Can mainstream families survive without cars?

By Christine Gardner

updated 3:51 p.m. ET Aug. 30, 2006

Not 20 minutes after the Amtrak clerk said our train would be at least an hour late -- "probably much more" -- I almost caved. "We could rent a car and drive home," I thought, and maybe even muttered. "Nobody has to know."

I had just hit my breaking point.

My husband, Steve, and I were pushing our two daughters along a searing sidewalk built precariously close to a major road, beer-bottle shards crunching underfoot. We were in Illinois' state capital of Springfield, just 70 miles from our Normal home, and I was on my 20th car-free day.

In the pit of my stomach I could feel the onset of failure.

But we pushed on. We pushed past the track-marked girl sitting two booths from us at McDonald's. We pushed to a shaded grassy hill in view of the capitol building. Eventually we pushed into a hotel for the night, where we imbibed on the floor of the bathroom, our two-year-old finally asleep in a bed and her baby sister snoozing in a complimentary playpen.

This isn't starting well, you might think. A suburban housewife gives up driving for one month and comes away reporting that it can't be done. How helpful is that?

Yes, the laundry list is long. Food costs are exorbitant, a problem for households with only one steady paycheck. Public transportation often is difficult and confusing. Vacationing is expensive and, as you might have gathered, hellish.

But we did it. Coated in grime, feet aching and exhausted, we made it home without an automobile. And suddenly, this experience seemed a little more like adventure and a little less like failure.

Getting started:
"Green A" bus to Bloomington, 8:10 a.m., July 1

My first bus trip rocked.

My older daughter and I headed to the farmers' market for as many vegetables as we could cram in our backpacks. After shopping, I set Carolyn free on the lawn of the city square. Within minutes, she met Dana, also 2, who seemed just as interested as my daughter in climbing a sign marking the downtown landmark.

Dana turned out to belong to Sara Freeman, an assistant professor of theater at Illinois Wesleyan University, a former resident of Madison and Chicago, and part of a one-car household. This is too easy, I thought. My first day and I'm already meeting kindred spirits, automotively speaking.

The thing is, Sara would tell me later, owning just one car isn't that big a deal. She sometimes walks. Her husband rides his bike. They carpool or trade off. They have to be conscious of who has the car when, but it hasn't really been a problem.

Like others who live in the twin cities of Bloomington-Normal, Sara sees the divide. There are people who live in the older neighborhoods, closer to the downtowns, and others living in newer, often swankier homes east of Veteran's Parkway, this city's commercial artery to Wal-Mart and all its big-box buddies. One set thinks, "Ugh, I have to go out to Veteran's." The other thinks, "Thank god I don't have to go downtown."

At the university, there's talk about sustainability, how to reach students and the general public. Sara, who is pregnant with her second child and thinking maybe her family needs another car, said she wishes this area had enough people to make a car-share program work. That way, she said, she wouldn't have to go car shopping -- and I wouldn't get stuck during a day trip to Springfield.

En route:
"Pink D" bus to Meijer Super Store, 8:58 a.m., July 10

Ten days into this experiment, I knew one thing for sure -- the stroller is the most hated object in all of bus world. This, for me, was made much more frustrating by my fumbling attempts to steer my extra-long double stroller. To make matters worse, I sometimes require the dreaded wheelchair lift. A friend of mine with two young children said I shouldn't let it bother me: "It's the same as a wheelchair," she said. I suppose that's true. "Having kids is like being handicapped," she added.

Hmm.

But a bus ride with small children is an effort in feeling bad, and a tiny bit hindered. One morning, as a particularly crowded bus arrived, Steve and I had both girls and the stroller and asked to use the lift. Our driver obliged. A passenger on his cell phone warned someone he'd be late. A family and their kids are getting on, he said.

As I got off the bus, the driver said into her walkie-talkie, "Her husband is here, but she wants to use the lift." That's what I'd thought I was supposed to do. Now, because of me, all these people were late for work.

It all begged the question, "Who is public transportation for?" A 2003 study of the local transit system showed that most people who take the bus don't do so by choice. Randomly surveyed people didn't care much about public transit, other than not really wanting to fund improvements.

Melanie Overend of Bloomington-Normal Public Transit says the system's No. 1 objective is to provide a ride to those who need it, although efforts are made to convince others to ride. But with light traffic, free parking, and a phobia I like to call "I Might Come in Contact with Poor People," it's a tough sell.

Back on the Pink D, in an effort to speed things along, I tried to be helpful and lift my stroller with one arm and my chunky baby Penelope with the other. A stranger, one of many to lend a hand during this experiment, grabbed the 25-pound device from me.

We were going to Meijer Superstore, a Michigan-based Wal-Mart predecessor, for what would be the last major shopping trip of the month (mostly because it became a huge pain). Later, I would settle on paying $4.49 for a box of butter at a downtown drugstore, $1.25 for a cup of sour cream at the gas station, and $8.99 for a pound of coffee at the vegetarian deli -- items that total $6.70 at Wal-Mart prices.

It's not unusual, or that surprising, to see people on the bus hauling plastic bags from America's favorite superstore. When I look at the other passengers, I mostly see people with no alternative to the bus. I try not to inconvenience them, or knock them with my stroller.