Living in the Phoenix, Arizona area without a car


It's 2021, and it's been four years now that I've lived without a car. I sold my car in 2017 to a nice young man, a Vietnam veteran, who had always admired it as a "cream puff" with very low mileage. And even though I had rarely used it, it was a difficult decision to make. I like cars.

Owning a car, and driving every day, is something that was very important to me. Getting a driver's license was the beginning of my freedom in life. I bought my first car when I was 18, and it was the car that brought me to Phoenix a year later. Over the years the cars that I owned (only one at a time!) were an indication of where I was in my life. I "graduated" from tiny two-seater cars in my late twenties, and moved into more reliable cars as I got older, and by the time I was in my fifties I was more impressed by the tremendous air conditioning in my GM car than anything else about it. That was the car that I sold in 2017. Honestly, that car was awesome - even if it were sitting out in a parking lot in the heat, the moment you switched on the A/C it was cool comfort. I loved that car!

Most of the work that I've done in the 21st Century has been done online, and while I mostly ignored things like Uber, I knew that they were available to me. I'm a technology person, and the day after my first Uber ride I called my friend to ask if he was still interested in buying my car. He was, and it was his right away. I asked a fair price, he made a fair counter offer, and we even went to the bank and the DMV together. It pleased me that my old "cream puff" would be in good hands!

I've loved living in Phoenix and Los Angeles, but to me they're not very enjoyable places to drive, mostly just staring at taillights. When I lived in California I would try to get out on an interesting canyon road, and there are lots of wonderful Arizona highways near Phoenix, but over the years I just lost interest. There was a time in my life when I wanted to do some racing at Bondurant, but my interest in that faded, too.

I live in the suburbs, and always assumed that a car was absolutely necessary. And it would be for someone who needed to commute - there's no light rail around here! But I found that an Uber was always just a few minutes away, and I also invested in a recumbent trike, which is not only fun for me, it can carry groceries - not as much as a car, of course, but most of what I need from the grocery store I have delivered (I told you that I was a techy guy). I make trike runs for milk, beer, that kind of thing.

As I drift into my senior years, I realize that I've been able to make a smooth transition from something that older people are very reluctant to give up, long after they know that they're a danger to themselves and others on the road. I'm lucky that I've always been a techy person, and am comfortable using the kind of apps that allow me to do things by "remote control". My background as a teacher also taught me how to delegate, how to communicate clearly, to accept minor difficulties that people have (and technology has!), and mostly to show appreciation.

I like living without a car in the Phoenix, Arizona area. They said it couldn't be done, but I did it, anyway.

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