Back on the previous incarnation of my blog, I had elaborated on my moving plans, and noted that relocation of my vehicle was covered in my startup package at Apple. I presently drive a 1993 Ford Explorer, a SUV which, while handy in the snowy winters of central Pennsylvania, gets only 20 miles per gallon of fuel.

Ultimately, I’ve decided not to take the car with me. It’s worth less than it would cost to move it, it probably won’t pass CA emissions inspection without costly repairs (though it did pass in NJ and PA, so maybe it’s ok), and it lacks an airbag. However, I’ve also decided not to replace the car.

First, there’s the matter of cost. I’d nominally be looking at around $800 in monthly expenses between the car payment, the insurance, the parking fees in San Francisco, and fuel costs. That’s half my rent!

Second, I don’t think I could bear the “soul-crushing slog” back and forth between San Francisco and Cupertino, even I carpool with friends. The daily commute was the straw that broke the camel’s back for ex-co-worker and decent human Buzz Andersen. Quoth Buzz:

…As the stress and hours increased at work, my 45 minute commute down 280, which I had initially thought of as a reasonable (even pleasant and scenic) drive, became a soul crushing daily slog. With most of my social life in San Francisco, but my demanding job an exhausting drive away in Cupertino, I started finding it harder and harder to keep up relationships. As a recent article about commuting in The New Yorker put it:

“I was shocked to find how robust a predictor of social isolation commuting is,” Robert Putnam, a Harvard political scientist, told me. (Putnam wrote the best-seller “Bowling Alone,” about the disintegration of American civic life.) “There’s a simple rule of thumb: Every ten minutes of commuting results in ten per cent fewer social connections. Commuting is connected to social isolation, which causes unhappiness.”

My plan around such isolation is to ride the train into work, which will be a fairly social experience, given that my roommate and a variety of my other work friends will all be taking the same train in. The train back at night can even be happy hour. During my morning commute, I plan to put some of the time into work on my dissertation, and with the upcoming introduction of free wifi to the Caltrain, I can even trim some time off from my Cupertino workday by doing email and updating some bugs from the train.

My third reason for ditching the car has to do with restoring some simplicity to my life, which I alluded to as a goal in my previous post. As a mass transit commuter, I’ll be kinder to the environment. As a person who will have to get up and walk to the train station or to the grocery store, I’ll be kinder to my body.

My plan for getting around will ultimately involve renting cars for the weekends that I really want to get away to distant destinations and cabs for those nights out in the city. Even if I were to do that every weekend, it would still be cheaper (~40/day plus gas) than owning a car!

I suspect that eventually I’ll leave the city for cheaper real estate. In the mean time, I’m going to enjoy the perks that the city offers with respect to commuting alternatives and corner stores. If you think you too can live without a car - without its impact on your budget, body, psyche, not to mention its impact on the environment - I highly recommend giving it a shot.