I know people who live comfortably without a car. Independent people. Not the type who rely on the charity of family and friends. These people intrigue me.
I want to say up front that I have no intention of going car-free myself. I wouldn't be comfortable living in south Florida without a car. Why? Hurricanes. I want to be able to pack the cat and head inland should a hurricane head our way. (Evacuation centers are notoriously difficult about pets. And if the cat can't stay, then we won't stay there either.) And the car gets us to bike events around the state. So the car is a keeper.But how much will we drive our car now that we live in a downtown Miami neighborhood? For fun I've decided to monitor car use for the next year. Once a month I'll post the car use numbers.
As a baseline, we drove a total of 320 miles in March. We took about 2 trips each week in March to major shopping, scenic, and entertainment areas around Miami. Just exploring. We had a bunch of doctor visits. We had lots of shopping trips for specialty items for the new home. Visits to showrooms to talk to people and to pick things out. In short, it is unlikely that we'll use the car this much for local trips again this year.
I have absolutely no idea how the numbers will go, but it will be fun to keep track and see.
