Life in France

Family life without (almost) a car

It’s one thing for Bill and me to live without a car but I did wonder about how families with children cope. Everyone on our street with kids has at least one car and during the school year we see the daily parade of Mom or Dad shuttling their offspring to sports events, band practice, other extracurricular activities or just to visit friends. An article in one of our local newspapers, La Dépêche, addressed that very topic. The headline read, “These Toulouse residents have chosen to live without a car with 3 children,” and although that’s 45 minutes away from us, it was still going to answer my question.

Téléo

Over a year ago the Gascoin family’s car had a major breakdown and they decided to experiment with not getting it repaired. They were already well positioned in Toulouse, residing in a neighborhood adjacent to the center of the city where Dad Simon could bike to work in about 10 minutes and the 3 middle-schoolers could walk to their classes. The area has numerous bus stops, an underground Métro station, and even a stop for the new Téléo, the aerial tramway.

Tramway

For their daily shopping there are plenty of local businesses nearby and for major grocery shopping trips they often arrange with car-owning neighbors to collect their “Drive” (in the US that’s “curbside pickup”) purchases for them. Their other option for when they need a vehicle is to use the car-sharing cooperative Citiz for which they estimate an expenditure of 2400€ during the previous year which included a Christmas trip to Paris and Normandy.  Since you pay a subscription fee and a per kilometer charge for this service, they took the train for their holiday visits this past December.

According to INSEE, who publishes the official statistics for the French government, it costs between 5000€ and 6000€ per year to own and operate a car. This covers vehicle depreciation, fuel and maintenance. For the Gascoins that’s money back in their pocket even after paying to share a car.

1€ train from Région Occitanie

Like us, these Toulouse residents live in the région of Occitanie where 1€ will buy you a ticket on some local trains all the time, and on all local trains some of the time such as the first weekend of each month. A few départements within the région offer the same deal on buses while Bill and I pay 10€ a year each for a Senior Pass that covers our city and suburban bus lines.

Canal-du-Midi footpath

And like that Toulouse family, we walk, ride a bike, and take the bus and train but unlike them we no longer feel like renting cars. All of our neighbors have offered us the use of their vehicles and you’ve probably read of our numerous adventures with Sally and Larry who include us on day trips outside of Carcassonne where we couldn’t otherwise easily go. We believe that the Gascoin’s experiment of limiting their car use will turn into a permanent lifestyle change.

Photo credits: The featured photo across the top plus the one in the first paragraph are © Ville de Carcassonne – Julien Roche. The Téléo and Tramway are from the Toulouse transit system, Tisseo, and the train photo from Région Occitanie, thank you all.

17 thoughts on “Family life without (almost) a car”

  1. interesting read especially for someone like me who prefers to use public transport, unfortunately when we are at our house in rural France we have no choice other than to rent a car.

    Its a contrast from our life in England where a bus passes our house every 15 minutes during the day and the railway station is 6 minutes walk away. When we arrive in Sheffield, 17 mins by train, we have a choice of Tram, bus or shanks’s pony. Our senior bus pass, over 65, allows travel for free on the Tram and bus and fare reduction on the train.

    As Sheffield is a Real Ale , craft beer, heaven , what’s not to like 😀

    I need to check out those 1€ train fares in Carcassonne and the Aude.

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    1. just to add. Last week the Tram in Sheffield moved into public control, not ownership, there are differences apparently. This is the first time since 1986 when privatisation obsessed free market fanatic Margaret Thatcher decided everything private was good and public bad. This was the end of a long campaign and de had a celebration at the Cathedral tram stop which was attended by campaigners and a number of elected officials.

      Buses next

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    2. Hi Kevin, yes, although we had definitely considered village life in France, the desire to walk everywhere (Shank’s pony, that is. Had to look that expression up 🤔) influenced where we could settle. I’d say having the Sheffield Tap pub right at the station is pretty handy! Maybe we’ll see you the next time you’re in town 🍷🍻

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  2. Hi Bob, Hi Bill,

    As you know living in Florida it is almost impossible to live without a car. Nothing here is geared towards walking anywhere. Before moving to the US in the 70’s, we lived in the UK for 11 years. In that entire 11 years we never owned a car. We walked to school, the grocery stores and just venturing out. When visiting London we took the train and once there we rode the underground. I’m so looking forward to not owning a car again once I move. Thank you for a great blog as always. Informative, great insight but always FUN.

    Chris

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    1. Thanks, Chris! By chance, in the newspaper this morning there was an article saying that if the authorities consider your car too dirty, you can be fined 68€. Hmm, I wonder if that applies to our dusty shoes, LOL 😊

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  3. We are getting by with an occasional car rental but I confess I do miss the convenience of car ownership sometimes. We recently rented a car with a major super supermarket and the process was super easy and the car high quality. However the car suffered minor damage in an overnight car par park and we were faced with nearly a €1,000 bill that we managed to get down to €800. The bill seemed excessive and I felt like I was before an examining magistrate during the car inspection in return. There was unfortunately an extremely high “caution” or excess as UK drivers would say on the policy. It certainly soured our experience of the car hire market in France. We try to get by without a vehicle where we can but I confess as I walk back from the supermarket with heavy bags I do look longingly at the cars sweeping past us. (We don’t yet have car owning neighbours we know well enough to help) It’s not always easy holding the line on this one ! Wishing you both happy car free travels, I admire your principles on this one even though I am not yet quite such a public transport purist. Best, Gary.

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    1. We understand what you’re saying, Gary. Luckily our neighborhood grocery store (a Carrefour Contact) is a 3-minute walk away and for a bigger supermarket the city bus drops us at their front door in 15 minutes. Ever since Covid our favorite wine cave has been offering free delivery so we don’t have to carry those heavy bottles…until they are empty and we can take them to the bottle bank on the way to the Saturday market 😁

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  4. Bonjour! We continue to mull over the car/no car conundrum. What are we missing of France’s beautiful villages without our own personal conveyance? This article is perfectly-timed and well-tuned for these conversations. As always, thanks for your research and all the inspo you both offer!

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    1. Hi you three (can’t forget the dog)! There are always compromises, aren’t there? You’ve probably already looked, but just in case, there’s a tab across the top of this page, Topics & Tags, where you’ll find destinations in France that you can get to by train. You’ll find villages, beaches, castles, gardens, and more. We’ve had great luck staying several nights in a bigger city and from there booking small group (or maybe even private) tours to visit the surrounding area.

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  5. I know a number of couples who live in city centres and manage quite happily without a car full-time. It’s the letting go that’s difficult, but once you have……..

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  6. Another informative and thoughtful post. I learn so much from your experience and research and it’s always fun to read.

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    1. Thank you very much! You know, we learn something new every week too so it’s fun to share the information.

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  7. Hi Bob,

    We have been without a car since late last summer or maybe it was early fall. Anyway, Elizabeth’s car died after almost 300,000 miles. She is not in a position to buy a car right now and we don’t have to be anywhere, so we let her have ours. I thought I would hate it but it has been remarkably easy. We can get an Uber to go to the doctor, we can walk around in downtown Covington, there is now a farmers market just a block away from our house. We can get groceries delivered. I have a friend with whom I run errands every Friday. I buy her lunch and it’s a lot more fun than running errands by yourself.

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    1. That sounds great, Carol! I so enjoyed our lunches together and I’m glad to see that you’ve revived that with the bonus of getting errands accomplished. Stay happy😊

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