> with carsharing programs providing cars as needed for highway driving
I feel like this is the missing piece for me for the car-less life I dream of: what to do when I want to take a few-day trip to any of the beautiful places in easy driving distance of my dense urban core?
Car sharing is an option, but it's quite expensive. If I take a zipcar for 1 drive out to a campground on a Friday, then 1 drive back on a Sunday, I'm spending $240 or more.
You can argue that the cost of car rental is way less than the amortized cost of an actual car, but a $5k used vehicle pays for itself after 20 such trips.
I don't know a great solution here. Trains + long-distance buses only work if you're going exactly where they're going, or if you're headed to another city with good post-train transit options. Rent other people's unused cars (à la Getaround)? Prices for that seem to be barely better than Zipcar. Maybe rentable driverless cars, eventually: they can drive me to the campground, then drive themselves to the nearest town and rent themselves out to other people for the weekend until I need them again? I dunno.
I feel like this is the missing piece for me for the car-less life I dream of: what to do when I want to take a few-day trip to any of the beautiful places in easy driving distance of my dense urban core?
Car sharing is an option, but it's quite expensive. If I take a zipcar for 1 drive out to a campground on a Friday, then 1 drive back on a Sunday, I'm spending $240 or more.
You can argue that the cost of car rental is way less than the amortized cost of an actual car, but a $5k used vehicle pays for itself after 20 such trips.
I don't know a great solution here. Trains + long-distance buses only work if you're going exactly where they're going, or if you're headed to another city with good post-train transit options. Rent other people's unused cars (à la Getaround)? Prices for that seem to be barely better than Zipcar. Maybe rentable driverless cars, eventually: they can drive me to the campground, then drive themselves to the nearest town and rent themselves out to other people for the weekend until I need them again? I dunno.