In Southern California, that’s definitely the driver. Cars take up so much money and time, yet they are a necessary evil here. The money that gets spent on maintenance, gasoline, and car payments could be spent on anything else (I can think of a few things). However, the public transportation in San Diego is horrible. Routes keep getting cut and streamlined, and buses never served San Diego’s suburbs well anyway. The Trolley provides some decent service, but it doesn’t go everywhere. While Los Angeles is much better with buses and their Metrolink, the service keeps decreasing while the fares and passes increase.
Adding to the financial headaches of owning a car are paying extra for the privilege of parking your car somewhere (meter or parking establishment), getting parking tickets (if you’re not careful), and traffic citations (if you’re not very cafeful). As for the last one, a court appearance and fines are standard, though you may have the option of traffic school, which requires a processing fee and some tuition. Plus, you’ve lost several hours of your life.
So what’s worse? Hours of aggravation due to commuting, sharing the road with bad and rude drivers, and getting trapped in congestion OR running after buses, taking an hour to travel a three mile radius, and being late to whatever engagement on the count of transferring between buslines?
I hate to say it, but motor vehicles prevail (at least in this part of the country). I got to hand it to the one or two friends who don’t drive in San Diego. Somehow, they always manage to get to where they need to go by bus, and when that fails, hit someone up (like me or another friend) for a ride.
I’m not completely sold on Flexcar as an option for a car-less lifestyle, but it sounds really good. San Diego participates in the program, so if I needed to have a car just for an hour or two, it’s available.
