Saturday Diary: Carless in Pittsburgh
Saturday, May 24, 2008
By Diana Nelson Jones, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The old Volvo, Goldie as I called her, was running well at 21, but mostly she sat in front of my house. For years, I have been walking to and from work, and I stay around the neighborhood on Sundays.
Diana Nelson Jones is a staff writer for the Post-Gazette (djones@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1626).

My only car day was Saturday, Goldie’s only day to get out for a jaunt, such as it was, except when I went out with someone who drove. Goldie and I would stop and go between lights to and from Spanish class, the grocery store, the Abitibi paper recycling bin and whatever other little errands I had to do.

Gas prices had not started their recent surge when I consciously began to live as locally as possible, supporting only city businesses, with some necessary exceptions. It had as much to do with supporting the city as with burning oil, but I am also an apostle of The Inconvenient Truth. The car has become the focal point of the American love affair with so-called convenience — patronage by drive-through — while the ultimate convenience would be to have everything you need or want within a reasonable walk from home or work.

That’s what old-timers recall of the city before the car began destroying it.

I set about trying to create a lifestyle of ultimate convenience.

I found someone in the neighborhood to cut my hair, so I didn’t need to drive to Lawrenceville for a trim. I found a chiropractor in the neighborhood, so I stopped driving to Mt. Lebanon for adjustments. I found a veterinarian who makes house calls. All of my other doctors are either Downtown or at Allegheny General, easy walks from home and office. When the neighborhood Giant Eagle cleaned up its act, it became a better option. And then, of course, there’s the 16B, the 500, the 16F and the 54c for destinations in other neighborhoods.

(I say of course, but federal mass-transit policy is a recurring victim of the short-sightedness and self-interest of our so-called leaders.)

The last obstacles to giving up Goldie were to ask my Spanish teacher to come to me — I would supply the coffee — and to rely on friends to let me ride along for big grocery trips. Maybe I would offer them gas money. I would have to call on neighbors in emergencies requiring transport. (The Post-Gazette has cars I can take on assignment.)

The day I took out a classified ad to sell my piano and my bicycle — which doesn’t fit me — I threw the car in, too. It was mainly to test the water for the price I wanted. I didn’t expect 15 callers in two days, some of them quite insistent potential suitors of Goldie. No one tried to bargain.

On April 28, I went with a father and daughter from Beaver County to transfer Goldie into the daughter’s name. Her father handed me cash and dropped me off at my house afterward. I carried in my old license plate and set it in the box of remains that I had cleared from the car, including my lucky rubber monkey that had hung from the rear-view mirror.

Outside the front window, street lights bathed the neighbors’ cars and the space where Goldie had been. She was truly not there. I had cut myself off from that glorious American convention.

The car, beyond the false allure of independence, is part of who we are, and at my core, I love self-guided transport, having been raised in the day when ads sang for us to see the USA in a Chevrolet.

I closed the front door, took Dire Straits’ CD “On Every Street” from the box and popped it in the tray. “Heavy Fuel” kicked on, reminding me of what great car music that CD is. It sounds great in the house, too. I turned it up.

The hardest part of remaining car-less would not be the inconvenience as much as a lack of options. Options, the spice of life. I committed my brain to overcoming lust for options.

Sometime in late July, I have to decide whether to buy the 2001 Toyota Camry my mother would sell me for a good price at no interest, or cede it to another lucky beneficiary of her impeccable care of things.

What would it be like to go through the forseeable future — far beyond July, maybe from now on — with no car?

Not needing car insurance would be nice. Not having to pay the state $36 for a thumbnail license plate sticker would be nice. No new tires, no snow tires, no paying to have them switched. No inspection fees. No oil changes, tune-ups or repairs. What’s the price of gas now? Is it $4 yet? When it’s $5, $6, $7.99, will I want a car? A fill-up will cost more than $100 soon.

When I told my mother last weekend that, by the way, I sold the Volvo, she actually gasped — the kind of windpipe-sucking sound mothers make when their kids fall out of trees.

“What will you do?” she asked. It was almost a wail.

She knew how little I drove, but that wasn’t the point. The gasp was a comment about being without and being stranded.

She had driven up for a visit from Clarksburg, W.Va., mainly to go to a store they don’t have in Clarksburg. I took Mother on her errand and about 12 of my own, wondering as I steered the smooth 7-year-old Camry — wishing it were a Prius — “Will I really be able to tell her, ‘Get the best price you can. I’ll walk, cadge rides from friends, hop the bus and rent a car at Christmas.’?”

I guess I’ll find out. Meanwhile, I’m keeping a log on the lessons, follies and savings of a carless life for a report on The Forum section’s Next Page in August.
First published on May 24, 2008 at 12:00 am