http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/134345192_parkit23m.html The Seattle Times: Local News: Sunday, September 23, 2001 - 12:51 a.m. Pacific
Road less traveled pays off for some local car owners By Janet I. Tu Seattle Times staff reporter In a city known for the number of cars crowding its streets and freeways, the O'Donnells did something almost unthinkable. They decided to give up a family car. Nick O'Donnell and his wife, Sydney Cheek O'Donnell, agreed not to use their second car for six weeks as part of a city of Seattle program to reduce automobile use. Now, the Capitol Hill couple are so pleased by the experiment they've decided to sell their 1988 Plymouth Voyager. "I learned we really did not need two cars," said Nick O'Donnell, an actor who works for United Way of King County. His wife is a graduate student at the University of Washington. "The fact that I was paying attention to how I was getting around made it more fun." The O'Donnells and 22 other couples took part in the second round of Way to Go, a pilot program offering families financial incentives and information to help them rethink the way they use their cars. Results of the program were released at a news conference at City Hall yesterday. Way to Go participants got $25 a week for the first three weeks, during which they still used their cars and kept a travel diary on how they got around. Then, they gave up using their cars for six weeks, for which they received $85 a week - the national average cost of owning and operating a second car. In the second round of the program, which took place May through July, most families found they spent only $21 a week getting around without their extra car, according to program manager Jemae Hoffman. Participants, who kept diaries of what transportation they used, walked, rode the bus, biked, carpooled, took taxis and tried FlexCar. The 23 families made nearly 200 fewer car trips - about 1,250 miles total - during the study. At the program's end, six participants were thinking of selling their extra car, two were trying to sell it, and two had already sold it. One of the couples who sold was Richard Kielbowicz and Linda Lawson of Hawthorne Hills, both UW employees, who sold their 1983 Toyota Tercel. They figure they're saving an average of $48 a week by taking the bus or walking. "We had thought about (giving up the second car)," Kielbowicz said. "But we just needed something to trigger it, to act." The city is applying for a federal grant to do a third demonstration round next year, which would include extending participation to 12 weeks, and creating "how to" packages for other cities that have inquired about the program. Not everyone involved, though, decided they could do without a car. Vera Nevue, a single mother in West Seattle with a 12-year-old boy and 8-year-old girl, got involved because she had been thinking about not replacing her only car when it died. But "I found it very hard," she admitted. The hardest parts, Nevue found, were catching the bus in time to pick up her children from day care, and shorter trips within a two- to three-mile radius of her home. The bus system, which gets her downtown to work fairly easily, isn't as convenient for trips to the library or the beach, she said. "I concluded I valued a car very much more than I thought I would," Nevue said. Still, "I concluded I didn't need a minivan. I really just needed something to get the three of us a few miles." When her 1992 Plymouth Voyager dies, she says, she will probably replace it with a smaller, more fuel-efficient model. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Get your FREE credit report with a FREE CreditCheck Monitoring Service trial http://us.click.yahoo.com/MDsVHB/bQ8CAA/ySSFAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Please do NOT send "unsubscribe" messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
