Is it possible to live without a car? Why some Americans are going car-free

Owning a car isn’t cheap.

Auto insurance costs are up more than 50% over the past four years. New vehicles jumped 20% in that time. Driving is getting costlier too, with gas prices averaging above $3.50 and maintenance costs up because of labor shortages and the shift to more computerized vehicles.

Altogether, owning a new car costs about $12,000 a year, according to one estimate from AAA. It’s enough for some Americans to call it quits on driving altogether. 

“I would rather use that (monthly car payment) to take vacations,” said Dan Ekenberg, a semiretired website designer based in Boise, Idaho.

Ekenberg, 64, said he has been an avid cyclist for most of his life, and he sold his truck in summer 2021 after figuring he could save money by biking. He came close to buying a vehicle this year for longer weekend drives, going as far as to get financing preapproved, but he canceled the order. 

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When car shopping, “I wasn't looking for anything extravagant. In fact, the simpler, the better,” he told USA TODAY. “Even though it was ‘affordable,’ I still just decided, looking at the financing, monthly payment, the insurance – that's money I don't need to spend.”  

About 8% of U.S. households don’t own a vehicle, and nearly a third of the population doesn’t have a driver’s license. Some are too young or too old to drive. Some have disabilities that don’t allow them to be behind a wheel, or don’t have the financing to purchase or maintain a vehicle. But others have voluntarily joined a “car-free” movement and say owning a vehicle isn’t worth the money, emissions or hassle. 

The push for alternative transportation

Reducing car use has been a growing priority for some policymakers.  

Some states offer tax incentives to boost the sale of electric bikes, or e-bikes – a popular car alternative in the car-free community. Colorado, which launched the country’s first statewide electric bicycle tax credit in April, has had about 6,700 e-bike rebates redeemed as of July 8, according to data from APTIM, the state’s administrator for the program. 

“Transportation is the leading source of greenhouse gas pollution in Colorado, making low-emissions alternatives to cars particularly important to achieve our pollution reduction goals,” said Will Toor, executive director of the state’s energy office at a news conference in March.  

The Los Angeles Department of Transportation and LA Metro in 2022 launched a pilot program that provides up to $1,800 a year in subsidies for eligible transportation like rail, bus, rideshare, bikeshare and more.

Certain companies are also advocating for “car-light” living. Uber introduced its “One Less Car” trial in the U.S. last month and said the company would offer selected participants $1,000 to avoid using their personal vehicle for five weeks. Other companies offer subsidies to cover the cost of public transportation fares. 

Still, few Americans are ditching their cars voluntarily.

Census data on car-free households suggests the number of U.S. households with no vehicles has been relatively stable, fluctuating 8% to 8.6% from 2018 to 2022. Most of those households are below the poverty line.

"A very small percentage of those without cars truly make that choice," said Evelyn Blumenberg, an urban planning professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, national public transit ridership numbers are down, with rates about 75% of pre-pandemic numbers.

And while e-bike sales have taken off – the Department of Energy estimates 1.1 million e-bikes were sold in the U.S. in 2022, almost four times as many as in 2019 – it’s not clear how many of those bikes are replacing cars as the owner’s main mode of transportation. 

It’s hard to tell how many people are giving up cars for e-bikes, said John MacArthur, the sustainable transportation program manager at Portland State University's Transportation Research and Education Center.

Jacob Rex, 27 of Morgantown, West Virginia, purchased an e-bike after giving up on a used Subaru Outback he bought when the car was nearly 20 years old. The electric bike move came after he depleted his savings to get the Subaru, then needed a $6,000 loan to fix it after an engine failure.

“For me to be able to afford the lifestyle that I want, and a car, and everything else, is just not possible,” he said. 

The challenges of living without a car

People who spoke to USA TODAY acknowledge living without a car isn’t always easy. Depending on location, they battle poor weather, a lack of access to reliable public transportation and poor bicycle infrastructure.

Jordan Steen, 31 of Los Angeles, has been without a car since January 2022. Though he enjoys not having to pay for gas or worry about traffic, he says the car-free life can make travel to certain parts of town “tough.” Public transportation can be inconsistent, he said, and there are times he finds himself biking next to cars going 50 mph, the only barrier between them a “little bit of paint” on the road guiding traffic. 

More than 1,100 bicyclists were killed in crashes in 2022, a record since the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration started tracking annual bicyclist fatalities in 1975.

Infrastructure has “definitely improved since I was a kid,” Steen said. “But I think that's the hardest part. The weather is great. The city is not super-hilly. It’s really nice to be outside. It’s a city of people who want to be outside. But I don't blame people for not feeling safe enough to bike everywhere.”

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Most don’t. About three-fourths of Americans take a car, truck or van to work, compared with 3% who use public transportation and 0.5% who bike, according to 2022 Census data. 

That’s largely because of infrastructure. For most U.S. households, a car may be the only feasible way to get to work, groceries and medical care.

"We have created an urban environment around the automobile, with a few exceptions, in the U.S.," UCLA's Blumenberg said. "It makes it very difficult for most households to be car-free."

Car ownership has also been associated with a greater likelihood of finding and retaining employment, according to a 2014 study from the Urban Institute, a Washington-based research organization focused on upward mobility and equity.

Ten years after the report's publication, little has changed, according to co-author Blumenberg.

"The accessibility advantages of having an automobile are just so, so great in most areas," she said.

Why ditch your car?

Gloria Falco, a retired private investigator, said she gave up her car two years ago after struggling with chronic fatigue from Lyme disease. While her beach town on Florida’s Space Coast isn’t rated high for walkability, the 67-year-old said she has been able to get around just fine on foot and with the help of rideshare apps. 

Meanwhile, she has been able to save money and improve her health. 

“If you're somebody who hates Uber, Lyft, you're not going to be very comfortable at first. But everything gets easier,” she said.

Rex, of West Virginia, said biking on local trails has boosted his mental health and made him more connected to his community. And without worrying about traffic, he said, his commute is shorter than his co-workers’ when they get stuck in traffic. 

But the biggest perk, he said, is the money he saves.

“I have a real savings account now. I'm saving for retirement. I'm saving for international travel,” he said. 

Others, like Jenna Phillips, value the social aspect of biking. Phillips – who shares her car-free life in Portland with 43,000 followers on TikTok – said she often runs into friendly faces during her trips because she’s “physically out there on my bike and not hidden behind tinted windows of a car.” 

It’s a strong selling point for biking, especially as the U.S. surgeon general warns of individual and societal health risks from the country’s loneliness epidemic.

'I wish it was easier'

As much as some Americans love ditching their cars, it doesn’t always last. 

Carson Wood, 29, a software developer, enjoyed his time without a car from 2021 to 2023 while living in Arlington, Virginia. Not driving helped offset the city’s higher cost of living, reduced his carbon footprint and meant he didn’t have to worry about parking. 

But when he moved to Baltimore last year to help care for his mom, he wound up buying another car.  

“I wish it was easier,” he said. “It spurred in me, politically, to try to support building more infrastructure, building more walkable areas as much as we can.”

Rex says that as much as he enjoys his car-free life, it may not last forever.

Rex is saving up for a used Toyota Prius as soon as next spring. The car would allow him to more easily take part in what recreational West Virginia has to offer, like whitewater kayaking.

“I’m missing out on more of that than I’m comfortable with,” he said, adding the caveat that “I may have too much pride to go back” to owning a car.