Not Quite Ready to Live Without 4-Wheels

Getting around Seattle is fairly convenient if you live close to a bus line.  Walking is another option, but really only favorable on days without rain.  Sure, you can bribe friends with coffee and gas money to let you borrow their car or drive you places, but that is a tedious task that often doesn’t pan out.  I tend to fall on the side of walking.  Only on rare occasions do I catch someone who needs to go run errands and lets me tag along…in exchange for coffee, of course.

Now that the grey season is upon us, I am beginning to rely more heavily on a car-share program called Car2Go.  For those of you who don’t know what that is, it’s a program similar to Zip Car.  You sign up for an account and, once your driving record is verified, they send you a card with an RFID chip built in.  This is linked to a personal account and tracks the amount of time you spend in the car.  Car2go is extremely convenient for those of us without a car as your gas, insurance, and maintenance fees are all wrapped up into the bargain price of $0.35 per minute (more like $0.42 per minute with tax).

I love that you can reserve the car for 30-minutes before hand to give you ample walking time, and that they can be parked in any 2-hour parking spot within their defined city limits.  For Seattle, that goes out past North Seattle and as far south as the Georgetown neighborhood.  The best part - you don’t have to pay for parking! 

Pick a car, any car

When a Car2go isn’t available, I use the Uber of Lyft apps.  Both of these operate using a phone app – you enter your location, request a driver, and they pick you up.  You can see where the car is, a picture of the driver and their name, and the license plate number.  The apps track the trip and charges you at the end.  You can also rate the drivers.  Lyft is interesting in the way that they don’t automatically charge you.  Instead, they give you a suggested donation price at the end of the trip and you have 24-hours to make a payment and rate the driver.  Beware though – lowballing the drivers gives you a lower rating and you may not get picked up.

Lyft cars have cute, pink mustaches on the front to let you know that they are part of the program!

This is what the Uber app looks like. Similar to the Lyft app above!

Jimmy and I choose to get around Seattle very differently.  His way is really much more cost effective (and something I should adopt), but I’m not quite ready to give up the convenience of personal transportation!