Getting Around Car-Free
Meet Chalida Anusasananan and TR Amsler, who have been living car-free for much of their adult life and while raising their children. As demonstrated in their story, getting around without a car in daily life allows for regular and satisfying connection with one’s place and is very doable with experience and the right conditions. This post is part of my Profiles in Living Connected to Place series that portrays individuals living connected to place with intention and the support of systems that make it possible. Prior posts can be found here.
Chalida Anusasananan and TR Amsler have been in San Francisco for over twenty years. Both are teachers in the city’s school district and have lived in the same flat since 2006 with their two kids.
Chalida grew up in the San Francisco suburbs. Her dad had emigrated from Thailand to pursue the American dream of a house, yard, and car in the driveway. He met Chalida’s mom, a third-generation Chinese immigrant, and they married and bought the home where they raised Chalida and her sister. TR spent his childhood in the country outside Syracuse, New York, where driving a car was the only viable transportation mode. Like many children in the United States, Chalida and TR grew up riding in a car for nearly all family trips.
When Chalida studied abroad during college in Mexico and then Spain and Hong Kong, she discovered communities where you could walk anywhere you needed to go, day or night. Following college, TR began working for an environmental organization in a rural area, driving a lot. The bitter irony of working to improve the environment yet generating so many personal car emissions troubled TR. He soon decided he would live in cities from then on.
Chalida and TR met in the early 2000s. They shared many interests, including wanting to live without cars, and soon married. Except during a brief stint in Thailand, they have never owned a car.
Their daily commutes are human-powered. Chalida walks to the high school where she works, a few blocks away from their home, and TR bikes to the high school where he teaches, a couple of miles away. Their youngest child walks to and from school in the neighborhood while their older child takes the bus to his high school in another neighborhood.
Living without a car has become their way of life. As TR puts it, “We’ve always defined our life by how far we go using our feet.” They walk or bike to the grocery and other stores, doctor offices, cafes, restaurants, theaters, museums, cultural events, and their children’s sporting events while getting exercise and a mental boost. They even get a Christmas tree every year from a market a few blocks away and carry it home on a dolly or stroller.
Accessible transit helps make it possible for TR and Chalida not to own a car. They can walk to a transit station serving the city’s light rail system and the regional subway. They’ve also taken their bikes on a public ferry to camp on an island in the bay and at another campground in the north bay.
Both their children bike. Their son rides his bicycle around the city with friends, including across town to the beach. Biking in the city is more challenging for their younger daughter, as some streets are too busy with cars or have unprotected bike lanes often occupied by double-parked cars. She feels safer in protected and raised bike lanes. When the city streets had less car traffic during the COVID-19 pandemic, it felt much safer for someone her age.
While traveling by foot or bike, they discover what Chalida describes as “many beautiful places around the city and [how] taking time to notice these things provides mental decompression.” She adds, “When we bike and walk, we talk and have fun together.” They’ve saved money without car expenses and are glad they don’t get stuck in car traffic or waste time searching for parking in the city. Living car-free provides joy and has never felt like a sacrifice.
As TR and Chalida’s story demonstrates, walkable neighborhoods, bike infrastructure, and transit access make living without a car possible and add to the quality of life. Transportation systems, including land use and cultural components, around the country must become less car-oriented to make this possible for more people.