Know What I Don’t Need? A Car.

I haven’t owned a car since high school. I haven’t needed one. It’s been nice, because the combined cost of gas and insurance would render me much poorer than I had previously imagined.

In college, my campus had an awesome public transportation system, and everything you ever needed to do was within a mile of where you were so if there wasn’t a bus coming within the next five minutes, you could always walk and get there in the same amount of time.

In Chicago – we have the CTA, with eight train lines and over a hundred bus routes. And if you’re coming in from the ‘burbs, there are a number of Metra lines that will get you into the Loop. I’ve lived in Chicago Proper since 2007 and have never owned a car during that time. But sometimes…I need a car.

Sometimes, I need to pick someone up from Midway at a time later than the Orange Line runs. If I want to take my weird little dog to the beach – I can’t walk her there – it’s much too far away. And it’s not unheard of for me to buy more groceries than can fit in my hands. There’s no way I’m going to go to Petco on the bus and carry a 40lb bag of dog food home in my hands. And sometimes I need to go to Target and blow through my entire paycheck in items that are larger than I can personally carry on the Addison bus – like a new floor rug.

Don’t judge me.

For instances like these – I depend on ZipCar. And my roommate is a huge fan of its more eco-friendly (and local non-profit business) counterpart, I-Go. Both are hourly car rental companies that allow their members to reserve a car for a few hours, or a whole day. They have a variety of membership plans that vary in cost based on how much driving an individual plans to do, and include basic insurance for all drivers. Also included? – gas. And that little i- thinger that lets you drive on the tollway without having to search for $3.50 in change or however much it costs to drive on the Kennedy these days.

My friend and I rented a Honda Element from I-Go last year to move his furniture and it was huge enough to hold a couch, relatively inexpensive, and when we realized we’d need the car for more time than we had reserved it, all it took was a phone call to the office and we bought ourselves more time with it.

As I mentioned earlier, I-Go is a local, not-for-profit organization that stocks its fleet with environmentally friendly cars that get amazing gas mileage or are hybrid. They’re placed all over the city and are well-maintained and generally inexpensive.

I’ve been using ZipCar since November of 2008 and have had exactly zero problems with renting a car or with any of the cars I’ve rented. Nicer still, ZipCar is a national organization – so if I ever find myself in Philly or Atlanta, I can sign up to rent a car THERE too at a much cheaper rate than if I called a more traditional rental company. Also, ZipCar stocks a much larger variety of cars – which is kind of nice if you had intended to go out and purchase a particular car back in the day when you actually had disposable income – instead of having legit payments on this car that you wanted to own in the first place, you can just borrow it when you need it and never have to pay for its gas.

Also, here’s an anecdote about how ZipCar saved me from my own idiocy this weekend:

I rented a car to go play in the suburbs and run errands, and when I returned it to its designated spot, I left my house keys inside the damn car and failed to realize this until arriving at my house. And then I had a stroke because that’s what I do when it’s 30 degrees out and I’m locked out of my house because I should probably have all the important things in my life stapled to my person and I have failed to do so.

So I got on the phone to ZipCar and they informed me that the car I had just left had been rented out, but that the current renter of the car had found my keys and left them in the glovebox.

Long story short, the representatives at ZipCar were sympathetic to my idiocy and entirely willing to help me get into the car so that I could then get into my house. And I was and am thankful, because it was later on a Sunday, and I could have easily been out of luck in a big way. So…thanks for saving my butt, ZipCar. I owe you one.

So. To live in Chicago, you don’t need a car. There is absolutely no reason for you to own a vehicle and have to pay for plates, city stickers, parking permits, gas, and insurance in this city. Especially with the wealth of public transportation we have here. But in the event that you need to borrow a car, you’ve got options. And that’s awesome.

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