Why a Philadelphia Family Can't Go Car Free

A few weeks ago, in the coldest January in more than a decade in Philadelphia, I was driving home from an errand when I realized I could not turn my car wheel. It was locked. Then I saw every emergency light on the dash was on. Then the car began to shake violently. I could not believe my luck that this happened across the street from a gas station. I parked our 2009 Toyota RAV4, turned it off, and it never woke up.

Our car, which had seen two children through their carseat years, looked every bit of its 16 years. Its fabric seats were lined with pizza grease, Goldfish crumbs, ice cream stains, sand and much more. The CD player hadn’t worked in years. We played music off cell phones. For a long time, we didn’t have some door handles. A side was dented, and the back bumper had to be shoved back into place every few months. We sold the car to our mechanic for $1,500 and thought we came out on top.

We knew the car’s demise was coming. I was secretly excited for the day when it died and we’d give up owning a car. I had even foretold the “beginning of the end of private cars in America.” A combo of a walkable city, decent transit, Ubers and next-generation rentals would be enough, right?

To my own surprise, it wasn’t.

Ubering all the time is awful

The Monday after the car died, I had to take my son to a dermatologist appointment in West Philadelphia at 8am. It was a trip that would take an hour by transit and walking, or about 15 minutes by car. Our Uber was supposed to arrive in 8 minutes, but that turned into 15 minutes. Then, the driver took us off the designated route and we were nearly late for the appointment.

We took an Uber back home so my son could get to school and I could make it to a meeting. With surge charges for these commute-time rides, it cost $40 for the round trip. The cost was obnoxious, but that wasn’t what bothered me the most.

I thought that Uber would be a fine replacement for times we needed our car. I grew up in NYC where I took taxis all the time. But Ubers are quite different. In a city where there are free-flowing taxis, you would never stand on a corner for 15 minutes waiting to hail one. Often Uber would say a car would be arriving in 5 minutes that turned in 10 minutes.

I had foretold the “beginning of the end of private cars in America.” A combo of a walkable city, decent transit, Ubers and next-generation rentals would be enough, right?

Regular taxis also have fixed rates that make it easy to predict costs. I hate doing the mental math of whether an Uber was worth it, depending on the situation.

And unlike NYC taxis, where there’s long been plastic partitions separating you from the driver, in Ubers, there’s this odd feeling that many of the drivers want you to experience something: their cologne, their music, their chitchat. I often took the smallest cheapest cars and felt like I could do dental work on my driver.

I hate to say it, but I think this intensity is part of what makes people want autonomous vehicles without human drivers.

A 15-minute city on weekdays, a 60-minute city on weekends

We live in one of those 15-minute neighborhoods where we can walk to just about everything we need on weekdays — school, work, grocery stores, friends’ houses. Oftentimes our car sits on the street, unmoved, for days.

But our weekends are a different story. And this is where we got stuck: A car is still the portal to fun. This is why car ads show people driving in the great outdoors or some splashy urban situation with friends and family. And part of the fun is having complete control over where you go, when you go, and with whom you go.

A car is still the portal to fun. And part of the fun is having complete control over where you go, when you go, and with whom you go.

Our kids play youth sports that take them way out of our neighborhood — sometimes an hour away. Visiting family outside the city; taking a day trip somewhere like the Shore or the Poconos, or going on a summer road trip all require a car.

I tried to convince my family that we could just rent cars, using some of the new services that make it pretty easy to get a car rental dropped off at your house. But in reality, these services are a lot less reliable than having our own car. As I investigated car rentals, I found there wasn’t even a traditional car rental agency open on weekends within walking distance. And besides, if we used car rentals every single weekend, that’s not much cheaper or better for the environment, but it is exponentially more of a hassle.

Car-free can work … elsewhere

When it was clear Trump was serious about tariffs, we didn’t want to hesitate any longer. We pulled the trigger and got a Honda CRV Hybrid. We entered the 21st century — a backup camera! a working radio! hands free cell phone calls! We instituted a “no eating in the car” rule and are hoping our car will last another 16 years.

I left the experience grateful for our 15-minute neighborhood, but also now convinced that it’s not going to be enough to get people — particularly young families — away from car ownership. We still must make life easier for those without cars — kids, older adults, those with disabilities, and the many who can’t afford cars. And we must make it a little harder for those that have them. We should do this not just for equity’s sake, but also for the environment and for our health.

New York City’s congestion pricing is a great example — even if it doesn’t deter drivers, it is reaping much needed money for transit. Philadelphia has slowly made some moves by raising the cost of a parking permit, seeking to raise the hourly cost of street parking, and pedestrianizing a few blocks of downtown for a few hours on a few weekends.

Still, all of this pales in comparison with what’s been done in European cities where there’s much more of a focus on pedestrians and cyclists in the urban core, and driving has been reined in with lower speed limits, less parking and congestion pricing.

I’m particularly fond of what’s been done in Nantes, France — pedestrianizing the urban core, providing free transit on weekends, replacing parking lots with parks, turning roadways into transit infrastructure, even paying people to give up their cars. All of the transformations didn’t happen overnight — in fact, they’ve been ongoing for more than 20 years. That just proves that small steps, collectively, add up. And going car-free is definitely going to take some time.

Diana Lind is a writer and urban policy specialist. This article was also published as part of her Substack newsletter, The New Urban Order. Sign up for the newsletter here.