Widely knows as the “Bus Chick”, Carla Saulter is a writer and a mover-and-shaker when it comes to public transportation in the city. In 2003 she exchanged her car keys for a bus pass and has been living car-free ever since. Saulter writes about transit for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Grist and her blog; her picture graces the back of many Metro buses throughout the city; and she serves on the King County's Transit Advisory Committee and Regional Transit Task Force.

From being sacrifice to being a lifestyle choice, giving up a car has profoundly and positively changed her life. She even met her husband (the “bus nerd”) on the 545 bus to Redmond and together they’re raising two bus-riding babies.

BNT sat down with the Bus Chick to chat about the car-free lifestyle, the benefits and the challenges.

BNT: How did this transition to living car-free come about?

The transition from driving a car to becoming car-free came when I was living in West Seattle. I used to commute by car and one day I was stuck in traffic and it just dawned on me that I was part of the problem that’s creating the pollution and the sprawl. So I asked myself, ‘what can I do?’ and started taking the bus to work.

I rode the 545 to Redmond and there was this guy that I would see all the time.
There was just something about him and I wanted to know him.
Eventually, we met at a volunteer event where he introduced himself and I said, “oh yeah you ride my bus” so after that we started sitting together.

(This stranger would later become her husband.)

He was the first person I knew who consciously lived car-free. I had been feeling guilty about participating in the car-culture that’s so detrimental to our environment and I was inspired by him. It was something I wanted to do.
At first I thought of it as a sacrifice. I did car-sharing for a while and slowly got off that as well.
Now I think of it as a lifestyle choice and it has profoundly changed my life.

BNT: Have you ever thought about biking?

Yes, I would love to bike. I even took a class from Cascade Bicycle Club but I’m just too scared. I don’t feel confident in traffic especially now with two kids.
It doesn’t seem fair that we have to share the road with all those dangerous cars. Maybe if we had separate lanes or roads I would bike.
 But for most destinations under two miles I walk.

BNT: How do you deal with the unreliability of buses?

For one, I would never take a bus that would get me there two minutes before I have to get there, and I use my phone to see when the bus comes. 
It was different before I had kids. Then, I would just bring a book but now I have to entertain two little kids when we’re waiting for the bus.

Often I take a ride that I find excruciatingly slow. This can be frustrating and annoying, especially when you feel like you could walk the distance faster than the bus could travel it. East to West trip can be especially inconvenient. There are certain trips that Metro does better than others. Part of that is because Seattle Transit has always based transit around downtown. Neighborhood to Neighborhood it doesn’t do so well. And yes, I do limit my travel around the places it’s easy for me to get to. A bike would be a good supplement for those trips that transit doesn’t handle well.

I have learned to think of my car free life holistically, rather than simply within the confines of a single trip from A to B. That trip might take longer than it would in a car, but I justify it because: one, I can use the time -- reading to my kids or by myself, working, resting--some people knit or learn a language or whatever -- and two, I save time in other ways. I don't go to a gym. I don't spend time maintaining, parking, or filling up a car.


BNT: When you say car-free, what does that mean?

It means we do not own a vehicle. It doesn’t mean we don’t ever use a car. We go to Mt. Rainier once a year and when we transport things like a baby cradle, we rent a car. We used to use Flex car, now it’s Zip cars.

BNT: How do you deal with groceries?

That’s the question people ask me the most. When you don’t drive you have to consider where you live. We buy into Organic Produce Delivery from SPUD and we have a Co-Op nearby that I can walk to. And I know of lots of people who order from Amazon Fresh. And when we rent a car, we usually do a big run then. 
As the kids get older they’ll be able to carry stuff in their backpacks so we won’t have to do that as often.

BNT: How about longer trips?

When we went to the San Juan Islands we took a bus and then the ferry. When we go to Portland or Vancouver we take the train. Elsewhere we can just rent a car. Even when you rent cars you come out on top.

BNT: Is that the motivation behind living car free - to come out on top financially?

No not for me. My husband has never owned a car in his professional career and for him it was perhaps more about the money. When he came here from Detroit, his company gave him a rental for the first few weeks. When he realized how much money he saved by not owning a car, he decided he didn’t want to buy a car.


You think that a car is just payments and insurance but there are the fixes, new tires, oil changes. parking. It’s so much more than just payments. Even if you spent $300 a month on rentals, you still come out ahead. I spend probably around $50 a month on bus fare.

For me it was guilt. Guilt was my motivator because I’m from here and it’s so beautiful yet it’s being destroyed by sprawl. We’re cutting down trees and polluting the environment.
 I started realizing just how much an impact cars have on our lives. It’s a given that that is how we commute but it has made us unhealthy. It’s such a detrimental way to live.
The biggest way to make a difference for the environment is by driving less.

Plus, I definitely get more exercise because I walk more. When you look at child obesity, my daughter who’s three-years-old can walk a mile and a half by herself. She’s very fit because we walk everywhere.

BNT: When you had your children, did you take the bus to the hospital?

With my first child, they thought there were some complications because she was overdue. I wasn’t in labor yet so I took the bus. She rode her first bus trip when she was one day old.

For my second we called a cab because I was in labor.

You know you often think, what if I have an emergency? But once you realize there are options, not having a car is less scary. You can call a cab, an ambulance or rent a car.

BNT: Tell me about the safety of taking the bus.

The bus has a really bad rep when it comes to accidents. I can't stress enough how dangerous cars are. Buses are 8 times safer (in terms of traffic safety) than cars. 
Cars are the number one killer for US kids under the age of 18.

People often ask me: "Do you feel safe taking your kids on the bus?" but no one ever asks other parents if they feel safe taking their kids in cars, even though their kids are at far greater risk than mine.
 


Yes, it's true that there is sometimes crime  on buses and near bus stops, but there are also crimes in parking lots.
 Crime on buses is actually quite rare. Waiting on buses is a little scarier. For me, I always feel safe around people but there are times I come home late and I do feel a little scared. My husband always says “statistically speaking Seattle is a safe city” but that doesn’t make you feel safe.
We take normal safety precautions. We wait in safe areas, don't go out late at night, carry a phone, et cetera.

But we've had so many positive experiences on the bus. My kids make friends, learn how to interact with strangers, and learn to accept differences. And because we're out in our community so much, we've gotten to know people. Seeing familiar faces at stops and on our rides makes us feel extremely safe.

BNT: What about spreading diseases and catching a cold on the bus?

The risk of diseases really hit home for me when I took my daughter home from the hospital at one day old. We passed Harborview and there were all these people coughing. But really, riding the bus is no different than going to libraries, day care or other public places. We just wash our hands when we get home. That doesn’t mean that I don’t freak out. I’m a big worrier.

BNT: How has your lifestyle influenced your friends and family?

My mother hated it. She always thought I’s give it up. That’s interesting because she was the one who got me on the bus to school in the first place. She didn’t like the idea of me waiting outside in the cold or in the dark. “Just drive a prius,” she’d say.


My friends just think we’re crazy but we still do everything they do. We bring food with us on the bus and come to all the parties. We just get there differently.
Transit has a terrible stigma.

BNT: What do you think of the proposed tunnel and how will it affect you as a bus-rider?

It will affect me when I visit my family in Ballard or West Seattle. I think the tunnel is terrible idea, I prefer the surface option. Seattle voters said we didn’t want a tunnel and we’re getting one anyway. We say we want to think outside the car but here we are investing in all this car-centered infrastructure.

BNT: How does Seattle do as far as a city for a car-free lifestyle goes?

If I didn’t love Seattle so much I’d live elsewhere. There certainly are cities that do better for car-free lifestyles. But if everybody who had ideas about how to change things moved away, the cities left behind would never change.


Seattle definitely has potential; we just hope our city and transit system will step up. We have to decide what kind of environment we want to create in Seattle.
My day-to-day is fine. There's nothing inherently inconvenient about riding transit.