Unless you follow me on Twitter you might not know that for the past year I have been living car free. Last August when I had just started my little blog, I posted about my “Commuter Challenge”. Mister’s lease was coming up, and having a second car seemed a little extravagant. I was working and living centrally so we made the decision: Mister would take my Dodge Caliber & I would give up having a car.

I had just finished my year long vintage/thrift shopping challenge after all, and if I could go a whole year without buying any brand new clothes, how hard could taking the bus be? It would save us a ton of money & I could always borrow the car on the weekends if I really needed something I couldn’t get to. In my heart though, I was committed: it was going to be my car free year.

So what happened? I’m not going to sugar coat it, this past year has been hard- way harder than I thought it would be. I think that, if push came to shove, I would rather sew my own clothing for a year- and I don’t know how to sew from a pattern. I’ve been extremely lucky to have owned my own car since I was 16 years old and the difference between my city as a car owner and as a pedestrian is stark, and compounded by my funny little city and it’s idiosyncrasies.

The Verdict…

I made it!!! I drove once every month, month and a half when I really needed to. The inconvenience factor was…well that’s below. But overall, this was a totally positive experiment & I’m so glad I did it.

People are wonderful. Having been someone who has suffered from depression & severe anxiety in a mostly previous life, there were days when someone smiling at me for no reason could make or break me. I’ve been there, so when I’m out & about, I smile at everyone. And I think people can sense that I’ll engage with them. Day after day, people always came up to me to chat. If I had headphones in, people tapped me so I would take out my head phones so they could ask me a question. It always made me laugh, and I had the most amazing interactions with other locals. And our bus drivers are kind, hilarious troopers. They’re actually so nice that I only got annoyed, rather than upset, when they pull over to run into T-Ho’s (that’s slang for Tim Hortons, for the uninitiated) to get a double double WHILE WE ARE TRYING TO GET TO OUR TRANSFERS AND HELLO THERE IS A HUGE LINE INSIDE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!

Bus service in my prairie city is terrible. While we’re adding rapid transit corridors now, we have no train or below ground transport- so if you want to go somewhere you go by bus. But there are only select, main corridors that have proper bus service. This means that getting somewhere that takes 10 mins to drive to can take 40 mins by bus.

The winters in my prairie city are horrific. It drops to  -31° F where I live, with wind that cuts like a knife. Add extreme cold & snow to poor transit infastructure, and you have a disaster. In the winter I would routinely try to catch a transfer that just didn’t come, leaving me exposed without a bus shelter for 20 mins at a time. If not for my trusty snow burka (oh yea, that’s a picture of me) I’m not sure what I would have done.

I started getting sick. Last winter I was shocked when I developed bronchitis and my doctor’s diagnosis was that my lungs were reacting to my inhaling the cold air. I had to be on a puffer all winter, and didn’t like being a breath away from being a human interest story in the local media. If you don’t live in a northern city, around January all local media finds one person to interview who is allergic to cold. So help me, I was not going to be that person.

As the temperatures have started to dip this fall, I’ve felt all the resolve I had last year weaken. I’ve felt like a failure for not being tough enough, and like a traitor because my best friend still has to slug it out…but last weekend I broke down. I told Mister I couldn’t do it again, and that I wouldn’t, not if we could afford a second car. I don’t want to place another tearful phone call because my bus just never showed up, I don’t know when the next one is coming and I’m worried about where I can go to get inside. I’m tired of how small my world has shrunk, and I want to see the rest of my city again. I want to love living here, not spend the whole winter braced.

So, after all that, please meet my new best friend.

She is a 2009 (used) Ford Focus. She has heated seats (they have them on base models!!)* & will break the wind BETTER THAN MY JACKET. With everything the winter can throw at us up here, I’m more relieved than I can say and I might have cried a few happy tears on the way home from the dealership.

I think I might be able to properly enjoy winter this year. So let it snow, let it snow, let it snow…

*If you think for a moment that Ford cares about what I think or would give me financial incentive to say anything, I love you, but you need a little less caffeine. Srsly. <3