A series featuring car-free women in LA.

Cassandra Davis of Bawdy the Squirrel

Basics: 27-year-old training coordinator for online software applications. Lives in San Pedro with a partner, who’s car-dependent. Child free.

Car free since: June or July 2005.

Blogging since: 2006.

Notable post: Tap That Pass.
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On going car-free….

Around September 2004 I stopped using my car for most things, although it was around June or July 2005 that I officially sold my car. While returning from a trip up north, the door latch for my driver’s side door broke and made it impossible to keep the door securely closed. I was at a gas station, about two hours away from home, at 4 in the morning, and I couldn’t close my car door. I made it home, with a combination of willpower, rope, and luck, but that drive home was the most terrifying experience I’ve ever had behind a wheel.

On the way home I realized that I had lost the illusion of safety that cars carry, and I began to consider living without one. Now I live with a partner who owns a car, but I spent many years where I lived alone and car-free.

There are certain freedoms you have with a car – the idea that you can drive anywhere, see anything, do anything – which very few people exercise on a daily basis. In reality, most people take the same route, run the same errands, follow the same path every day.

When I gave up my car, I reduced my frivolous spending. Yes, I consider the $500 – $1000 per month cost of a basic car (payment, insurance, registration, gas, maintenance) to be frivolous. I also noticed that food stopped going bad in my fridge (I stopped buying things I couldn’t carry home = stopped buying more than I would eat). I stopped having $200 Target/Costco/Ikea trips for things I didn’t need (the Goodwill/Salvation Army stores were much closer, and I became much pickier about what I wore and had in my house). I stopped eating fast food (they really aren’t designed for people who are walking anymore). It was much faster to stop for a quick bagel, sandwich, or grab a piece of fruit.

I lost about 30 pounds, and gained about $10,000 a year.

How she gets around.

Walking is probably my primary mode of transportation. [To get to work] I carpool or ride the bus. My bus line travels along the rapid route of the 110. It takes about an hour and 10 minutes, with 1 transfer, which is about the same amount of time as driving alone (carpooling takes about 30 – 40 minutes). It is still better (and even cheaper) to carpool now. The bus routes that travel along the 110 are faster, but they also cost an additional $1.20 per trip, which is not covered by a monthly pass.

I am able to use the car anytime I choose, but 99.9% of the time I still prefer to walk or bike, or even to take the bus. [I have] one nephew-in-law who is three. We do need to bring a car to pick him up from his preschool, as the trip home is too far for him to walk, or even sit still long enough to be safe (ie: on the back of a bike and/or person). For those times it is difficult to leave the car at home, especially since there is no bus system which covers the area of his preschool. However, for everything else, it is easy to take him along on walks, and we’re hoping to get him riding his bicycle soon.

On the upsides and downsides….

[When] I lived alone and had two cats, I was primarily worried about getting their food, litter, and vet visits in. At the same time, I was worried that, I wouldn’t have the freedom to go see a friend’s play, or hang out at the bar. Boy was I wrong on both counts.

I was able to convince my closest grocery store to carry both the litter (Yesterday’s News – made of recycled newspapers, and wonderful because it doesn’t get tracked all over the house, but very hard to find!) and cat food that my cats enjoyed. This was easier than I thought it would be; all I had to do was talk to the manager.

As far as seeing friends and going out – I was able to find many, many new spots along the bus lines I preferred, or in walking or biking distance. I didn’t have to freak out about DUIs or how much I drank, and I was many times even able to make it to LACMA and other places faster than anyone else because I wasn’t having to struggle with traffic or parking!

I didn’t think of how much money I would save. Sure, I knew I was spending about $25 (give or take, depending on the gas prices) every time I filled up my tank, and that totaled to about $50 a month. So that was all I thought about saving, since my car was paid off (a bus pass was about that price – $52 – when I started, and my company paid $50 of that). In the end, I saved about $10,000 per year – I wasn’t paying insurance, registration, parking costs, cleaning costs, or maintenance, and I was buying fewer THINGS that I didn’t need. It was amazing.

Yes, doctor’s offices can be tricky. I was referred to a specialist while with Blue Cross, and had to rent a car to go there, since it was so far out of my way. I used to keep a Flexcar account – then I figured out it was much cheaper for me to rent a car for a day from my local Budget rent-a-car when I really needed it. But I also found out how empowering it was to rearrange doctor’s appointments or vet appointments to my schedule and my needs. If something didn’t fit, I canceled it and found another way. This made life a lot easier.

Actually, the hardest thing about not having a car was finding a Trader Joe’s that was close enough for me to buy Frozen Foods – then I discovered the double blessing of insulated reusable bags and the Trader Joe’s in WeHo (just off of the Santa Monica Blvd rapid line).

Another problem was visiting friends in the Valley. The transportation to and from the Valley is still very difficult from the West Side (or anywhere other than downtown). Instead we all started discovering places in downtown, NoHo, and even Hollywood that we could hang out and have a good time. I wound up finding a lot of neat places that way.

It was unexpectedly easy to stop those needless trips of convenience to stores like Target or Kmart to pick up “one thing”… you know, those trips where you walk away with another $100 worth of things you don’t really need. It was easy to start walking a little bit farther to catch a faster line, or to get off the bus a few stops early and explore the neighborhood.

It was unexpectedly harder to get around to certain areas. Before the FlyAway bus from UCLA started, I was amazed at how difficult it was to get from the West Side to LAX – a 20-30 minute drive! In fact, to get anywhere along the 405 almost always involved going into downtown and then heading back out. The fact that we have very strong transportation lines branching out from downtown didn’t surprise me; but the fact that we have very few lines connecting these strong systems just floored me.

San Pedro  is a very walk-friendly community, although it is more difficult to be car-free than it was in West Los Angeles. While I have supermarkets, bars, restaurants, and even entertainment (the port of LA, theaters, and beaches) within easy walking distance (some within a few blocks of my house), I can see many people still needing a car. This is primarily because many businesses (larger grocery stores, gyms, clothing stores, etc) are located “up the hill”, about 2-3 miles away, and there are very few paths which are walking-friendly to get there.

The other hard part is managing the ride to/from other areas of Los Angeles. A 20 minute ride to Long Beach (just across the port) takes 40+ minutes on a convoluted bus route. Traveling to Palos Verdes, which is a 5-minute drive, is even more difficult, and involves an almost U-shaped route. On the other hand, the port runs the red trolley cars on the weekend, has a nice farmer’s market, and lots of art galleries and other nice places to visit.

On car-dependent people.

This question drives me crazy. The question is always “Why don’t you have a car?” – when very, very few people ever stop to ask themselves “Why do I have a car?”

I’m not the only one who is car-free at my work, but I’m probably the youngest. A lot of people take a minute to process the fact that I don’t have a car. Most of the time I can even identify the conclusion they jump to:

1) You’re too poor?
2) You got a DUI?
3) You got in a bad accident?
4) (very, very rarely) Oh, you just don’t need one. Cool.

As far as being female – I get a large number of people telling me the public transportation is too dangerous, too dirty, or involves too many crazy people. Most of the time I just look at them funny and ask if they’ve ever been on an LA Freeway. Sure, there are uncomfortable moments, but they all have their driving counterparts, and you deal with them the same way – by ignoring them. A smelly person in front of you (much like that diesel truck you accidentally got stuck behind on the road), someone loud right next to you (that guy with the broken muffler), someone a little creepy (that car that got off the freeway on your exit and followed you a few blocks).

But I don’t ever feel like my life is in physical danger (unlike the sudden sobering moment when you witness an accident first-hand) – I’ve taken self-defense courses, and my lines have the safety-in-numbers thing going for them, as do most of the lines in LA. Even on the days I’ve journeyed into East LA or skid row (and I have done both, intentionally or not), I still feel safer on the bus with other people than I’d ever feel alone in a car.

Besides, riding in a car doesn’t let me read, and there isn’t anyone who will smile at me, or tell me to have a good day.

Advice for the car-free curious.

Take a book.

No, seriously, take a book. Find a good one. It give you the perfect excuse to ignore people if you want to, but if you avoid the iPod earphones you are still open to conversations (although you can feel free to take those too).

Get used to carrying a little bag – honestly, a backpack is usually more practical than a purse I think – and fill it with useful things: a pen and paper, a little re-useable tote bag (comes in handy if you want to stop for shopping at the spur of the moment, or if you just have to carry something extra), some gum, a book, a granola bar, your ipod. Not that you need all of these things, but they can be useful.

Don’t forget to give yourself a little umbrella during rainy seasons, and having a smart phone really does help – metro.net will tell you when the next bus is arriving, or help you rearrange a route when needed.

And talk to your work about buying your bus pass. Mine pays $50 out of the $62 monthly pass, leaving me paying a whopping $12 per month. It is hard to pass up a deal like that, but I ran into quite a few coworkers who didn’t know about it.

If you’re really nervous about committing to being car free, try just doing little things. Commit to yourself that you’ll try taking the bus (don’t forget your handy kit-o-helpful things I mentioned above) somewhere, then try it at least five times (in other words, if you have a bad time on one experience, don’t let it ruin your chances for good). I think it is easier to ride the rapid busses and subways, but everyone has their own needs and opinions.

Once you’ve gotten over the first step (taking the bus in the first place), then look at your trips. Can you ditch your car to go to work? To the grocery store? Can you walk? Ride a bike? Force yourself to never take a car starting with one trip, then move on to the next trip. Sometimes keeping your car as a safety net for at least a little while makes sense – most people do that. But those people usually get rid of their cars sooner or later…
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green LA girl’s notes: Cassandra Davis is the creative mind behind green LA girl’s header design!Thanks Cass!

Cass describes her blog, Bawdy the Squirrel, thusly: How to survive in LA without a car (if you’re a squirrel). “[The blog]  started as just a fun way to show some of my younger relatives that yes, you can get around LA without a car,” Cass says. Read Bawdy the Squirrel for cute pictures of Bawdy and for tips on how to tap that pass.

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