To be clear, the daily commute here is “Trains, Planes & Automobiles” to say the least – I walk, bus, train and then streetcar to work… on a good day when all modes are flowing with no waits, it can be 35-40 minutes to work… on a bad day, it can be over an hour with waits. Today going to work was 50 minutes and $0 cost. Tonight, I grabbed a LimeBike bikeshare in lieu of the streetcar and 60 minutes later was home via subsequent train, bus and then walk in the rain.

Total transportation cost today for Limebike: $1.90

Overcast grey Seattle weather had me contemplating a bike-share this a.m. but yesterday’s experience with JUMP! ‘s newer bright red bikes in the area made me think again after multiple phone scans yesterday and the bike failing to unlock. #Frustration!

To be clear, LimeBike doesn’t have these issues in my experience but the overcast weather turned to a light drizzle and I remembered Lime has recently introduced their newer car-share “LimePod” using Fiat 500’s. I easily located one nearby in the LimeBike app, had to play with locating it via audible horn honks and after scanning my license, doors unlocked and I was off! Oh what fun!… The Fiat 500 is a tiny car but oh so nimble. It even has a sunroof, a cell phone holder and charging cables! Not to mention these Fiats are so tiny that you can shoehorn yourself into virtually any parallel parking spot. I literally parked and locked the car with a grin on my face… admittedly, costs for these cars are 2.67x the cost of the e-Bikes and 21 mins of driving amounted to $9.80*.

*My intent is to document all alternative transportation costs here to compare to traditional owning/leasing a vehicle.

Here we go!… last night dropped off our leased vehicle of 39 months with some trepidation and joy and grabbed an Uber home.

I say “joy” as the old joke that driving our Italian designed car was like dating an emotional high-strung Latin drama queen more than held true for me. The vehicle’s quirky electronics, being left stranded at the side of the road one dark stormy night and numerous trips to the garage left a simmering hatred for that car despite the odometer reading just over 25,000 miles as it was finally turned in to the auto dealer.

I also say “trepidation” as this is my first time in 20 years being “car-less”. I’ve had a car since I was 16 and it’s part of my life fabric having grown up in a rural area where if you didn’t have a car, you didn’t have a social life. However, now with Seattle’s numerous alternatives to owning a car proliferating… bike-share, ride-share, car-share, Uber, Lyft and of course Metro… why wouldn’t we at least try to see if we could live without a car?

And we’re off!…

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton