Stepping towards a car-free life

Original link: https://taiwan.chtsai.org/2023/07/06/zhubu_maixiang_wuche_rensheng/

Our family does not have a locomotive, only a domestic car that has been driven for nine years. In the past few years, the daily traffic has become more and more dominated by public transportation, and less and less driving. In the past six months, I have only driven 600 kilometers. This will probably be the last car in my life. Then there is life without a car.

There are only a few situations where you can drive now:

Go shopping at the supermarket. In fact, the frequency has become less and less, and most of the time I usually walk to and from Quanlian near my home.
Do business in places with inconvenient transportation, or need to travel to several points in a short period of time that are not easily connected by public transportation.
Pick up elders; pick up family members to and from places where public transportation is inconvenient.
For family dinners or watching movies, drive people directly into the parking lot of restaurants or department stores. Parking is good on weekdays, and consumption can be discounted against parking fees. Simply comfort.

Car insurance, maintenance and taxes add up to more than 20,000 yuan a year. And this is the case when there is no major problem with the car and it is just basic maintenance.

This money is used to take taxis, assuming 160 yuan per trip, ten trips per month. It can fully cope with the above-mentioned situations, and there may be more to find.

The cost of public transportation is estimated at 399 yuan per month based on a monthly pass, which is less than 5,000 yuan per person per year.

And with Taiwan’s traffic, driving is really not a pleasant thing. Almost every time I drive on the road, I feel anxious and angry with other passers-by. That’s why I drive less and less. Driving can literally make you a worse person than if you weren’t driving. I feel better when I’m not driving.

Having a car at home certainly has its benefits. Such as mobility and comfort. If the old car does not have major problems, it may be maintained like this. When problems start showing up that cost money to repair, it’s time to say goodbye.

Now an ordinary domestic car costs millions of dollars, plus the cost of maintaining the car every year. With our family’s lifestyle of driving so little, it is really impossible to buy another car for the “benefit of having a car at home”. .

Think back to Taiwan and Kaohsiung from the United States 22 years ago. Back then, Kaohsiung’s transportation was inconvenient, so it was still necessary to have a car. Nowadays, the public transportation network formed by MRT, light rail, bus, passenger transportation, public bicycles and Taiwan Railway is enough to replace most of the original driving situations, and it is even more free than before. This was unimaginable back then.

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