Speaking of cars....

I haven't owned a car since '98.

Could you give up your car for a month?

'DENVER - Jaime Licko told us she knew her life was going to change when she decided to join dozens of others in giving up their cars for a month. She just did not expect the challenge would impact her wardrobe.

"Well, Jaime is famous for her shoes," joked her co-worker, Anna Jones, a day before the challenge was to begin. "She wears very, very high heels."

Jaime, however, was undeterred.

This May, the Downtown Denver Partnership, through a program called Drive Less Denver, challenged 50 people to park their cars and use any and every means available to go about their daily lives.

9NEWS followed one of the participants, Jaime Licko, to see how it worked.

"This is going to be a really interesting experiment for me as to how this all comes together," she told us the day before the challenge was to begin.

The Denver Regional Council of Governments (DRCOG) says Denver area commuters travel, on average, 28,000,000 miles a day. When you use numbers supplied by the EPA that translates to this: Denver area commuters use roughly 1.4 million gallons of gas a day getting to and coming from work.

Only 5 percent of the people in the metro area use mass transit to get to work.

Licko says she simply wanted to save little money on gas and parking by taking part in the challenge. She works downtown, and her daily parking rate hovers between $8 and $10.

We followed her as she got on an RTD bus for the very first time. "Do I just show it to you?" she innocently asked the driver, talking about her bus pass.

We followed her as she hopped on her bike to run errand and to meet friends.

"I'm winded," she told us from time to time.

We did notice her heels grew smaller as the days went by.

We also followed her to Stapleton as she desperately tried to make it to a meeting to sign paperwork on her new home. A normally 20 minute car ride became almost two hours by bus.

"It's kind of important when you're buying a home to be there on time," said Licko.

She did make it in time, but just barely.

As of this writing (she still has another week left), Jaime has not cheated. But that does not mean she has not been tempted to get back into her 2002 Dodge Stratus.

"I miss turning on my car and turning up the radio and being in my own little world for awhile," she told us about 15 days into the challenge.

"I definitely don't want to quit, but the thought of it is crossing my mind," Licko said.

As of Tuesday, Jaime figures she's saved close to $200 on gas and parking.

She says she has also learned a thing or two about public transportation. She says, as far as her life is concerned, taking the bus to run errands across the city is simply not realistic for her. It takes too long, she says.

However, she says riding the bus to get to work is certainly an option. So is the bike. She just has to plan out her shoe options for the day.

For more information about the Drive Less Denver program, you can visit DriveLessDenver.com.'