As the “Week Without Driving” Ends, Let’s Look at Some Stories of Car-Free San Diegans

Today marks the end of the “Week without Driving” a national “holiday” where people are encouraged to try trips that they usually use their cars for, without the vehicle. While San Diego didn’t have a formal event marking the occasion, there are plenty of people that choose a car-free lifestyle in America’s Finest City. BikeSD collected some of their stories.

Leah

“When I first moved to San Diego I tried public transit, but found it infrequent and slow. It once took me 3 hours to get from a small business in Liberty Station to Hillcrest,” explainsLeah S.” That gave me the push to try an electric bike. My physically demanding work made it hard to want to ride a manual bike 14 miles a day.“

But once she started to ride, she found it improved not just her commute but her day overall. “It’s allowed me to live as a full time artist,” she commented.

However, while the car-free lifestyle is for her, she does have some suggestions on how to make the city more bike friendly.

“Not all the places you want to go are fully accessible by bike. There are many streets/roads to avoid. The protected bike lane network is incomplete.”

Nicole

Nicole is a San Diego native, but the decision to lead a car-free lifestyle was more of an evolution than a decision made at one moment in time.

“It evolved over several years as I found the efficiencies and joys of commuting by bike rather than by car,” she says. “At first, I would challenge myself to bike more miles than I drove. It then became more desirable and enjoyable to ride to my destination than drive. I now loathe driving.”

By the time Nicole had a family, she also had a passion for sharing her love of bicycling with others.

“When my kids were entering 5th grade, I started a bike train in Point Loma encouraging and supporting local students to start their day with a joyful ride to school,” she continues. And then the conditions on the route to school led her to work to create a safer ride. “Due to some dangerous streets we needed to ride on, I found my path into advocacy to help our city become more bike friendly.”

While she concedes there can be a social challenge when her friends want to drive somewhere and she does not, the joy of riding makes it more than an even tradeoff…to say nothing of the cost and headaches that come with car ownership.

“The saved expense of roughly $9,000/year goes towards better food and coffee…the fuel for my body to keep pedaling. I am so grateful to not spend time at a gas station, the DMV, or an auto shop for maintenance,” she concludes. “Every mile I ride averages $0.70/mile saved (compared to) car ownership, so I often treat myself to something special instead.”

Vicente

Vincente has been on-again, off-again living a car-free lifestyle for two decades. Vicente mentions he partially chose his job at UCSD based on the commute.

“I work on UCSD campus, and take the Blue Line Daily…I would not work there if I had to park on campus,” he writes. “I live on West Point Loma in OB, and take the 8 into the trolley station. I also use the green line to reach events…and, will often cycle between bus stops instead. Finally, I use Amtrak and Coaster. I have many friends in Oceanside and am there on almost a weekly basis, and occasionally take the Surfliner to LA and Beyond.”

While there is a wonderful community of car-free and car-lite people in San Diego, Vicente mentioned the social stigma that exists among the car-driving majority.

“Dating; seriously I’ve had a few people judge and talk down to me for not having a car, one made a new car and apartment an ultimatum,” he continues. “I chose to remain single.”

That doesn’t mean that San Diego is a utopia for the car-free/lite. “The timing is also difficult, on lower traffic routes, particularly taking the bus to the Trolley station: it’s about as fast to walk, and certainly faster to cycle,” he says. And it can be dangerous as well, “I have not been cycling as much due to a car accident. 2 months ago, someone turned into me as I was in a crosswalk, with the lights in my favor. Many of my friends have also been hit: three times for T, C woke up from a coma with so much brain damage we aren’t friends anymore: he woke up a different man.”

Jean

Travel is about more than work commutes, and retired teacher Jean still finds herself on the road several days a week for volunteer work in Balboa. Her story also tells how infrastructure makes a big difference.

“I ride my bike whenever possible,” Jean begins.  “I used to take the bus if I had to go downtown, but I haven’t ridden the bus since the pandemic started (I don’t go out as much as I used to).”

As for her current commute, “It is a 3-5 mile bike ride to Balboa Park, depending on which route I take. I used to drive whenever I went to my volunteer jobs, but now that there are bike lanes on 30th Street and Park Boulevard, I am able to bike instead of drive.“

While Jean is a long-time believer in eschewing the car for the good of the environment, there is still an issue of access to transit.

“There are many places that you pretty much can’t get to on public transit or by bike. The bus service is so infrequent that if you have to transfer it takes a ridiculously long time to get anywhere,” she concludes. 

Conclusion

Reading Bike SD’s survey results, there are two things that are clear. The first is that it is possible to live a car-free or car-lite lifestyle in San Diego. However, there’s a lot of things the city and region can do to make it easier.

So if you haven’t joined the car-free/lite movement, you don’t have to wait until next year’s Week Without a Car to try it yourself. When researching this piece, I typed “Week Without a Car San Diego” into google to see if there were any events I didn’t know about and the Google AI produced several ways to have a car-free vacation in San Diego. While it’s easiest in the urban core where many of the tourist attractions are, it only takes one day to try a car-free commute on your own.