‘Leave Your Car at Home’
Dispatch #3
I’m now into the 3rd of my 5-week campaign not having a car. I made my first trek into Downtown Seattle on my own this week. This was one of those spontaneous trips where you really wish you owned a car, so it really put my program to the test.
I was meeting up with a friend for dinner in Seattle, and being that I didn’t want to influence where we ate just because I didn’t have a car, I agreed to go venture out to Seattle. I didn’t have much time to anticipate the trip, so I quickly looked at the bus schedule. Although several buses went near my destination, there wasn’t anything within the timetables I was looking for (plus, I wasn’t sure of when I would be coming home). I then called upon my trusty friend Zipcar to save the day! All of the Downtown Bellevue Zipcars near me were available. This was one of those social meet-ups that could be over in 2 hours, or last for up to 5. Being that I didn’t want to make a commitment to Zipcar or to myself, for how long I was going to stay, I utilized Zipcar’s program called ‘Zipcar Overnight;’ it allows you to keep the car all night, from 6pm until 7am the next morning, and only costs $34!
It worked out great. I had the Honda Civic Hybrid back by 11pm that night and was able to get a couple of errands done that only having a car can accommodate.
Next post will be about how much money I’ve been saving throughout the month…stay tuned!
nice job going car free! the 550 runs pretty often at rush hour, if you combine that to Seattle and a cab back it may work out to the same cost.
Yeah, great job. Keep it up. The real benefit of course is all the money you save.
First off, Zip Car is amazing. I won’t argue with that. I use them when I go camping because the per day cost includes gas and 180 miles-and you don’t have to clean the bugs off of the windshield!
That being said, imagine if there was light rail running between Bellevue and Seattle. It’d cost about $2 and would run 24 hrs a day (unlike Metro)….I can’t wait for the light rail plans to be finalized!