A series featuring car-free women in LA.

Nicole of One day at a time

Basics: 27-year-old paralegal. Lives in Los Feliz with her boyfriend, who’s car-dependent. Child-free.

Car free since: June 2008, plus 2 brief periods before that.

Blogging since: June 2008.

Notable post: Photos from my walk around Peoria.
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On going car-free….

I was car free from June 2004 – Feb 2005, then again from October 2005 through February 2007. I sold my car in June of 2008 because I relocated to Illinois (where I grew up). Suffered through half a winter, and realized how much I missed California. And my boyfriend, as less-than-feminist as that sounds. We got back together and I came back to LA in December of 2008. He has a spare car that I have access to, but hardly ever drive. I’ve driven twice since December.

[Being car-free] boils down to time, money, and environmentalism for me. I love how much money I am able to save by not having a car, and my red line commute (along with marathon training) is keeping me in great shape. Also, it feels good to have reclaimed some of the time lost sitting in traffic. At least I can read a book while waiting for a bus.

I also love knowing that my lifestyle is putting less carbon dioxide into the world, but I may end up purchasing a car at some point later this year.

How she gets around.

I walk from my apartment to the red line (it takes 20 minutes) and take the red line from Los Feliz to Koreatown. The train ride is about 7 minutes. The red line is great. It gets me home, to work, and to plenty of social events in downtown and Hollywood.

[Los Feliz] definitely makes being car free easier. I can walk to hiking trails or the many great restaurants and bars in the area.

Previously, I lived in Palms without a car, and found it very difficult to meet up with friends in other parts of the city. I really had to figure out how to make my public transit dependence work for me. I was fresh out of college with an entry level salary, and I just didn’t want to be tied to car payments. Right now, I haven’t actively been car shopping because I don’t feel a strong [need] for a car. Having access to my boyfriend’s spare helps, not because I drive often, but because I know a car is available if a doctor’s appointment comes up, or if I want to drive to the beach or a hiking trail on the Westside.

On the upsides and downsides….

The benefits for me are saving money, being forced to walk, and (the most interesting one, I think) getting to engage with LA in a way that many residents never will — as a pedestrian and bus rider. Being able to get around the city with out driving has given me a tremendous opportunity to really take in all the sights in a way that I couldn’t if I had to watch the road. I definitely feel less stressed when I arrive at work without having to fight traffic.

I think my experiences having to navigate LA via public transit when I first moved here in 2004 helped me to get my bearings and limited the amount of patience that I have for sitting in traffic alone as a driver. The collective number of productive hours that this city’s residents lose sitting in traffic still blows me away– I know that there are viable alternatives, such as choosing to live close enough to work to commute via public transit. I think living car free in LA also triggered my curiosity in urban planning– I want to learn more about how the elements of a city interact and affect the city’s aesthetics and quality of life.

Going car free really isn’t that easy. I have a huge purse to carry around everything I need for the day, since I can’t throw things in a car trunk. Simple errands like going to the gym or grocery store can be an ordeal in this city if you don’t live in a pedestrian-friendly area.

I think the metro trains are great because they really keep to their posted schedules. The metro and dash buses are very, very unpredictable, so you really need to give yourself a large cushion of time if you plan on using them for anything you need to be on time to.

I think the worst thing that happened to me as a result of being car free was being robbed at a bus stop in Palms. The robber was unarmed, and actually didn’t get my wallet, but the experience was very scary, and I ended up wanting to own a car after that (and did purchase one), even though I know the same sort of robberies occur in parking garages, etc.

On car-dependent people.

Many people have looked at me like I’m crazy when I tell them I don’t have a car. Unfortunately, as wonderful as LA is, it can be a very status-obsessed place, and I think some people may have a hard time understanding that someone who can afford a car would choose not to own one. Not that there is anything wrong with not being able to afford a car, of course.

I appreciate LA so much more as a pedestrian/public transit rider than I did when I was alone in my car, stuck on the 10 on my way to work.

Advice for the car-free curious.

Try it out temporarily. Move to a pedestrian friendly area like Santa Monica, Los Feliz, or Hollywood. If you want to save up a nest egg quickly, six months without gas, insurance, and a car payment can do wonders. Be prepared to take a cab when its late at night — it isn’t worth it to be standing on a dark corner waiting for a bus that may take an hour to show up.

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green LA girl’s notes: While Nicole doesn’t blog much about being car free, she says “references to pedestrianism have worked their way in” to her blog, One day at a time.

I’d love to hear more about WTF she’s carrying in her purse that makes it so damn big and heavy to the point that it’s impeding her mobility (clean that shit out, girl!), and why she’s considering buying a car this year, despite her big upping the de-car’d lifestyle and saying she doesn’t really need one. I’m not judging — I’m just curious what the motivations are, as they’re not clear from the interview.

I really don’t see any connection between car ownership and robberies: A number of my friends have been robbed at one time or another in L.A. — and all of them own cars. I’ve never been robbed — but I have had to deal with theft, most annoyingly the theft of my car engine computer — twice! Those thefts actually led me to my car-free experiment.

I suppose you’re less likely to be robbed when you’re encased in a locked car and moving at 60 mph than when you’re walking around and engaging with the world, but unless you’re willing to severely limit your entire life to enclosed, locked spaces, never stepping out of your home, office, or their attendant locked garages and parking lots, you’ll need to just practice good common sense and accept the fact that sometimes bad things happen to good people.
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Are you a car-free woman living in the L.A.-area? Email me at greenlagirl@gmail.com to participate in the Car Free Mondays series!

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