It’s been just over a year since my husband and I gave up the luxury of each having our own car. I loved my little Toyota Corolla, and his VW Passat was nice for going on roadtrips. But we figured since we lived in a city with a pretty good bus system, the light rail which would be opening in December ’08, we have a handful of bikes between the 2 of us, and walking isn’t out of the question, it made sense to simplify down to one car. We lucked out and found a used ’06 Honda Civic Hybrid that had just appeared on the lot hours earlier, shocking to even the sales guy. This was just a few months before gas prices got totally ridiculous and hybrids were impossible to come by. Over the past year, there’s only really been 2 situations where it was frustrating to not have a car, and neither were life-threatening but more about impatience and the inconvenience of the situation. Those are things that can be worked through with a little zen yoga breathing, right? Trade in 2 cars and buy a hybrid, get the life lessons for free?

Fabulous thing about our Hybrid: since we were one of the (last of the) first 10,000 people to sign up for this special license plate program for hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles in AZ, we get to use the HOV lane even if there’s just one person in the car. Andy sometimes will pick up coworkers on his way in, but most of the time he’s solo, and cutting major time off his drive by taking the HOV lane and flying past morning traffic. I don’t know if other states are doing something like this, but saving time on your commute and special privileges in general can be a good motivator for some people to trade in their gas guzzlers for something more efficient!

So, part two of our smart transportation simplification came recently, near the end of March. Later this year my office will be moving a few miles away, too far to walk and unfortunately the light rail is nowhere nearby, and the buses aren’t direct or time-efficient enough. So while I’m excited to be getting an updated fully digital work studio in a shiny new place, getting to work becomes a daily dilemma. Solution: the most awesome bike I’ve ever seen. It’s the Ultramotor A2B, a fully electric bike that does 20 miles at 20mph on one 4 hour charge (it breaks down to about 5-10 cents per charge), and you don’t have to even pedal. But how could you not? It’s a beautiful bike that happens to be making it tolerable to bike in 100+ degree weather. 100% of the time that I am out riding it, I get asked about it. I love this bike and we happened to be the first people to buy one at The Urban Commuter in Tempe. It’s a bit pricy, but for us, it’s truly a replacement for a 2nd car… we just sucked it up for a year until finding this bike and decided it was the right fit for us! We had been researching our options and went to the shop only a week after they got it, and went back on my birthday to take it home. The timing worked out so nicely, I think it was just meant to be.

I’ve got a pretty strong independant streak. I like being able to get myself from A to B and not be tied to someone else’s schedule, if I don’t have to be. There’s a lot of things I enjoy doing on my own, just to have time to myself and unravel my brain a little after a long day. There were times when we just had the one car that I felt trapped at the house, because it was too hot for me to bike to Sprouts or Trader Joe’s and bring back groceries that wouldn’t melt or get funky in the Arizona sun, and I felt unproductive. With this bike, I’m not intimidated by temperature, and won’t be on death’s door after leaving the studio and picking up a few things for dinner in mid-August.

There’s a buzzword I haven’t meantioned yet. Wait, I did in the subject, does that really count? OK, so “green” is being attached to everything and is on half the blogs out there, but it can’t be avoided when talking about the hybrid car and electric bike in our garage. Being totally green with the bike was one of the important factors in choosing it over a scooter (anything with decent speed uses – minimal – gas.) But green isn’t a trendy choice for us. C’mon people, weren’t most of us raised with the 3 R’s – reduce, reuse, recycle? It has truly been a way of life, and given the opportunity to extend my beliefs into more of my actions, it just feels right to do it. It seems like if there’s public transportation that mostly goes where you need to go, and when it doesn’t, if you can wait til after business hours and now there’s the option of using the car, maybe having 2 cars is a luxury. So I can say that I don’t need a car to sit in a parking lot a few miles from my house when I could find a better (yes, greener) way to get there, and have the follow through to do something different… to make a positive choice in an eco-friendly way.