The Third and final part of Brad's journey into car freedom...

What this has done is connect me with my neighbourhood in a way that reminds me of when I was young, when my friends and I would walk all over Sorrento, exploring the construction sites, making games of them – building little forts for wars.

But something recently has plagued me with doubt, and I wonder if again by force something will change, and I will have to buy a car once more.

My boss, who owns the community garden plot next to mine, who also cycles to work each day, lives in Fitzroy, and on the whole is a fairly liberal individual, tells me that – living without a car is quite frankly, impossible. He drives a Volkswagen Jetta.

Children seem to be the tension in our arguments, and from time to time, I get stuck for a solution and wonder how certain logistical problems get solved in parts of the world where cars simply don’t exist.

He tells me, for example, that when your wife leaves with your baby from the hospital, the nurse will walk you both outside, to make sure your car has an adequate baby seat.

“But what if you don’t have a car?” I ask.

“Then, they won’t let you leave.”

The concept is ridiculous, and obviously those who cannot afford cars couldn’t be excluded from birthing children. But what shocks me, and worries me, is that life as we know it, in one circumstance or another, requires you to drive a motor vehicle. And if that’s not true, then people certainly assume it is.

Over the years I’ve spent extended periods of time in New York, Hong Kong and Tokyo, and the public transportation in those cities, often, during these arguments, remind me that one day everything may actually be okay. If Melbourne were ever to become just as dense, the city will surely provide – at least that’s what I’m hoping.

The densification of Melbourne, and all cities, seems to be the key to living comfortably without a car. The alternative, hundreds of kilometres of suburban sprawl, connected by long simplistic freeways, similar to what I experienced in Western Australia, appears to make the lifestyle virtually impossible.

As it stands there is no high speed rail network connecting Melbourne and Sydney, despite it being one of the busiest flight routes in the world. For an opportunist, it would appear to be quite a compelling project to build one. If it happened, as an Australian, and customer of that route, I would certainly be very proud.

Melbourne seems to have fallen in love with large extended freeways, and further broadening the boundaries of the city to create a suburban landscape of almost limitless proportions. And when a train line was suggested to connect the airport and central Melbourne, it was knocked back because it couldn’t be financially justified. Amusingly, Melbourne airport gets the bulk of its revenue from their short term car-parks. If they did have a train, they’d probably go broke. I suppose that’s what they mean by justified.

Luckily for me, small inner city neighbourhoods have embraced a more localised lifestyle, eating locally, riding to work, and living on their bikes as a regular form of transportation. On the surface, it appears to be getting crowded.

When I argue with my boss, sometimes it dawns on me, and this bit gives me hope - most people I know these days don’t own a car. Given, none of them have children, but meeting them for a drink is easily enough accomplished by locking my bike to something that’s bolted down and cruising back home, remembering that the entire trip cost me nothing. Perhaps the reason it’s comforting is that even though I don’t have the answer to all the problems, there will at least be others like me, and we can face those problems together.

One day, a few years from now, my wife and I figure we’ll breed something. She tells me, “Don’t worry. We’ll make it work.” Desperately, I want our child to understand that our world doesn’t necessarily need to rely on cars to move about. Is it the right decision, I don’t know, but either way, I figure it’s worth a try. It’s worked out pretty well for me so far.

Like now, there will obviously be inconveniences, but in life, I suppose, one needs to make sacrifices. And if I had to work 50% of the time to pay off a mode of transport that stole half my wage, killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world, and was bad for the environment, I’d take those inconveniences with open arms and try and set a decent example. Being carless gives me an opportunity to demand more of my community, and in turn, drive up demand for things like local dentists, bookstores, and supermarkets. And as a last resort, I suppose if it gets the best of me – I figure I can always move to New York.