Last September, Nick and I made the decision to go down to one vehicle, trading in both ours for a brand new one. At the time, I worked downtown, worked out downtown, and since I was taking the bus in and back each day, my car would sit in the driveway for days on end.

Since I was driving so little anyway, there really wasn’t much of an initial adjustment. My bus route has really nice, low emission, shiny buses with nice white and green interiors - it’s a REALLY nice riding experience. It dropped me off right outside of work, and dropped me off across the street from my home - the ideal commute. I didn’t have to park, worry about paying attention to the road, and happily read or scrolled Instagram on my commute! I usually had the car on Fridays since I worked from home and would drop the dogs off at daycare and drive back - it was an ideal system!!

And then in May, I was restructured out of my job, and ended up spending a lot of time at home. And since I didn’t have a car to just jump into at any time to take me where I wanted to go, I started to see the cracks in our little system. You see, my bus route is only a high-frequency route at rush hour, after which it drops down to once every 30 minutes. Which meant that if I wanted to go to a mid-day yoga class, or head downtown to meet someone for a networking lunch, I had to really plan ahead to account for the lack of frequency of the buses. I discovered that I could walk 10 minutes to a different, more frequent bus line, and I did that when my regular bus line was’t an option but that riding experience wasn’t as pleasant - these were old buses with grey and beige interiors and always looked dirty even when they weren’t!

There are also parts of the greater Cleveland region that are either practically impossible, or impossibly inconvenient to travel to using public transit. For example, some trips when mapped would result in a 2x-3x longer commute when compared to taking ride share. Now, I’m very lucky to not have to worry about the cost of ride share compared to transit, but it highlighted how challenging it can be for people who are solely reliant on public transit to get around and take advantage of ALL the greater Cleveland region has to offer.

Based on my experience, here are my observations (in no particular order):

Transit in Cleveland is much easier and more convenient if you actually live downtown. All the buses originate from downtown, so if you are trying to go from the west side to The Cleveland Museum or Art for example, you have to take one bus into downtown, and then transfer to another to take you to over to the East side. Now this is not an issue if you are on high-frequency lines for both, but if not, you have a serious time challenge.
The aesthetics of the bus matter when it comes to the riding experience. Listen, I get that this is superficial, but if the goal is to increase ridership by having people trade car rides for bus or train rides, comfort, cleanliness, and aesthetics matter.
Frequency matters: Unless you live on or very close to one or more bus lines that have high frequency (once every 10-15 minutes), it’s not realistic to go completely car free.
Ride share makes a difference: This is another controversial opinion but without ride share we would not have even attempted this experiment. The main reason being that the high-frequency line that’s a 10 minute walk from our house is not in an area that I would be comfortable waiting at or using at night. So I was 100% reliant on ride share for any night time events that I was attending on my own. Could taxis have taken the place of ride share? In Chicago or New York, sure! But not in Cleveland. Cleveland taxi companies are the WORST, and shady as hell. Pre-ride share I remember trying to take a cab back home from West 25th, and not only could the cab company not tell me when they would send a cab, or which cab they would send, but then the driver also tried to pick up another rider!! The Cleveland taxi situation was ripe to be replaced by ride share, and frankly I’m very glad they did.
Technology matters: Between GCRTA’s transit app and google maps (the transit function) it was really easy to plan my trips based on what time I needed to get to my location. Live tracking of buses matters. All that said, if you’re relying on transit, always, ALWAYS build in a buffer.
Car share options for long trips or occasional uses (for places not on a bus route) would really help for anyone considering going car-free or reducing the number of cars in their household. Yes, I know there’s one at Cleveland State, but that’s not exactly the most practical spot to get to — I’m thinking somewhere closer to Public Square, the center of downtown Cleveland.
There are parts of Cuyahoga County that are not on, or relatively near, transit routes. And in some cases even if you’re willing to walk a mile-ish, they don’t have sidewalks so walking is not an option. I’m looking at you, Beachwood, Gates Mills. Outside of Cuyahoga County? Forget about it. You have to have a car to get there.
Going car-free is not impossible, but it’s not the always the most convenient. Having disposable income for conveniences like grocery delivery is super helpful (Instacart delivers from nearly everywhere, including Costco and Aldi).
Cleveland’s public transit system is safe. I never ever felt even remotely unsafe on our transit system. There was one time where the bus broke down and we had to change buses, and there was one other time when a fellow rider was upset and yelling loudly (I think at the bus driver?) but having been on transit in several places across the world, this is normal and relatively infrequent. The bus drivers in general are really nice and polite, and helpful if you need it.
Driving is really overrated.

Now that I’m in new job where I’m driving all over an eight-county region to meet with clients, our one-car life is no longer practical or feasible. We’re back to two cars, but I already miss our one-car life. It was REALLY nice to not have to worry about driving or parking and it was relatively easy to live normally when combining public transit + ride share. If you’ve never taken public transit in Cleveland, I highly recommend you check it out. Sure there’s room for improvement, but you may be pleasantly surprised by how nice it is to not have to think about driving in traffic and all the hassle that comes with it. If more people took advantage of Cleveland’s transit system I truly believe we could collectively improve it for everyone.