> What do you miss about having a car as a car enthusiast
No car enthusiast would make that decision in the 1st place. Not being able to easily drive or affordably access covered parking is one of the reasons I don't live in downtown Chicago or NYC.
Hit dogs gon holler, as the saying goes. Own your decision instead of trying to hide behind "enthusiast" to look cool to internet strangers. I'd suggest checking out urbanist/urbanism subs. And I'm not being sarcastic, I just think you'll find a new home there just as you did IRL.
I haven’t burned through 30 sports cars in the past 10 or so years because I’m trying to look cool on the internet.
The absolute irony of your comments given what you drive. Hilarious.
You're taking this way too personally. If cars are important to you you wouldn't sell yours. Maybe they were at one point. But they aren't anymore. There's nothing wrong with that and what I drive doesn't change it. Cars not being as important to you as they were before doesn't make you any less of a person or make your opinions any less valid. Find peace, my dude.
15 minutes city means the govberment can control us easier!!!
Back to my regularly scheduled program of consuming Exxon Mobil, BP, Chevron, Shell products 😋
I visit Japan just to live ‘normally’ in the city when I want to get away from the monotony of work life in the USA, it’s interesting but by the time my travel week is near the end I yearn for turbo noises and canyon roads again
You still can be as a car enthusiast if you live in a walkable city. This's how what I done.
I used to live in SF downtown, I took local Muni for my most day life. It's so convenient despite not very safety ( you would've chance to see stealing and drug, I was attacked by a drug in once ) . If I needed a car for short distance, I could just use car sharing system such like Zipcar. These car sharing has many interesting basic cars, I was enjoy to drive their rental cars.
Right now, I'm still doing that even thought I've my own car. I would do that again if I live in walkable city. That's why I put "rental car life" in my flair.
I've always lived in a walkable city so your first question doesn't apply to me. It's great, that's all I can say.
>What do you miss about having a car as a car enthusiast. Do you find yourself missing driving?
You can own and drive a car while living in a walkable city. They're not mutually exclusive (yet).
And yes, I do miss driving when I'm between cars, which happens pretty often as I tend to buy/sell whenever I feel like it.
>Any unexpected challenges or benefits?
Only expected ones. Moving heavy items or driving to a distant store to collect stuff becomes harder. Spontaneous trips becomes difficult. The benefits are that you save an incredible amount of money and that you generally get into better shape since you're walking/cycling everywhere.
Back when I lived in Colorado, I condo sat for one of my friends around downtown Denver(cap hill) whenever he went out of town for a week or more. And I loved it. I only drove my old Mustang to and from work or too the mountains. It was a relief to not need that gas guzzler for everything I wanted to do. I loved walking to the bars I liked, the food places, meeting friends around town and generally walking wherever I felt like exploring. And even grocery shopping wasn’t bad without it. Took 15 minutes to get there and I’d only buy what I could carry or needed. Cuts out on a lot of junk too that way.
I just wish there were new towns/suburbs being developed to be walkable instead of car centric. And obviously affordable too. Sadly developers still want the tired Zoning codes of old and don’t want to develop anything new in mass for the average person. Walkable subdivisions are relegated to wealthy people currently, and walkable neighborhoods come at a massive affordability cost. Shit sucks
As someone who loves cars, especially old and gas guzzling V8s. I used to condo sit for one of my friends when he’d leave town back when I lived in Denver. I loved it. I only used my car to go to work or the mountains, I walked everywhere else or used the light rail( back when it wasn’t as bad as it’s got).
I would totally live in a super walkable and non car centric place if there was more options than just downtown areas of major cities, and were affordable for someone who makes 60k a year. They need to start making new towns that are designed to be walkable and not car centric. It’s not like cars won’t exist there at all or that is car enthusiasts won’t live there. It’s nice to be able to ditch the car and walk to a bar or food place without needing to use the damn car. You don’t even need to do high density only either if you design it correctly.
I think tons of car enthusiasts would be down for walkable areas to live. There just aren’t many nor are they affordable. Remember, not all car enthusiasts have multiple cars, nor do all of their own work and need the space. So yeah. You can like both.
My last location was very walkable and I experienced both with and without a car. My main takeaway from the experience is that walkable cities are perfect for car enthusiasts. The roads are usually clear because there's less commuting. If your car is unreliable or impractical, it doesn't matter because you don't technically don't need it. You can just buy fun cars. You also save a lot of money and all the walking greatly improves your health.
In that same area I went without a car for a year and I did miss it. Cars are fun and there were some great drives that I missed out on in that time. The other downside is that you may want to leave your walkable city sometimes lol. Public transit helped a lot but for some of my friends, walking that far wasn't feasible, even with uses and trains. It's convenient to have a car for those trips.
Mind telling me which city this is? In my experience walkable cities are walkable *because* they suck to drive in. I’d love a best of both worlds solution.
I think the goal is that it usually isn’t the most convenient option, not necessarily that it just sucks to drive. It can reach that point but the most densely populated parts aren’t usually places that are fun to drive in anyway
Unfortunately, I was on Florida avenue passing and end up cracking my oil pan and didn't know , blew my engine smh ... cause to realization that I don't have to worry about traffic, parking , predatory tickets if I spelled it right, also the drivers that the most part no common sense on the road , no awareness, no quarterback vision on the road .🫡💯
Not quite the same, but I no longer depend on "my" car for regular transportation. My partner and I WFH but our city does have horrible public transit. We take her car everywhere, honestly it's a nice car LOL.
I am able to tinker on my ST more, and not afraid to go a little more "extreme" with it. I can save driving it for good days, when it's nice out and I have time to just enjoy it. I really think it's a positive.
I lived in Japan (Yokohama) for 3 years without a vehicle. Japan's public transportation system is top tier. I found it easy to get around. The only time I wished I had a car was when I bought some large items. Even then I just had them delivered, and still saved money because I had no car. Getting food was easy because I either ate out or I would swing by a Lawson or 7-11 on my way home.
i commute exclusively by Metro in the dc m v area. i own a sports car with a manual to enjoy on the weekends as an enthusiast. car is great for groceries but carrying 2 bags in the Metro isn't too hard
I live in a walkable neighbourhood in a relatively walkable city with an ever expanding transit network. When you don’t need a car as a daily, you can buy something compromised and fun. All my errands are done on foot, and I commute to work 2-3 times a week (wfh rest of the time). First had a modified E46 M3 but realized I needed a slightly more practical and reliable car, so ended up with a GR86. Only reason I don’t have a Miata is because I don’t fit in one, but would otherwise suit my needs perfectly. Imo walkable neighbourhoods are a lowkey “cheat” to enthusiast car ownership, you can get away with something way cooler and more special than what you could if you needed your car to do everything
I live in Chicago, which has solid public transportation and a fairly walkable layout. That being said, I'd never give up my cars lol. Sure, there are hassles to owning a car in the city, but they're super handy when you have to do grocery runs, haul larger items, carry friends around or and get around at odd hours. Some of the trains get a bit sketchy later at night, and it's nice to be able to slide into your own car with your own smells lol. I'd say it's definitely doable depending on your lifestyle and dedication to your hobby. For me, though, absolutely not.
Didn’t do any driving in Stockholm, I liked being able to ride the train and not worry about parking or traffic. On the other hand I just missed the freedom.
Used to live in a resort town on an island that had a bus service...25 cents could get you from one end of town to the other. Never needed a car except for stroking egos and the girls who didn't date on public transportation.
I live in a walkable city. I have no desire to live in the city where I work so I still have to drive there. I also still drive to places where I need to haul lots of large items (grocery store/hardware store etc.) so I have a car to do all that.
Overall, it’s fine. No notes.
I did this for some time and I honestly loved it. But I did one thing differently. I kept my weekend car in a friend’s garage out in the suburbs and paid him $200 per month as a storage fee.
Anytime I wanted to drive it, I gave him a heads up the day or two days before, and I took the train 35 minutes out to where he’s at.
This may be a pain for some, but I never put a lot of miles on that car anyways, so I didn’t mind it.
>How has it affected your daily life and overall well-being?
I was born in a walkable and bikeable city. This has probably affected me positively because I've had more independent movement as a kid and the additional exercise gives me better health outcomes.
I did briefly live in a place where I needed to be driven around more often, which sucked and I'm absolutely convinced has a negative impact on most children.
>What do you miss about having a car as a car enthusiast. Do you find yourself missing driving?
I'm not truly a car enthusiast, but I always sorta liked cars. I've seen my fair share of engineering explained videos and I was always kinda interested in automotive engineering.
I sold my car because I wasn't using it that much, so I'll just rent one whenever I miss driving. That doesn't happen very often though.
>Any unexpected challenges or benefits?
An upside of renting cars is that you get to pick whatever you want or need. To me this is better than owning a single type of car.
I also much prefer traveling when it's by train because long drives just get repetitive to me.
Any challenges? Eh, not really. This is a lot easier than I thought it would be, plus it has just given me plenty of new options. All of this heavily depends on where you live of course.
In terms of daily life it's been a strong positive for me to not need to drive everywhere. Over the last 20 years I've lived in three very different U.S. cities where feasible to be less reliant on cars or not need a car at all.
As far as being a car enthusiast, I enjoy the progress in technology, design, and performance just as much as I did when I was a kid, so that aspect didn't change. If your particular flavor of car enthusiasm involves turning wrenches and being hands on that'll be a loss. Overall your experience will depend how much you derive enjoyment from the car ownership experience vs watching the car market evolve.
On driving, one of the aspects of living in more walk-able places is that the good driving roads are usually further outside the metro area so that's a tradeoff. You have to go further out of your way to visit those places if you still own a car or rent occasionally for fun. I used to live by some very good driving roads (that show up in some YouTube reviewers' videos) and it was very nice to start/end every trip to/from my house with some high quality twisties.
Like with a lot of things the best of both worlds is winning the lottery and having a place in the city and the country but imo you won't regret the car-free lifestyle as an enthusiast. Being an enthusiast doesn't requires sitting in traffic trying to get to Costco on the weekends. Then after a while with some car-free experience you can make the decision on what balance you find best.
Probably 75% of my driving is point A to point A anyway, and i take the loooooong way most of the rest of the time, so having a car and driving it would be a pretty central part of my life regardless of whether i needed it as transportation.
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