Without a car

In which cities ( beside London ) is possible to live in without a car even if you have children?  How much do you actually drive if you live in a city? Owning a car is so expensive I am wondering if it is worth it?

In which cities ( beside London ) is possible to live in without a car even if you have children?  How much do you actually drive if you live in a city? Owning a car is so expensive I am wondering if it is worth it?

I think it would depend on where you live in the city in question.  If you're near public transport and everything is close by you'll be ok.

I lived in Manchester and there were lots of trains/buses to get around on. It's been my experience that most major cities in the UK have great public transportation.

In which cities ( beside London ) is possible to live in without a car even if you have children?  How much do you actually drive if you live in a city? Owning a car is so expensive I am wondering if it is worth it?

It's not really that expensive, is it?  
£115.00 a year if it's a car with an engine size less than 1600
Petrol is dear, at approx £1.00 per litre, but if you're only going round the shops, taking your kids to school, etc, and have an economical car, it's not going to be that bad.
Insurance -- i suppose it depends on your driving record.   I only pay £27 per month for mine.
Car loan repayments -- you dont have to have an expensive car.   Brand new cars can be as cheap as £6000 -- secondhand little run-arounds can be around £1000.

But aye, if you feel that is expensive, then I recommend Glasgow as a city with fantastic public transport.   Dont know what it's like if you have kids, but i lived there for 10 years without a car and never felt i was sacrificing.

You could join a car club - see: http://www.whizzgo.co.uk/

I live in York.  We have a car, but since parking is around 10 pounds/ day, I either take Park and Ride buses (3.00 roundtrip, kids free) or walk in (1/2 hr walk one way).  I love to walk, and have invested in a buggy board and raincover for the pushchair.  We take my daughter to school in the car (until she can ride her bike) and we walk to pick her up (again about 1/2 hr walk one way). I walk with a friend so the time passes very quickly.
Very do-able in York.

You're certainly fine without a car in (certain parts of) Manchester. And plenty of people don't have a car in Cambridge and Ely. Especially if you get a folding bike, then you can get on the train / bus / coach and then go a few miles to wherever your destination is.

Hi there,
I'd put forward the suggestion that all cities, towns and to an extent, villages have accessible public transport. Of course, the services in the cities are going to be more frequent but around local small towns and villages there's a more than adequate service/provision.
I think it's only once you move out into the countryside that you really start to 'need' a car in comparision to public transport services.

It's also impossible to tell or compartmentalise 'do you need a car if you have small children' - I know and have seen plenty of families and single mums etc who don't have a car and seem to be functioning very well, others who have small older runabout cars and yet others with the latest BMW's and Porsche SUV's - it really comes down to your individual requirements and lifestyle - a car more than likely won't 'just' be used to ferry the kids around and buy groceries, you'll probably want to use it for socialising, visiting and holidays, possibly commuting, and maybe leisure activities etc - you need to look at the complete potential scenario you'll be in.

As already mentioned, you can pick up an older decent runabout for peanut money (I've been to car auctions and seen road legal cars sold off to £25 ! - they do need work of course, but hey, had some road tax left and some petrol and with an MOT certificate!) but usually 'cheapo' cars will set you back at least £200-500 for which you can get a perfectly useable car.

which area or city, town, village are you considering to live in?

Cheers, DtM! West London & Slough UK!

I agree with Dennis - I think most places are workable without a car unless you're out in the country. But public transport can be very expensive. A round trip BUS journey to work for me is just over £4 but I wouldn't spend £20 a week in petrol if I drove every day....

The other thing to consider is your freedom. I was so much happier once I finally conquered my fear of driving here - suddenly I could go wherever I wanted, by myself, whenever I felt like it.

Getting a car is the best thing I've done since moving here (we're in Newcastle, which has excellent transport links, and I started driving after 3.5 years here) -- it's so nice to be able to go buy big stuff without having to either lug it on the bus/metro or pay for it to be delivered.  We can go see friends who live 15 minutes away without having to go on a 50-minute bus ride.  We can go out on the spur of the moment without consulting timetables.  We can go grocery shopping and buy as much as we want without having to think about how much we can carry home, paying to have it delivered, or having to get a taxi.  We can go out with friends and not be the weirdos who always need to ask for a ride. 

It's really not that expensive to drive -- our car cost less than £4000 (a 2003 automatic with less than 30k miles), my insurance is about £30/month, road tax is £120 or so every 6 months, and I pay about £40/month for petrol.  In the long run, I'm sure it's more expensive than taking public transport, but the freedom is priceless. 

I'm also one of those who said she'd never have a child until she had a car.  No way.

I'm in Belfast and it's certainly possible to get by in the city without a car. Personally, I wouldn't want to do it with children, but there are plenty of people who do.

Traveling around the country is another thing entirely, and that's where I would really love to have a car. Plus, public transport gets very iffy on Sundays and holidays. So while it's been a good experience going carless for a while, I'm looking forward to having one again, although I would prefer to not be completely reliant on it.

I agree with Dennis and Anne- I think you can get by in most cities and towns in the UK without a car.  I lived in Manchester quite happily without a car and it was easy to get where I needed to go on public transport.  I live in Sheffield now and it's the same story here.  

However, I'm looking to buy a car sometime within the next two years, partly because commuting by bus is not much fun if you're not going somewhere convenient like the city center. My job is out in a residential area about 4 miles from my house...it takes me an hour to get to work on two buses.  By car it would be 15 minutes max even in traffic.  And there's the conveniences that Lola mentioned- that's definitely a perk to having a car that I'm looking forward to eventually.  

I pay about £90/month to commute on public transport...a car might be a bit more than that, but I think it would be worth it to save me hours of time and shorten my commute.

You could join a car club - see: http://www.whizzgo.co.uk/

Seconded. We live in central London so we don't need a car very often at all, but on the occasions we do (like B&Q and Costco stocking up, or visiting relatives on Christmas day), Streetcar have been fantastic. It's very easy and we've got about four locations within walking distance to us (one has a van, too!) and it works our way cheaper than renting one normally or even owning an old car. My boyfriend is a huge petrolhead and even he raves on and on about Streetcar to anyone who'll listen!

It's not really that expensive, is it?  
£115.00 a year if it's a car with an engine size less than 1600

I'm with you on this! Don't tell me how much a petrol is. I want to know how much you spend a month on the stuff. I know a cop who travels to work 110 miles each way, that is 220 miles round trip and he probably pays $2.97 a gallon for fuel. The bottom line is how much do you pay during a period for fuel.

It costs between £30 and £35 to fill our car up and I fill it up about every week and a half. That gets both of us to work and back plus the odd trip to see friends or go to the grocery store. If I have to drive between sites for work I might fill up once a week but I get paid a reasonably good rate for mileage at work....