Inspired by her own decision to relinquish her dependency on a car; Diane Meyer, an Assistant Professor of photography at Loyola Marymount University, set out on a quest to capture, catalogue, and comprehend the often overlooked essence of the diverse and car-less individuals in Los Angeles. Through photography and first hand accounts leading up to a grand finale art exhibition, Diane managed to share the stories, trials, and tribulations of a sub-culture, very much neglected, who rely not only on alternative means but also on public transportation in order to thrive in city where time lost to transportation is a large obstruction in one’s road to success.

A small excerpt from Diane Meyer regarding the scope of this project:

“My initial interest in the project came from a desire to share resources and stories with other car-less people. According to the 2000 Census, L.A. County residents are more than twice as likely to have three or more cars than zero cars. When I gave up my car, I only knew two other people who didn’t have cars, even though L.A. County has the second-most-active bus system in the U.S., with a daily ridership of almost 2 million people. To find participants, I searched the Web, polled friends and friends of friends, put ads on Craigslist, answered ads by car-less people in search of rides, wrote to various transportation agencies, and approached strangers on the bus.

I met people from a wide range of backgrounds, socio-economic levels, occupations, and heard an amazing range of reasons for not driving. I met single moms, teachers, writers, consultants, comediennes, actors, urban planners, computer programmers, analysts, bakery workers, students, and unemployed. I met people whose physical disabilities kept them off the road, and people who did not drive because of firm ideologies about the detrimental effects of car culture. Others had been in accidents, their cars had blown up, they were afraid to drive, they lost their licenses after receiving a third DUI, they preferred bicycles, or they were simply tired of spending so much on a car.

I hope that the stories recorded here will encourage others to consider using their cars less, and to experiment with alternatives to driving. I hope to see improved transportation options, and increased mobility and access to the city. To that end, putting more riders on the bus and more cyclists in the street will hasten needed improvements. The 100 people featured in this project prove that the city can be enjoyed, productive lives can be led, and lifestyles can be maintained, even improved, without a car. At the same time, the universal difficulties faced by car-less people clearly indicate that Los Angeles has a long commute ahead.”