After depriving commuters in Boston and San Francisco of their cars for a week, a new study found that owning a car isn’t essential to everyday commuting.
“It’s kind of different to do everyday because of the time,” said Cambridge resident Ben Lapointe, 26, who participated in the study by riding the bus to his Lexington job. “Especially since I have a car in my driveway. But you do save money.”
The study — Tech for Transit: Designing a Future System — conducted by Beverly-based Latitude aimed to learn how technologies such as real-time T apps can improve public transit.
After the one-week trial, 15 of 18 participants said they could keep going car-free. Lapointe went another week, but isn’t willing to ditch his car just yet.
“I’d always said ‘I’d drive the rest of my life,’ but now I can picture myself, maybe in five years, getting rid of my car,” he said.
