Is a car-free lifestyle (with kids) possible in Chicago?

Okay, so my subject line is kind of a “duh”. Car-free family life is of course possible in that it can be done, and many, many people make it work out of necessity (as have I, in the past, when too broke to get one of our many junkers fixed or buy a new one when said junker when to car heaven). So I guess my real question is: if given a choice between having a car and getting around without one—whether they relied instead on public transpo or their own steam—how many Chicagoans with children would choose not to have a vehicle?

There are a lot of things I dislike about having a car, and rising gas prices sure aren’t sweetening the pot. I hate hassling with insurance, registration, license plates, repairs, tune-ups and gas. I really REALLY hate hassling with car seats and the fact that it takes at least five minutes to get all my kids into the car and safely buckled in, and then another five to get them all out again when we get wherever we’re going, then back in (this time balancing kids with groceries and whatever else we’ve acquired), then back out. Especially un-fun are the times when my toddler freaks out and getting him buckled into the car seat turns into a sweating, red-faced aerobic workout complete with resistance training. I would much, Much, MUCH rather just pop the littlest in a stroller and walk, even if that meant it would take an extra ten or twenty minutes to get to my destination.

I recently spoke to a woman in Portland, Oregon, who does just that. When she and her husband and (then) eight-month-old baby moved to Portland from Washington, DC, they unloaded their old car and decided to wait until they were in their new city to buy a new one. And they never did. Though she says she resisted the idea of going car-free for a while, she began to find that she enjoyed getting places on her own steam, and the health benefits (not to mention the environmental benefits) were a great payoff. Plus, she says, her life gradually shrunk to accommodate her new, more mobile lifestyle—instead of taking a 20-minute bus ride to get to her dentist, for example, she found a new dentist within a few blocks of her home. And rather than loading up with stuff every time she goes to a store, she now has to really think hard about how much she wants something before she purchases it—and has to cart it home. Since I’m all about supporting local businesses and reducing consumerism, those are two principles I can get behind.

But (of course, there has to be a but!) life is always more complicated than ideals, isn’t it? Portland is one thing, but is Chicago really a friendly city for people who want to do without a car?  My particular neighborhood isn’t very car-free-friendly: while it’s a beautiful neighborhood to stroll around in, the grocery store and trains are juuuust far enough away to make walking to them impractical, especially with children, especially when the weather is bad. (like the painfully—often dangerously—cold winter we just had). I could easily bike to the train or the grocery store by myself, but that’s no simple proposition with four kids. And how would I get them to across-town playdates?

We could move someplace closer to public transportation, but then we’d be farther away from the boys’ current school. We could move into a neighborhood that’s got it all--great school, necessities and transportation within easy walking distance—but then it would be a stretch to afford a place that fits us all! Would the savings on gas and insurance be worth it in the end?

Our minivan is getting old. It’s got 180,000 miles on it and is starting to make screeches and bumps and other unpleasant sounds that signal impending doom. When it finally croaks, I can’t imagine us being willing to take on a car payment; so we’ll probably want to take some time to look around at used cars and possibly, we’ll need some time to save up enough dough to buy one outright. That means that, at least temporarily, we could be left with just my husband’s car, which is basically useless to me because a) he needs it to get to and from his jobs and b) it only seats four people.

So it’s possible that in the future I may be experimenting with the car-free lifestyle for a while….who knows for how long. Maybe I’ll find that a lot of those shopping trips I ‘have to’ jump in the car to make can just as easily be put off until later…or skipped entirely. Maybe I’ll find that navigating the bus system—though slow and, in my neighborhood, scanty—isn’t that big of a deal. Maybe I’ll realize that walking a mile to the grocery store or train really isn’t that big a deal…and it won’t kill the kids, either.

Maybe. But if the ol’ van dies in February, I don’t know that I’d have the self-discipline to make it even a day without beating down the door of the car dealership.

What about you? Could you see yourself embarking on a car-free life in Chicago, even with kids? 

An original post to Chicago Moms Blog.

--Meagan writes about parenting four sons in the city at her blog.