ebike it will have to be, at least for now.
I've lived without a car for almost 20 years. I survived in FL, OR, And CA without a car. its a different way of living, and you do have to do planning as mentioned in the video. But its really not hard at all to do it in the US especially in the urban areas.
I’m in an awkward place. I live in Toronto and do so pretty happily without a car. However, I often have to make long trips across the city and for that, transit is kinda lacking. Most of these trips are definitely possible, however they take up a significant part of my day. For example a trip to and from the airport takes up to 2hrs one way! That’s 4 hours of transit per day! Not to mention it’s expensive as ever! Toronto would definitely benefit from fare integration on a region wide scale.
Is that Presto thing not a one stop for all transit card?
Fare integration would help out a TON - It's certainly not perfect and a large part of why I moved out of the suburbs but it'll be better!
@@michaelrmurphy2734 Prssto works for pretty much all transit services within the GTHA, however each agency has their own set of fares. Meaning when you cross the borders of municipalities, you often have to tap again to pay said transit agencies fares. Some have discounts from agency to agency transfers but some do not.
@@cmmartti as of two months ago, there is some fair integration. For example, if you switch from GO to one of the others then the non-GO first leg of the trip is free. Most transit systems except for TTC are part of this
@@cmmartti ah I had no idea Barrie had already been fare integrated. I was curious about how the $10 GO weekend pass specifically works with the various agencies, here's what I'm guessing. All the transit agencies where you can show a day pass you may be able to show the weekend pass. Brampton, Burlington, Durham, Guelph, Milton, Oakville, YRT are listed on the GO website. I've never tried with the $10/15 weekend passes myself, I'll have to see if they accept it. If so, it means you can travel vast swathes of lower Ontario just for $10 or $7.50 a day on weekends. Worth a try
Toronto has a very amasing and unique ravine system that you dont find in cities of the same size
Very true. Especially when compared to Los Angeles.
Fantastic biking - I especially love going up the Don Valley and then across Taylor Creek. You pass through so many interesting areas.
Yes, it's fantastic! I'm lucky that I can actually get from my condo to my office 90% on trails.
It's great, but to be fair it doesn't exist in other cities because it's a fairly unique Toronto thing!
@@n.b.3521 Aha let me guess do you live in Flemington Park?
You don't have to live in a city with rapid transit to live car free, i live in Quebec city which isn't that big or transit-oriented, yet I've never had a car in my life and I get along totally well with the bus! (tho that's probably because i live right next to two brt lines)
I think Québec City is pretty unique, idk if it would work as well in other NA cities with a similar population
And now you are getting a tram!
@@Mgameing123 eventually... the project was supposed to start in 2017 and be finished in 2026, we just started in 2022 so it's gonna take a while 😭
I lived quite well in Jackson, Wyoming without a car
I also live in TO without a car. I'll never buy one, the cost seems insane for the privilege of likely driving it to work and paying for parking. I bought my cart for my groceries years ago and it is fantastic.
Love my cart. Parking would cost $250/month were I live. Cheaper to use transit.
I bought a backpack, well 2, one is a little one like most students have and one is a serious camping backpack - which I use for large shopping trips - thing can carry a lot if carefully packed.
We have been sold the idea that driving every day to a souless job is freedom, and that people are lazy if they don't subscribe to that idea
for the section about groceries, i'd also like to add something i picked up on in a Not Just Bikes video, which is that when people live in car centric places, they are forced to make weekly trips to the supermarket because of how much effort the trip to it is everytime; whereas in a denser, or otherwise walkable/bikeable/transit-oriented place, where supermarkets are well dispersed and accessible, smaller trips and smaller purchases can be made multiple times a week.
living in NYC, my family goes to the supermarket 2-4 times a week, and we usually walk to it. we have like 5 supermarkets within walking distance and tons more by transit lol
Public transport has alot of benefits despite my parents both owning cars they never use them to go to the city and there is one main reason, parking. Parking tickets cost a considerable amount of money espacially in the city urban centers. Here in melbourne the vast tram network can take you to every corner of the city and since the cbd is entirley in the free tram zone you dont need to pay money to use it
Yep, driving is expensive and it needs to be because infrastructure for cars is expensive and takes up loads of room!
When I was young in China (before the subway boom), riding the bus was actually pretty quick and simple. But moving to California, if you don't have a car, you're very limited in location and stuff.
I used to walk the three miles from the trolley to my house as the bus came every 45 minutes!
That's insulting.
I lived car free in Hong Kong for 8 years. Everything is so easy there, the MTR and bus system is great!
Former Hong Kong resident here. You can get to anywhere in hong kong without a car and properly faster then driving a car 😏.
I’m American and I spent 7 days in Hong Kong and I never rented a car cause I never drove on the left. There was so much public transportation and ferries it was not necessary for me to have a car or hail a cab.
No driver's license gang represent!
I have one but purely for ID purposes now - The fact that driving is such an integral part of our identity that a driver's license is seen as the de facto piece of ID really is part of the problem!
@@RMTransit True. I'm trying to get a road test for my license for the same reason, but I don't plan to use it for driving too often.
@@RMTransit Do you not have just an ID that would work? In most (all?) states here in the U.S. you can get just a state ID card. I also have a drivers license, because I still drive others' cars (when I visit family, rent a car, car share, etc.).
@@EricaGamet Ontario does have a basic ID as well. Québec however does not.
Non-drivers license for 6 years.
I was told by someone you couldn’t live without a car in Japan outside of Tokyo… some people just seem to have weird ideas about living without a car.
True, outside major cities like Tokyo, Osaka, Sendai, etc there's not many public transport ...
@@kennantjessavi7648 Osaka, Sendai, Kyoto, Nagoya, Sapporo, Fukuoka, Hiroshima… there’s so many cities outside Tokyo with urban rail systems, not to mention excellent regional rail and high density mixed use neighbourhoods making walking and biking more practical. And buses seem decent enough in most Japanese cities?
@@fernbedek6302 Yeah that's true
@@fernbedek6302 Rural Japan is much more of a problem, some lines might only get a single KiHa a couple of times per day.
@@railotaku Mhm. Living in the countryside is one thing, but ignoring Osaka and Nagoya and so one for being ‘outside of Tokyo’ is another.
Also worth mentioning is if someone is close enough to the grocery store that they can bike to it, it's possible they don't need to get a huge mound of groceries in the first place (this could also help reduce food waste) since they can make more small trips, as opposed to a single big trip.
Buying food in smaller quantities more often means you can get fresher food.
Agreed: in the bigger cities a car isn't really necessary. I've lived in Vancouver, Victoria and Toronto without a car, renting one every now and then as needed. Even with a car, if my destination was downtown I'd still use transit. Faster, cheaper, less hassle. If I rented a car one weekend a month it would be cheaper than owning and maintaining (and insuring) one of my own.
It's different in the smaller centres, of course. Here in Kamloops (second largest city in the B.C. interior, after Kelowna) a transit-only life would be extremely limited.
I problem I see in American cities moreso (though it can apply to Canada too) is that the downtowns are very small. As you go west or south the historic and walkable downtowns only stretch for a small area, or they're just for commerce and office space. With rising costs of rent all around it makes it harder to live in such areas since only a few fortunate ones can get in at all. Toronto even in its suburbs has big transit-oriented developments along rail corridors and this hasn't happened yet really at any noticeable scale in the US.
There are cheaper cities to move to, but then that starts getting into gentrification and its effects.
Though even in those places I like to think less in terms of going car-free and looking at individual trips. Maybe _some_ trips can be done via bus. Maybe you can park-and-ride your way to downtown instead of going all the way and stressing over parking. The car might still be in your life but it can be lessened a bit. Transit coverage in sprawl areas isn't fantastic but sometimes just the stress of not having to be the one driving is worth it if you can afford the time.
Perhaps families need to question whether they need 2+ cars...
It's crazy to think that quite a few families would purchase a car for each of their children!
The biggest thing I've found being car free for about 10 years in greater Vancouver is that having area knowledge to inform where you choose to live is the biggest key.
Even in neighbourhoods that are less walkable, you can usually find a place that's near groceries, a transit hub, and a couple other anemities and easily get along car free just fine. It won't work everywhere, but if you know your area you can often do okay.
I'd also be mindful of the apparent trajectory of your neighbourhood. Is it getting denser? Are there new midrises being built? Does your mayor care about improving core areas? Denser neighbourhoods tend to be more resilient to economic shifts, but are certainly not immune to them.
I live and work in Scarborough and is proud that I am the only person in my company who bike to work everyday. I do not like the car centric Scarborough design. However, I absolutely love to bike myself everywhere. I also love taking the streetcar. Toronto streetcars are amazing. They are smooth and quite as a subway but beautiful looking out the windows. Especially, they go through some toronto suburbs where it is not car dependent!! That is amazing.
Finally, car insurance in Toronto is ridiculously (reasonablly) expensive. I feel very happy that I do not need to pay it every month.
Preach! I don't have a car either. Life is easier this way! Living in the core of a big city (Seattle) does help of course, even if it's not a top transit city. Going car-free is actually pretty popular here...in 2016 the local paper figured out that the average new apartment had 0.6 spaces per unit, because a lot of residents don't have cars.
I used to have a car but due to medical issues, my doctor said I can't drive anymore. I was about to fight him but I decided to try it out with taking transit only. It turns out I actually like it plus it saves me a ton of $$.
Thats excellent to hear!
That's my situation fortunately I can walk or ride my bike everywhere.
@@fluorite1965 Isn't it depressing without a car. I'm 31 no car. Can't go places unless it on the bus and people ask for gas Eben if I don't have gas money. It's so depressing. I envy people with a car.
I’ve always loved driving. I’ve made a career out of it. However, I have learned that I get much more joy out of a long walk or bike ride. Just like when I was a kid.
I live in Melbourne, I'm 64 and decided some 10 years ago that a car was a waste of time and money. I estimate doing without is saving me AU$5-10,000 per year. Buses run outside my unit, one tram line is 2 minutes walk away, another is 5 minutes away (& Melbourne trams are sensational) and the nearest train station is 7 minutes away. I don't actually use public transport much because everything I need to buy for day to day living is within 3 minutes walk - literally around the corner. Even the nearest mall is only 15 minutes walk, or quicker by tram. I cycle to work, although since COVID I've been working mostly from home. The biggest hassle is visiting friends and family who live out in the suburbs. If worse comes to worst, I can always use the share car that's about 30 seconds from my front door. Best of all, I love the variety and atmosphere of the inner suburbs, and Melbourne cafes are justifiably famous. Cars are a trap.
And of course, Melbourne is a "big city" of several million people. Transit is easier to access.
And I live in the province that has a Sydney. No, not New South Wales. The "other" Sydney!
@@michaelrmurphy2734 Unless you live along one of the rail corridors, public transport in the outer suburbs of Melbourne is less than ordinary.
I am 55 and live in Perth, WA. Haven't had a car for over 30 years. Rarely an issue.
Thanks for your perspective. Many people I know have a car, but don't use it for commuting. Certainly commuting downtown for work is expensive and stressful. This is a reaonable compromise for people who use both urban and suburban parts of the city.
Little wonder work at home has taken off during the pandemic. Now workplaces want workers
to come back downtown again to offices. Why? Depending on the job, not everyone needs to.
@@michaelrmurphy2734 They want people back in offices because they have office leases and don't want to waste money.
@@Xenomorph-hb4zf You could say the office leases ARE the waste of money. Have a decentralized workforce. Empty office buildings downtown? Not a bad idea. And rents and leases are a tax writeoff. That all the rest of us pay for!
I can't imagine commuting by car downtown in any city I've ever visited.
As a former New Yorker, I get all these points about how to live car-free. However, it's not for everybody. The farther south you go in the U.S. the more car-dependent it is. I now live in Central Florida, and while I love it here, the thought of being car-free doesn't exist; mostly, because it would be impossible.
Now I know I made the right decision to move to Salt Lake City, Utah for a job. I can walk to work, even if it takes 20-25 minutes to do so, and lots of places are within easy reach thanks to the TRAX light rail, and I can walk to other, closer places if I want to. While I do have a car, it's back east in Virginia. All my life, I've lived more or less in car-dependent suburbia, so living near downtown has been kind of a dream for me. And SLC rents are nowhere near as bad as some cities in the US.
Thank you for your heartfelt words! I'm actually a Portuguese international student from UBC currently in the final year of my Master's degree, having lived in Vancouver and Kamloops. Although Kamloops is a small city, it is not bad, and the shopping bus can also meet the demand. I currently live in the neighborhood of Dubar and I would say that the upgraded Vancouver public transit system is great! I own a Camry and have a Class 5 license the year before, but I often have to deal with super congestion nightmares! I don't drive very much at the moment, I cycle and hike a lot and use public transportation. BTW: The ICBC examiner for my level 7 road test was really rude and ridiculous, but my level 5 road test examiner was awesome! In the powerful and big ICBC, they really have the ability to ruin your life and life plan (my Chinese roommate was unlucky to fail the road test four times before getting his driver's license). Objectively, it still depends on your personal needs (I'm not criticizing any driver), but "you have a car, you have to drive" is not a reason to morally kidnap and ridicule other people.
I live in Los Angeles without a car and while it may sometimes be annoying because many bus routes are hourly and the bus route that serves the street in front of my apartment has a headway of 15-20 minutes (which is pretty good for this place) it can sometimes be hard but on the flip side, I spend only $50-60 a month on transportation (excludes occasional trips on Amtrak or Metrolink).
I live without a car too! Living in NYC makes it pretty easy.
I lived in Pittsburgh for nearly three years without a car (clutch the pearls!) and, because i was located one block away from the city’s busiest bus lines and near grocery, shops and my job- i made it work.
however, i knew it wasn’t a long term solution and i do drive and own a car, but i still live 20 minutes from my work sites.
The last point you mentioned is so undervalued. One of the things I missed most during the pandemic probably is just running into people, meeting vague acquaintances that I enjoy speaking but am not really close to. Those vague connections all completely fell away during covid. I am now doubly appreciating the time I spent walking and biking around town and waving to people I vaguely know from a bar or a venue or so.
By the way, another nice social thing about being car free is the amount of time it offers to spend with friends chatting. Suppose you've been at the movies and you'd like to go home; chances are you have another 10 minutes with them or so while you walk or bike in the same direction. Those minutes are 100% of the time lost if you both go to your own car. Especially for teens and children this really is valuable social time.
I live in Pittsburgh, and I totally could live without a car here except I really like to go camping, and I need a car to get out to the camp sites. Otherwise, my car pretty much sits idle most days.
So last week we had RM sneaking a cameo with Jago Hazard. Now we have him name dropping NJB. Elsewhere on my UA-cam feed I see he has done a collaboration with Geoff Marshall. It looks like my entire UA-cam consumption is slowly coalescing into a single entity! Just need to find a way to bring The Tim Traveller in, and the singularity will form.
Never really thought about it, but in my country its normal to go skiing/into nature via public transport, actually insane how those rural places are connected
what country?
@@weatheranddarkness Switzerland
5 months ago I got rid of my car after about 25 years of nearly continuous car ownership. So far, I haven't missed it. My bicycle with luggage rack can carry enough stuff for most of my regular shopping needs, plus I'm saving money and getting a bit more exercise! Public transit isn't great around here, but it'll do, usually. Obviously it's not an option available to everyone - for many years I've had to drive to work, usually to places with poor or non-existent public transport. I live in a fairly small city in the UK.
A few years ago I visited Canada (BC), I remember it being pretty treacherous trying to walk from the Airbnb in suburban Vancouver to the nearest supermarket. There were however regular trolley buses and metro services into town, which was great, but outside those service areas it was very car dominated. Pedestrian access seemed like an afterthought.
In new suburban areas in North America it usually is. Often without sidewalks.
I'm 60 and have never owned a car which shocks many people as my city is not particularly transit friendly. I live in the downtown core and ironically when I purchased my home it was considered an undesirable location and was cheaper than the suburbs. Unfortunately the downtown is slowly getting hollowed out with more and more businesses moving to the big box locations but I'm managing.
I also do not have a car but I live in a suburb. I live close to a metro stop and close to an area where there are a lot of buses. Plus I can bike and 2 grocery stores in walking distance. Save a crap load of money.
A lot of people have this sort of knee jerk reaction where they bring up all the trips that they can only make by car. I think it is valuable to point out all the trips that they could be making without one.
Reducing car dependence does not need to mean everybody gets rid of their cars tomorrow. Allowing multi-car families to become single-car families is already a huge improvement.
I've live my whole life without a car. I have lived in Oakland, San Francisco and Berkeley California, Jakarta, Riyadh and a suburb of Karlsruhe. One just has to learn the local transportation options.
Hello! As a European living in East Asia, I find your channel really thrilling. It's so exciting to come across a North American like you and to listen to your experience and analysis. Your insight is really interesting and I'm slowly becoming an addict of your videos. I hope that more people in North America will start thinking like you and that you will get more TOD and more decent urban and interurban transit in the coming years. All the best to you and your fellow countrymen!
I don’t even have a license lol. That said living in Mississauga, every 5 minute journey by car is a 30 minute trip by bus. Sadly in the GTA some trips are faster by bike or even walking than using the bus. Even downtown Toronto, if you don’t start AND finish your journey on the subway, the bike is still much more convenient. Living car free is great if your a bachelor, but this won’t work for your average soccer mom working a job and running errands for her family. Ps welcome back to Toronto :)
My brother has a wife and three kids and they rely on the Dodge Caravan van.
Of course, the kids want to drive now. My niece does NOT want a bicycle!
BTW, do you miss the JR Shinkansen?
@@michaelrmurphy2734 I definitely miss the Shinkansen. It’s nuts that that I can travel from Nagoya to Osaka (166km distance) in less time than it takes to go from Cooksville to Union.
@@japanesetrainandtravel6168 HAHAHA!!! My friend Ami is from Nagoya.
And I love Japan! I follow a lot of the Japanese UA-camrs.
If I were to go to Japan I would go to the countryside. I'm used to it now.
Haha, I'm still in London for a while, this video was made before I left!
In Canada and the US you almost HAVE to have a car if you have a family. In Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, Japan, you do not. The key to public transportation is whether families can use the system to safely get where they need to go in a timely fashion.. It is different for single people, for couples without children or for empty nesters. Children change the entire equation.
This context is important. Age and family status matter just as much as urban/suburban/rural. So does climate. Vancouver and Toronto have some of the mildest winters in Canada.
I don't think that's any different than your other. Europeans have cars too when they have families
I live in Brisbane, Australia without a car. Petrol, registration, insurance and maintenance is so much more expensive than taxis, Ubers and scooter rental. I can walk to my local supermarket and department store too.
Respect for being able to do this in North America. I live car free with my family in Amsterdam for the last 25 years. It is easy here. The only period I owned a car was when I lived in LA for six months. We considered it to dangerous to cycle in LA due to the extreme traffic.
About 80% of the population in my North American city travels by public transport according to a 2015 census
Living in Philadelphia with out a car.
More walking and biking.
No more traffic and maintenance costs.
I’ll never go back
Using transit for buying food was always a huge hassle, most of my shopping wasn't planned so I barely had a trolly to help carry my bags so I ended up carrying multiple heavy bags around and keeping them wrangled on the floor of a train or bus was annoying (mostly to other passengers). Plus buying an expensive item..like a playstation 3 and lugging it across town (even though my city is pretty safe) made me feel a little vulnerable to being attacked and robbed...especially when walking down some empty and or dark pathways/tunnels from train stations.
Now (even though public transport has gotten better here) it's worse because I have to shop for three adults and I have to attend meetings at a place that has got public transport access...just not from my direction...and I dislike riding to the city core just to ride back out in a direction almost back towards where I originally came from and vice versa home.
But my city only has 1.3 million so there really isn't much high density housing (there is a little but kinda stretched out). I suppose there is one good thing our government has done about 15 years ago is make it harder to just keep building new houses on the fringes that also destroys our fertile farmland market gardens...this has boosted infil development within existing suburbs adding more population density.
So maybe in a few years we'll see then.
@@cmmartti
Compared to Toronto it is small and has less dense residential areas that make good transit corridores.
shop online
@@londo776
Maybe, but delivery charges can be rather high...can cost up to $18 to deliver groceries...Ikea is $70. Maybe some time in a few years things will become more competitive but using my old car for shopping hauls and most small to medium Ikea flatpacks and just the comfort of not having to carry the shopping bags every week or fortnight on transit or if I buy an expensive item the relative safety of not carrying it around the neighborhood.
@@stevenbalekic5683 I ordered a bed from IKEA last year 18 pounds delivery, had my groceries delivered from Asda today £3.00 delivery charge, I also ordered a Rotary clothesline at Argos 10 am for same day delivery, delivered 3:00 PM only cost me £3.00 delivery seems we are a little bit cheaper than you. So much better than catching a bus, or taxi or batting through the traffic and wasting a couple of hours, probably cost a little bit more than the petrol but the convenience of not going to the shop it's worth every penny
@@londo776
Since my city is relatively small (population wise 1.3million), the traffic never gets insane (unless roadworks or an accident has slowed or blocked roads) Ikea is around 10 mins away by car in normal traffic...about 9 kilometres away...delivery is $70. The local supermarket is actually really close...maybe 500 metres away but with a haul of groceries that costs $150-$200 I definitely ain't carrying it.
Also I think it's cheaper to keep a car here compared to the UK...my registration and insurance comes to $170 every 3 months...and petrol while expensive now at around $2 per litre it's usually around $1.29 to $1.49 per litre....if it ever goes back down.
We lived car free in Kitchener, ON.
It had its obstacles. Having access to car share.
What bugs me, is not people who own cars, who might not need them. But a city which refuses to make it easy not to own a car.
Downtown Montreal should ban private cars,.there I said it. And I say this as a rural guy who needs a car.
Central and downtown areas sure do make sense to do so.
Theres already like little to no parking anyway but alot of commerical.
I also live in Toronto without a car. I was always fascinated with the streetcars and subways in Toronto as a kid when I would visit in the summers of the 1980s before I moved here from Quebec City. I have kept mementos from those times such as old bus/subway transfers, tickets and passes.
Yeah, I noticed that a lot of Europeans don't seem to get how nice Old Toronto is to walk / bike / get transit in. I lived on the Danforth and walked basically everywhere except Costco, it was pretty great.
That point about not wanting to go into the nature with your own car... Very true. My friend purchased a new car and we wanted to go hiking, but he was too afraid to take it on Mountain roads. My wife ended up driving her older car instead. The only reason she still owns it is for getting to the nature ...
Great to hear that also North American cities allow for a car-free life. I live in Brussels, and at 39, never had a driving licence. There are moments I miss having access to a car (unless it's a taxi or someone is giving me a ride), but those are far in between. Most trips I can make quite easily by bike, transit, train or a combination of those. Shops are a 10' walk max, so even if I forget something, I can quickly go back. When I went to the grocery store with my parents back in the days, it was an outing, at least 20' by car each way, in heavy traffic (like end of school) often more.
I have repeatedly stated that I would try to get my driving licence, but a car is just too much of a hassle to own. Just a parking spot in the underground garage here would be €90/month, and I'm not living centrally.
I lost my car in an accident over a month ago, and when I'm fully recovered I'm HEAVILY considering just getting a bike. I live in LA and I've been getting around by bus lately, which has its cons, but I think pairing it with a Brompton might be a good middle ground.
If I could live without a car, I 100% would. But my city just doesn't have the infrastructure to support it. The bigger cities in my country do though for sure.
For me, that's part of why I moved honestly.
Ikea also has an affordable truck rental so you can bring home your furniture if you need it. Or a convenient delivery service.
Been living w/o a car since I was born. Don't even have a license. You just gotta know where to live to survive, if not thrive w/o that expense. And no NYC isn't the only US city where you don't need one.
Car free for two decades and mostly loving it . The occasional inconvenience is completely outweighed by no longer having to consider car payments insurance fuel costs etc.
Hey, Reece! Nice video!
Would you make the next one about governmental fuel subsidizing? Because, it's a theme that majority doesn't understand (because they don't get a straight subsidy, of course) and that is sad. A lot more people should realize this issue.
Communauto in Toronto is amazing for Winter. I feel great that 1 car has several owners and in the Winter I usually use 40-80$ a month, occasionally $120 but it includes gas and parking, insurance, etc.
Most Europeans don’t say it’s impossible to live in the US without cars. In big cities it’s reverted. But if you live in (modern) suburbs or rural areas it’s really different.
GREAT VIDEO!! 🤗🤗 I've lived CAR-FREE for 40 years now and never looked back! You failed to mention all the money you save and can enjoy elsewhere because you don't have the burden of car payments. I live in the suburbs of New Jersey, and you have to be a diehard fan of the CAR-FREE community to not be so car dependent. 🍷🍷😎😎
Ahhh, a first world country - would love to have what you guys have. Here in South Africa, things suck big time.
Living in London, there is simply no need for me to have a car because of the points you raise in your video - particularly the bus but also the tube and rail networks get to me everything I need whilst my job is only a short walk away. As such, I've never learn't to drive
I tried living without a car the first year I lived in Chicago. It is doable depending on where you work. For me, it was simply too inconvenient, and I reluctantly bought a car.
I’ve never owned a car in my 74 years, living in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Edmonton. Mostly walk everywhere or use public transit.
Great video Reece! I too lived without a car, albeit for only about a year. I found the biggest issue was not getting around within my city, but instead between cities. North America really needs to work in better intercity connections. Cheers!
definitely. Proper high-speed high-frequency rail would do wonders.
Not owning a car in many north american cities is pretty common. In Montreal, most people I know don't... And those who do don't use it for daily trips. Even those who are not living downtown, as long as you're within range of proper transit options.
It just sucks that some politicians don't recognize that we're actually doing just fine like this (I'd even dare say better than people in car centric suburbia) and thus not willing to improve/expand walkable/bikeable infrastructure or transit at the expanse of some driving lane or parking space. Though I think the tables are now finally beginning to turn!
I live in Toronto too. I love being able to walk down any inner-city street, not just the known ones like Danforth, Bloor West, etc, but also places like Shaw or Queen. It's amazing how many little shops there are, all the culture, and the great time spent browsing local retail. You CANNOT do this in a suburb where your only option is the giant strip mall with the same big box retail you see everywhere. But in Toronto you can go down a different walkable street on another part of the city and see a completely different culture in the storefronts.
Also the true cost of living in the city is definitely cheaper than the suburbs. Taxes tend to be much lower because you have higher density, amenities are closer, etc. A lot of people say that you can't own a spacious house in Toronto and that is true, the place is live is about 1,500 sq ft where you can get massive houses in the suburbs. But living in the city: (1) you feel a desire not to be home because of all the amazing places there are to see, and (2) with shorter commute times you get to enjoy your house more when you are home. People in the suburbs commute two hours in and two hours back. They have no time to actually "be at home".
My 70 year old, single brother, has never owned a car nor had a driver's license! He has used public transportation
for 44 years to get to his job, some 7 miles away, at a local N.Y. airport! Yes, it seems costly, but he has never spent
a penny for car payments; car insurance; repairs, depreciation; tolls; tickets, etc.! Not owning a car, in urban areas,
makes sense for singles, but the cost of public transportation quadruples, for families of four, which is cost inefficient!
Ever since I've moved to Chicago I've never felt the need for a car. Everything I need I walk or take transit to. I was worried about groceries too, but it's really not that bad. I live a 10 minute walk away from four different grocery stores, and you just load up your backpack, and take one or two grocery bags if you want to do a larger haul.
It's, again, true in Central Auckland. With the city speed limit slowing down, parking spaces decreasing, price of yearly car checks and all that, if it isn't for my parent's cars for groceries, I'd sell the cars and give up my license.
Great video! I’ve always been car free but then again I grew up in Boston and now live in the metro Vancouver area.
i found a place in my city thats right next to the bike path and in a surprisingly walkable neighborhood. i love it here. its possible to have walkable neighborhoods even in the USA
"Into the wilderness, or even IKEA" 😆
I'm Australian, and I don't have a car. I've actually never bothered to have one. I live in the inner city and it really isn't difficult at all. I would much rather be able to go to a park than have a back garden. I can grow chilies on my balcony and it takes me 3 to 4 minutes to walk to my nearest station. I think if I had a car, I'd probably end up being lazy and would gain a lot of weight. Better to use your feet and maintain your health.
I live in Long Beach, California without a car. My home is less than a 15 minute walk from a park, a library, a bar, a waterfront, parks, shops, cafes, restaurants. Many areas of the city are very walkable and our city bus is well integrated, connecting with the Metro Blue line downtown and connecting with LA Metro brt and Orange County's transit at CSULB.
Same. I'm in NYC. I've had my driver's license for 8 years now but haven't really had to drive for any reason at all. The times I've driven since then have been for leisure and just to feel what it's like to drive since I rarely have to. I will say I do live in a neighborhood where the grocery store, the gym, favorite restaurants, etc. are all within walking distance, and places like the theater or Madison Square Garden or Citi Field are all very accessible by public transit.
Same question we have when we moved in Auckland.
Yes, my current house and my previous one is only a 15-minute drive away, but where I live now has a bus stop less than 300m away. The only issue? We live in the lowest-lying area (risk of flash floods) surrounded by steep roads back to the main shops and supermarkets. My local bus almost solves the problem.
I turning 16 soon and everyone’s like: oh are you gonna get your drivers license? Like no I’d rather take the bus
Live in Portland and they have a lot to improve, but I’ve found not having a car amazing!!
I love using public transit when I visit Portland
I live in Toronto. Before having kids I usually got around without my car within the city. My work though requires me to traverse the GTA from Toronto to Mississauga, Scarborough, Brampton, Vaughan, etc. Transit does not suit this at all. And I mentioned kids - after-school programs and appointments are hard to reach on-time via transit. Toronto has great walkable neighbourhoods and ok transit but one thing it requires is time (which maybe a young, single guy has more of but that is not what I am anymore, haha).
I can't imagine having a family with children and not having a car. It would be very difficult to get them around. I can see no car for a single person if you live someplace with decent transit. But with an average family? Nope..unless you lived in NYC, Chicago, San Francisco and like cities. Still then it would take a lot of planning. I wonder how many responding to this thread have children? Curious.
I live in a medium sized Midwestern city with poor public transit. The bus only runs Monday to Saturday in 20 minute intervals. Never on a holiday and when it does run the routes close down at 18:30(6:30pm)
I live like a two minute walk to the bus both directions right across from each other. South and North. It's great. I do hate that the last bus is to early I feel at least one or two more would be better. There is another bus down the street I can use that's longer running but the walk is about 10 to 15 minutes and I know it's not that much but I live in Florida and I am not good with heat or humidity. So just being right by my apartment is great. Now I can take that same bus to multiple shopping options. 5 in fact which funnily enough are all different price points. Ranging from Save a Lot to Whole foods. I can also get to my local mall, which is a bus hub, that has a movie theater too. I'm about 10 minutes to the beach if I take a Lyft on a good day or the bus and trolly instead. I can easily go to the local Walmart either with a Lyft that's 10 minutes from me that way, or take the bus. The bus would be the lowest options but limits what I can buy. Another reason I order Walmart delivery for my groceries instead. Saves me time and money. My bus has WIFI and has transitioned to no longer offering paper passes, now it's touch pay either through your direct Debit or credit card, I advise against it, or through either the app or the physical pay card of the same app called Flamingo. You can buy passes and it has fare caping. If I take 4 busses in a day, which a do Monday to Friday, then by my fourth ride it's free. After spending 70$'s you get unlimited free rides before the new month. For me that will be the 19th of June, 2024. Now if i use it on the weekends I can cap early but I tend not to have anything planned to do so I just relax at home. I don't drive so I live off of Public Transit. I hope to get a bike in the future so things might change.
I'm surprised you didn't mention having a bike, or bike share. I use my bike downtown, all year round. More and more bike lanes, and the beautiful 30 km Martin Goodman Trail on the waterfront. Bikes are allowed on the subways at all times now instead of limited hours like before the pandemic.
I live car-free in Halifax, Nova Scotia... A less transit-oriented city than Toronto, but easily doable on foot, bike, bus, and/or ferry. A lot of my coworkers also commute via transit or self-power. I manage to do everything on foot, having used fewer than 20 local bus tickets over the past year.
For me, it's a ten or fifteen minute walk to two full grocery stores, and shorter to pharmacies or convenience stores if I desperately need something outside of normal shopping hours. There's a library nearby, and every few days I walk to a climbing gym (which, like the one at 5:59 is built in an old theatre). There are a ton of parks and museums, sports venues, and pubs. When I want to visit family out of town, I just take the intercity bus (which typically costs the same as the equivalent distance in car fuel, but is more relaxing). I spend my days at an architecture firm designing new apartments, because thousands and thousands of people are hopping onto the urban, post-motorized life.
I have a car and mostly use it to get out of the city. In the city, I mostly use transit or bicycle, and I appreciate having the options. It is much nicer than contending with traffic-clogged suburban stroads, and this time of year I can literally stop and smell the flowers on the way to/from the bus stops. Have lived car-free before and could see doing it again. Main reason I have my own vehicle is for camping (it is configured to camp in). If there were more options for small, reasonably-priced camper rentals (instead of huge, expensive, awkward, gas-guzzling RV’s), I’d probably live car-free right now.
I own a small sports car. Its quite expensive to maintain, insurance is about $100pm, petrol is about $70pm got slapped with a $1000 repair bill this week for some major servicing items. My biggest gripe is that people will damage your car in parking lots, finding parking, constantly worrying about your when parked somewhere, stressing about the next repair item, just the general cost of everything. It's tiring. I own my car and only pay for insurance + cost of usage but my gawd selling the car and buying a bicycle seems like a fun idea.