A Car-Free in LA Story

Over at Blogdowntown, poster David Kennedy relays a tale of how he and his wife attempted to go car-free a few years ago. As residents of Downtown LA, they were in the fortunate position of being located in the transit center of Los Angeles, and were able to live a virtually car-free lifestyle (they left their car parked and only used it when absolutely neccessary) until the arrival of their first daughter, because as David states, “I’ve found that being a parent involves a lot of unplanned activty which comes up on very short notice where a car is the preferred way to go.” I’ve always felt that having children would be the wildcard in living a truly car-free life in Los Angeles for the reason David mentioned, but with the advent of Flexcar, perhaps the actual owning of a car can be avoided.

Some highlights of David’s story follow.
On getting to work:

“For getting to and from work, I took Metrolink. The service was excellent. My only quibble was my return trip options. I either left work a little early or a little late. But, it was manageable. In fact, I liked it a lot.”

On going out:

“For simply getting about for casual things like going to the beach or the movies, it worked out fine. Taking the Red Line to Hollywood or the Big Blue Bus to Santa Monica is very easy and convenient, if you know where you’re going.

On grocery shopping:

“Obviously, we didn’t buy huge amounts of groceries, since we’d be taking them on the bus. But, that’s not really our style anyways. Trader Joe’s was our only absolutely had to have a car grocery store.”

And I don’t know if his car-free experience was before the Gold Line, but now you can get to the Trader Joes in South Pasadena via the Goldine (Mission station).

Read David’s entire story here.