Transportation practitioners and scholars increasingly view car-free mobility as an essential component of a sustainable, healthy, and safe transportation future. In the United States, however, strikingly few households—only around 9%—do not own cars. Moreover, most zero-vehicle individuals—around 80%—are without vehicles due of constraint (e.g., because they cannot afford one), while a much smaller fraction—around 20%—are car-free because they can meet their mobility needs without one. This latter group is of interest to transportation researchers and practitioners, given the imperative to reduce driving and its associated negative externalities. In this paper, I examine factors that contribute to individuals’ decisions to live car-free. This research is based on 430 comments posted on the social content-sharing website Reddit, in which commenters shared their first-hand experiences related to the prospect of going car-free. These comments were obtained from 46 threads situated in seven different US cities, focusing specifically on car ownership decisions. Commenters described accessible neighborhoods as foundational to decisions to forego a vehicle. While such conditions were typically necessary, however, they sometimes were not sufficient to foster car-free choices. Costs of car ownership, especially parking costs, were often the deciding factor for commenters who opted not to have a car. Finally, inconveniences related to car ownership and travel, like traffic-related stress, were discussed as benefits of living car-free. In sum, the observed individual decisions about car ownership tend to consist of people balancing supportive conditions for non-car travel against costs of and constraints on car-travel.

交通从业者和学者越来越多地将无车出行视为可持续、健康和安全交通未来的重要组成部分。然而，在美国，很少有家庭——只有 9% 左右——不拥有汽车。此外，大多数零车个人——大约 80%——由于限制（例如，因为他们买不起一辆）而没有车辆，而一小部分人——大约 20%——没有汽车，因为他们可以在没有车辆的情况下满足他们的出行需求。一。考虑到减少驾驶及其相关的负面外部性的必要性，后一组是交通研究人员和从业者的兴趣所在。在本文中，我研究了影响个人决定无车生活的因素。这项研究基于社交内容共享网站 Reddit 上发布的 430 条评论，其中评论者分享了他们与无车前景相关的第一手经验。这些评论来自位于美国七个不同城市的 46 个主题，特别关注汽车所有权决策。评论者将无障碍社区描述为放弃车辆决定的基础。然而，虽然这些条件通常是必要的，但有时不足以促进无车选择。汽车拥有成本，尤其是停车成本，通常是选择不买车的评论者的决定因素。最后，与汽车所有权和旅行相关的不便，如交通压力，被讨论为无车生活的好处。总共，