Like many North Americans I grew up in a suburban neighbourhood where the automobile is treated like a pampered pet. A few weeks before my family moved to Okinawa, not long after my 16th birthday, I received a driver’s licence and spent the next three years driving on the left hand side of the road. Returning to the United States I thought nothing of purchasing a car for commuting to university and work. Eleven years later I moved to New York, and chose to keep my small Mitsubishi pickup despite the nontrivial challenges of urban parking and over the course of those three and a half years my truck sat unused except for occasional trips to visit family and friends out of state.
At the end of the 90’s I got married, moved to Toronto and chose to do without a car. Those few years of urban living in New York led to the realization that auto ownership was an unnecessary luxury for city dwellers, especially one who works from home. Over the past decade I have driven a rented or borrowed car about a dozen times when travelling to places where public transport wasn’t an option. And you know what, I don’t miss driving or auto ownership one bit. If your circumstances allow it, why not give it a shot?
April 03, 2009, 12:00am Link
