I've been having fun experimenting with a variety of transportation alternatives in the month since I began my low car diet. I've bussed a lot, taken the light rail known locally as the "Max," even riding transport for free in "Fareless Square." My husband had made plentiful use of the bike and ride option (he sticks his bike on the front rack on the bus before work, then rides home late at night when the schedules are inconvenient or nonexistent). We've done the Flexcar thing, and I've biked a ton.

But the easiest option, by far, is simply to walk. I walk to the grocery store with the boys and fill the bottom of my sturdy jogging stroller with canned goods, milk, wine, veggies, bread, juice, and goodies of all kinds. I walk to the neighborhood coffee shop when I need to get away from the house and jump on their free WiFi. I walk to the high school track in our neighborhood to do intervals and let my four-year-old play in the sand. I walk to the knitting cafe for companionship and a yarn fix.

Biking and bussing may be faster, and the Flexcar? It's super cool. But walking is its own reward and it's just so much easier! No helmets, no car seats, no locks or reservations. Just throw the little one in the stroller (he can even climb in himself!), throw my gear in the cargo hold and away we go. Best of all: it's utterly, completely, in every way, free.

Late last week, my family hopped on the bus to meet up with representatives from Flexcar, who planned to "orient" us on how we would soon choose biking, walking, bussing and (most importantly) using the Flexcar carshare service over our own car.

I've long admired the Flexcar vehicles from afar. They're parked in their own special spaces "reserved for carshare vehicles" with pretty iconic posts, near bus stops and with space for locking your bike. But signing up for the service seemed a Herculean task, fraught with so many questions and the most monstrous hurdle of all: a membership fee. Yikes!

A chance to use the Flexcar service for free, without any upfront investment, was a big reason why I said "yes" to the concept of the low car diet. But I was also eager to get my questions answered. We sat in a darkened room in a government building downtown. Everyone had nametags and pizza. And everyone was getting their questions answered.

It was paradise. And I'm sharing the questions (and their answers) with you:

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I think the hardest thing, so far, about reducing my dependence on my car is all my stuff. Not only do I have the typical human things to take with me everywhere -- money, cell phone, spare clothes, beverages, books, laptop, power cord, camera, knitting, all those things I might use while I'm out -- but then there are my two young children, and all their gear.

It requires discipline, or a stronger back.

Either way, I have to laugh. Our car has become a storage container. I stop in before heading out to catch the bus for spare change for my fare, or to collect that extra package of diaper wipes I know is under the passenger seat. Our car is where we keep the car seats (we take them with us if someone's giving us a ride), the maps, the bags to be donated to Goodwill.

The other hardest thing? Bringing stuff home. It's a lot harder when you're travelling by bike, or bus. Especially when (like me) you have a 30-pound toddler to carry, as well.

Read more of Sarah Gilbert's Low-Car Diet:

• Low-Car Diet: Not Counting Carbs
• Kicking off my low-car diet

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I've been showing up, breathless and sweaty, at appointments. "I'm on a low-car diet!" I'll tell my meet-ee. He or she will look at me strangely for a minute (I'm obviously not overweight -- the metabolism, it is good to me).

"Not low-carb!" I'll explain. "I'm reducing the use of my car."

In a crunchy city like Portland, this seems ho-hum. Since I started my car diet informally a few weeks ago, I've found lots of people who, like me, are running fast in the other direction of gas prices. Some of my friends are taking the bus a lot, others I pass on the Springwater Trail commuting to and from work. 

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It's hard to know which metaphor to choose: the 12-step program? The diet? The new religion? Whatever the ontology I select, it's clear my family has had a problem with our automobile (a once-beloved 2000 Mercedes ML320, a diminutive monster of a car). My husband has been known to drive three blocks to the grocery store, or two blocks to his sister's apartment. I've been known to spend hours and gallons of gas bouncing from one end of town to the other in search of the perfect cupcake.

We've been chatting about changing our ways for a while, and every once in a while I would insist that we must walk to Trader Joe's, or promise myself I was going to take the bus to my boy's well-baby visits - it's ridiculous not to, as we'd get on the bus a few steps from our front door and get off a few steps from the receptionist's desk 15 minutes later. And every time, I'd be late or unable to find the correct change or lazy. And we'd revert to our SUV abuse.

One day a few weeks ago, we got a flat tire. And that pretty much sealed our fate. We didn't have the $500 to replace all the tires, and for a few days we tried to avoid across-town trips. But finally we had to make a decision: were we going to do this? As we were hemming and hawing, a friend who'd gone to work for Flexcar asked if we'd consider handing over our keys for a month as part of a low-car diet she was promoting. For the month of July, we'd get a bunch of goodies, notably a Flexcar membership. And suddenly, we had committed to a radically different lifestyle.

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