This will be one of my more difficult posts to write because it essentially admits defeat to a challenge I posed to myself: living car-free in the South Bay.

In February of 2025, I finally caved and started leasing a car. I had lived 497 days without having my own personal vehicle in the South Bay.

It took me some time to accept it because everyone told me this would happen and I adamantly resisted! The decision to admit defeat hinged on the fact that there was no way to “win” what was essentially a geographical and land use issue.

My existence in the Bay (and the 7+ million people who live here) is spread across an area the size of a small country. I live in Palo Alto and work in the neighbouring suburb of Mountain View. I frequent San Francisco for its arts, culture and creative opportunities. I visit the coast for its recreational amenities (See Bybrompton Bus trip to El Granada | Offprint). I visit many friends who live in Oakland (See Bybrompton Weekend Transit Hacking: Peninsula to...). Getting between these destinations can take more than an hour which makes doing multiple things on the same day challenging, A quick dinner with friends or an evening movie after work becomes a test of physical and mental energy.

The issue is exacerbated by an inadequate transit system that doesn’t do justice to the vastness of the Bay. Transit systems are not integrated with each other, do not go enough places and often have reliability issues.

The bicycle helps fill in some of the gaps left by the poor transit. For example, my previously mentioned Peninsula to Oakland Transit Hacking, Bybrompton Shopping Cart Mode | Offprint or the large number of Caltrain users who bring their bikes on board) but it is at best a crutch for not having frequent, fast and useful last mile-connections via the bus.

Below I’ll explain some of the reasons my partner and I decided to succumb to the pressure of getting a car. In reality, by the time we were seriously considering it, our car-free life had got progressively more difficult anyways.

A key way to avoid acquiring your own car in the Bay Area, is to (ironically) have access to one via car or ride sharing. We were finding that these options (Lyft and Zipcar in particular) were not as good as when we first arrived.

The gradual decline of our Zipcar

While looking for a place to live in Palo Alto, one of the main criteria we had was to ensure we could support a car-free lifestyle. That meant access to Caltrain and to be within walking distance of the downtown shops and a grocery store. We were also lucky that the apartment had a shared ZipCar lot that was a 5 minute walk away. We relied on this Zipcar lot to travel to places that transit couldn’t take us and we needed the flexibility of having our own vehicle. We’d often take the car to the East Bay to visit friends or to Half Moon Bay for cycling along the coast.

However, after about a year of using ZipCar, the cars started having reliability and availability issues. Sometimes we’d wake up to find that our booking had been switched to a car across town. Eventually the lot nearest to us closed down and we were spending over 15 minutes walking to the next closest ZipCar. This eliminated having an easy and convenient way to get a car when needed.

Last mile problems

While transit was sometimes an option, a lot of destinations were quite far from BART and Caltrain stations, requiring us to transfer to a bus, Muni (tram) or take rideshare. While I generally had no problems taking a bus or the Muni, they are slow and can be indirect. I was usually looking at an additional 30-45 minutes to get to my final destination after getting off at the BART or Caltrain station. Sometimes this time penalty meant arriving physically drained or giving up on the trip all together.

Crossing the bay

Many destinations actually had no transit alternatives. The one that irked me the most was the lack of any reliable transit across the Dumbarton Bridge which connects the Peninsula with East Bay. During rush hour the Dumbarton Express was unreliable and didn’t even have live tracking. Once, the bus was so delayed (and impossible to track) that I gave up and booked an Uber. Just as I was waiting for the rideshare, the blue bus appeared in the distance. The Dumbarton Express is also not a direct ride to Union City BART, it stops at the Ardenwood Park and Ride which is a significant detour (Note: there is no claim being made here about the utility of the stop itself, just the significant time penalty).

On the weekend the Dumbarton Express does not even run! The last mile problem turned into a 14.5 mile problem. Eventually, our East Bay excursions involved getting a rideshare between Union City BART and our home in Palo Alto across the Dumbarton Bridge.

Night time transit

I was frequently out-and-about around the Bay at night: I was taking improv classes in San Francisco that ended at 10PM and out grabbing dinner with friends in the East Bay. At night the frequencies and transfer timings are not good enough to make it home reasonably quickly. The difference between catching the 10:15 PM and the 11:15 PM train often came down to a literal sprint from my improv class (ended at 10PM) to the bus stop. Missing that connection meant getting home after midnight. Similarly, I remember a late night in Berkeley and where I realized too late that I had missed the last reasonable BART/Caltrain transfer at Millbrae. The choice at that point was to wait longer on the Millbrae platform or bail and take a Lyft.

Even when I chose to stay within my own neighbourhood and take some classes at the Palo Alto Art Center, I had to walk in the dark, on sidewalks that ended unpredictably, to catch the once-an-hour bus that did not have any lights inside.

We found ourselves depending on Lyft more and more to fill in these gaps where transit was not viable or convenient. The costs of these (now more frequent) rides were still not as high as the average car ownership but I was finding it increasingly uncomfortable to be driven by a stranger on the highway for hours.

The car experience so far

So… we finally did it. We got the car and drove it home. On that drive home I was worried that I was going to be driving more, becoming too cushy such that I would no longer want to bike or transit places. Thankfully, this fear did not materialize.

Our initial apartment was so well located that we did not need to drive for our daily needs (grocery, pharmacy, post office, library). It highlighted, for me, the importance of movements around 15 minute cities and transit oriented developments. I actually had my needs met within 15 mins of me. Other driving distances were long enough and traffic was annoying enough that I still frequently biked and took the train. The car actually replaced many ZipCar and Rideshare trips and of course all East Bay activities.

One way that things did change for us was increasing “park and ride”. We could park the car at the Palo Alto Caltrain station to hop on the train to the city and when we returned we would avoid a late-night 15 minute walk in the dark. It showed me the benefit of having a park-and-ride when last-mile public and active transport connections were lacking.

Similarly, we could “park and ride” our bikes: park somewhere easy and bike to our final destination to avoid parking troubles. For example, I visited Carmel-by-the-Sea recently and packed the trunk with beach equipment and the bikes. We parked away from the beach and rode the bikes down to find the perfect spot without needing to battle beach traffic.

How the Costs Actually Broke Down.

While estimates put car ownership at $14,000 per year, I was able to keep my costs to about half that. Given that I do not drive it as much, charging, parking and insurance costs have also quite low. What was particularly striking is when I framed the costs in the context of all my prior four-wheeled expenses (Zipcar, Avis car rentals, Uber, tolls). I was definitely paying about $2,000 more and I was paying for time savings, access to un-transitable destinations and overall peace-of-mind mainly at night!

Unfortunately, the car did replace some of our transit trips especially given that many costs of the car have been already paid upfront (insurance, lease payment, charging/fuel). For example, a trip to Oakland for two on a Sunday (where parking is free) only incurs a toll of $8 while a round trip on Caltrain + BART could be up to $60 (Note: Clipper 2.0 makes this $20 cheaper!). Another example is a 3-hour stay at the Japantown SFMTA garage on a weekday night is only $9 which is $2.40 cheaper than if two people took the Muni to the garage (Two-way Clipper-discounted fare for two totals to $11.40). Parking on main streets like Clement and Valencia become free after 6PM and are free on Sundays. If someone already owned a car, or was able to acquire a cheap car, the lower price would easily outweigh the inconvenient hodge-podge of Zipcar, Rideshare, Avis that I was doing before.

The challenge lives on!

After writing this post, I realized that it is possible to live car-free in the Bay Area depending on your lifestyle: In particular, if your life revolved around one or two parts of the Bay that were relatively well connected, and occasionally have access to a car share or rental.

However, we should not accept the current state of affairs as permanent. Advocacy groups like Seamless Bay Area and Transbay Coalition are advocating for world-class transit systems the Bay Area deserves. In 2026, Bay Area voters have an opportunity to vote for a transit Measure to maintain funding for and improve the quality of the existing transit system. Learn how to get involved.

I had to concede that the place I lived did not support the lifestyle I wanted to live. However, I have not abandoned the ambition to bike and transit as much as possible. It has made me more creative about how to use all the modes of transport available to me. I plan to continue writing more posts here about Brompton and transit life adventures!