I don’t own a car, and I’ve never wanted one. The expense alone is a deterrent: I pay less in one year for all my transportation costs (excluding cross-country flights) than one of my co-workers would spend on a parking space alone. I can do this because I walk almost everywhere, taking the occasional bike trip, bus ride or cab. Most days I have no use for a car, but for the times when it would really make a difference, I have a car share membership.

The car sharing model is perfect for my situation. I don’t like driving, so I don’t miss it. I live in the urban core of a small, pedestrian-friendly city (Halifax, Nova Scotia). I don’t have kids to travel with, and I don’t have to leave the city very often.

The service I use is called CarShareHFX. They have a few plans to choose from, depending on how much you’ll be driving. For my plan I pay a $39 yearly membership fee, and trips are charged by kilometer ($0.17, which works out to about $0.11/mile) and also by either the hour ($5.95) or day ($59.50). The price includes gas, insurance, maintenance, and roadside assistance. There are 19 cars available to book, and six are within a 15-minute walk of my apartment.

I use my membership a couple times a month during the summer, and once a month or less during the winter. My trips usually fall into one of three categories:

• Hauling heavy or bulky stuff: transporting furniture, getting all my crap to various donation bins in one go, stocking up on 40-pound boxes of cat litter. This kind of trip usually costs me between $15 and $20.

• Getting out of the city: a day trip to go hiking (~$75), or a half-day trip to the beach (~$40) a few times a summer.

• Things that I could do on the bus or by bike but are way less hassle with a car: taking my cat to the vet; trekking out to “big box land,” a pedestrian unfriendly business park, to buy discount craft supplies; meeting people at the airport (between $20-$30).

There are still some situations where I wish I had a car but car sharing isn’t practical. One-way trips, or time-consuming errands where the car would be parked for most of the time aren’t really cost-effective. It would be convenient for getting to my twice-weekly roller derby practice on the fringes of town, but even when splitting the cost with teammates, it’s far cheaper for everyone to ride with someone who’s already taking their own car and only have to split the cost of gas. I can’t use it to go anywhere if I don’t know when I’ll be getting back. It took me awhile to get used to estimating exactly how long my trips were going to take. I can call and extend my reservation mid-trip if I’m running late, but only if the car I’m using hasn’t been booked by someone else. Being late could mean screwing someone over.

There are also some hidden costs to the almost-car-free lifestyle. In addition to the obvious (bus and cab fare, chipping in to carpool, bike gear and maintenance), I find I have more clothing costs. I pay a lot of money for good rain gear that can withstand my half-hour walk to work. Since I started walking everywhere, I have far less tolerance for cheap, uncomfortable shoes, and I have to replace or repair even good quality footwear more often.

Having access to a car part-time sometimes makes me wish I had one full-time. It’s a nice buffer between me and the world, and it means I don’t have to plan my trips around what I can carry. When I first get behind the wheel, the city seems to shrink instantly, and the idea that I can be somewhere in 10 minutes that would normally take me an hour is enticing. That is, until I get into rush hour traffic or have to circle to find a parking space, or find myself navigating icy roads with clenched fists. I never have to worry that a mechanic is overcharging me, or go out in the middle of winter to move the car when the snow ploughs are out. A car is a responsibility, one that’s not worth the hassle for me. I always feel relieved when I drop it off and walk away.

Don’t worry, Nicole Maunsell has been on the Internet before. Photo: feesta

People are often surprised by my passionate attachment to my car, a champagne-colored, diesel-powered 1987 Mercedes Benz named Stan. Sometimes they’re surprised because I’m a girl (and they are sexist), or because I’m a vocal environmentalist. But mostly it’s because I live in downtown San Francisco. The fact that I live within walking distance of (most) everything awesome and still own a car confounds nearly everyone I meet.

I’d dreamed of a car like Stan most of my life, and five years ago, I found him in a Boston suburb for $3,000, cash. A family was unloading their patriarch’s estate, and I jumped at the chance to care for his ride and give it his name in memoriam. Since then, Stan the Mercedes has been up and down the eastern seaboard half a dozen times, locked in storage for several years while I lived overseas, and driven from Boston out to California last fall only days after he was dusted off. He’s a hell of a trusty ride.

When I moved to California, I made my personal journey of westward expansion in my favorite car—and when I arrived, I wanted to keep my wheels. I did, and that’s why, even in a neighborhood with a plethora of car-sharing options around, I have come to proudly defend the cost of car ownership. 

Since I bought Stan outright, my regular costs are cheap insurance and exorbitant parking. I have the cheapest insurance, ever. Because my father was an Army reservist, I have what is possibly the most coveted car insurance in the country. United Services Automobile Association (USAA) insurance coverage (plus myriad financial services) is only available to individuals and the families of those who have served in any branch of the U.S. Armed Forces. With every bill, I think, Thank you for your service. (Actually, no, I’m horrible and just think, Thank you for the cheapest insurance, ever.) I pay a mere $42 a month ($504 a year) for coverage. This does not include collision protection, because, though Stan may be a priceless treasure to me, he isn’t worth anything if he gets smashed up.

My cheap insurance is balanced out, however, by my massive parking costs. I pay $300 a month ($3,600 a year) to park Stan in a nearby public garage. Even if I could outsmart the hotel valets in my neighborhood and score a street spot, street parking rules around here mandate that you move your car every 72 hours. I decided to buy my way out of that inconvenience, and so, every time I want to drive somewhere, I make the 10-15 minute hike straight up Nob Hill, where I’m sure Stan is waiting for me, ticket-free.

To own my car, that’s $4,104 annually before fuel and maintenance gets factored in.

There is a Zipcar hub with 16 spots in the garage where I park Stan, and a few times I’ve wondered if that would be a smarter option. Here are the Zipcar rates for San Francisco:

The cars available under the Occasional Driving Plan start at $78/day for full-day rentals (weekends rates, including Fridays, jump to $94/day). There’s also a $60 annual fee and $25 application fee to consider. At those rates, it would cost $1,957 to take a Zipcar out for a full day twice a month— $2,341 if those days were both weekend days. It’s up to $3,829 if I rent a Zipcar for a full day once a week—$4,597 if my daily car day is a weekend day. These prices include some fuel (the first 180 miles per trip) and maintenance.

But here’s where it gets tricky. When I do take my car out, I take it out. When my best pals from Boston came out to visit last month, we took the car out several days in a row, driving down Highway 1 to Big Sur, over the Golden Gate to Muir Woods, and crossing the Bay Bridge to hit up the best eateries in Oakland. For those three days (Friday, Saturday, and Sunday), we’d have paid $252 for all-day Zipcar rental, plus extra for mileage if we did more than 180 miles/day. On the day we drove to Big Sur, which is 300 miles roundtrip with absolutely no detours, we would have paid an extra $54. That one-day Zipcar rental would have cost at least $148, or more than a third of the $342 monthly for Stan.

And that’s when I stopped doing the math. I take my car out at least a few times a month. This weekend I put 350 miles on it. And maybe I don’t actually come out ahead of my car-sharing friends, but that’s okay. By keeping my car, I get all the perks of private ownership—my personal assortment of maps and supplies in the backseat, trunk, and glove box; my own music selection and radio pre-sets—and never have to wonder if a car will be available or how much I’ll spend to borrow it. And of course, most of my car-less friends don’t hesitate to hit me up for a ride. Not that I mind. In fact, I kind of love it.

Brittany Shoot wants to join a car club. She never tweets and drives.

• “the Zipcar for bikes”

• “the Zipcar for electric scooters” 

• “the Zipcar of primary healthcare” 

• “the Zipcar of European vacations” 

• “the Zipcar of the sea”