My daughter’s at that age where she’s insisting on doing things by herself.  Truthfully, she was born that way, then developed the words for it, then the kind of physical coordination it requires, in that order.  But right now we’re hitting a pretty big bus and train phase.  I mean, there is a yellow school bus sitting in my living room that she “drives” her stuffed animals around in.

Indeed, demand for public transportation from the under 3 demographic in my household is at an all time high.  Truthfully, my wife and I are happy to do it – we’re city people at heart, and for the decade before Maine, public transportation and cabs were just how we did things.

As a result, we’re starting to plan more of the kinds of trips that don’t require much use of a car.  Next month we’ll go to the other Portland (the one named after ours *cough*) without a rental car, since rail connects the airport to downtown.  This summer, we’ll be doing the same in Seattle and Vancouver.

The problem is, we’re still lugging a car seat with us, because inevitably there is a short cab segment somewhere that requires it.  There seemed to be some encouraging options around this, like uberFAMILY, but I’ve never gotten to use it and it seems to be disappearing from cities where I previously saw it as an option in the app – particularly Boston, San Diego and DC.  NYC still has the “car seat” option in the app, but I never see it enabled, meaning cars aren’t out there with the equipment.  As a result, every trip includes our Chicco NextFit, since it installs relatively easily, but it’s 30 lbs that I don’t necessarily want to be lugging if I don’t have to.

I’d like to hear from the city dwellers and travelers with toddlers – what are you doing about the miscellaneous cab and car rides that pop up?  Do you have a particular kind of seat that installs quickly and isn’t a backbreaker to lug around?  Is there some other option entirely?