best US cities without a car

[eggfish]

Urbana-Champaign has an awesome bus system, which is free for students.  All the buses have GPS so you can track them on your phone with an app.  

Edited October 23, 2015 by eggfish

[AnotherKantFan]

Hey everyone,

I was wondering if you have any idea as to how successful I'll be in applying for top American/Canadian PhD programs with the following (quite a funny mixture): mediocre transcript and GRE scores, BUT coming from a top school, a strong personal statement, very strong writing sample and reference letters, and a history of 2 serious publications as well as a serious conference presentation.

Good luck for everyone applying this year!

Edited November 15, 2015 by Olgalencz

[Harlan]

Commute from the valley is painful, but possible; same goes for downtown.

[emmaboxerassion1!]

I've found Denver to be accommodating ( I live in an urban neighborhood Cap Hill). I bike, bus, and light rail everywhere. It sucks to not have a car to travel to the mountains, but many of my friends take me.  Parking downtown is hard and Denver is notorious for having the worst parking ticket frequency in the country... by outside of downtown there is street parking that isn't bad.

[RoseRed]

Seattle is not a small city. Also, we've only got buses, unless you're in South Seattle. You could easily function without a car if you like to bike and want to take buses. But we don't have a real metro system (it's in the works still).

[scientific]

Went to UC Davis for my undergrad (didn't read all the posts yet, so if someone answered, I'm sorry!) I actually didn't receive my driver's license til after graduation because the public transportation  + biking town made it so easy to not need to drive anywhere. Getting out of Davis becomes a bit more questionable, but even then, there's an Amtrak to San Francisco/San Jose/most of California, daily shuttles to Berkeley, bus lines to west of Davis and to Sacramento. I didn't leave the town that often, but I rarely had troubles doing so when I had to. Definitely a dream for those without cars or licenses, and I absolutely loved it! In fact, depending on where you live and want to go, having a car might become a pain in the ass.

 

I actually disagree with those above comments about the heat. I'm from Colorado, then moved to LA before going to Davis, and get terrible rashes in hot weather and from sweat. Yes, the weather in Davis gets hot in spring/summer (worst heat wave brought 101F +), but it was dry heat, and there are so many trees in Davis anyway and every building was so cold that when I worked in the summer I had to bring a sweater anyway. In fact, if you leave to get to school early enough (earlier than 9) and get home past 7, you'll probably want a light jacket since it gets cool in the nights. I think humid heat is worse, since it gets inside you and sticks to you and makes everything feel sticky. No offense to those who love it

Edited April 26, 2016 by scientific
Talk about weather

[Lisa_McCoy]

I can't say about all cities, but most US college cities are well connected and have public transport options. Car is a luxury not a necessity.  

[avflinsch]

On 3/12/2006 at 2:09 PM, Guest guest said:

You don't want a car in New York City or Boston

Having lived/worked in both cities I agree.

NYC - great transit system, fairly easy to get around even all 5 boroughs (except Staten Island)

Boston - better transit system (in my opinion) and easy to walk to places also, but it could be difficult if you live in the suburbs and are not that close to a transit station.

[twentysix]

Ofc this all depends upon what you want out of your life while you go to school, but, I would say La Jolla (UCSD) is a nightmare without a car. 2021 or something like that they are building a train station on campus, that will help a lot.

You can get to a supermarket, the beach, and a mall on public transit. But it is more or less not feasible to go anywhere else in San Diego without a car.

Edited October 17, 2016 by twentysix

[OhSoSolipsistic]

Davis is super easy to get around without a car, it's a very contained college town. You'll need a bike though. The only school I can think of that that might not be true is the med school, but then again since they moved it to Sacramento it might actually be easier without a car than before since the med center/hospitals are in Sac. I'd say San Francisco is probably easier to get around without a car too because parking and traffic are a nightmare (like NYC), but ask around if your school is anywhere else in the bay. I could see a Stanford student get around fairly easily without a car since Palo Alto's small, but not a San Jose State student.

[goldenangel1]

On 10/16/2016 at 11:46 PM, twentysix said:

Ofc this all depends upon what you want out of your life while you go to school, but, I would say La Jolla (UCSD) is a nightmare without a car. 2021 or something like that they are building a train station on campus, that will help a lot.

You can get to a supermarket, the beach, and a mall on public transit. But it is more or less not feasible to go anywhere else in San Diego without a car.

Not just UCSD, but California in general. It's hard to get aroun without a car, especially San Diego because everything is so spread out. 

[goldenangel1]

The city with the best transportation is NYC! I came from Cali and I love the transportation here. The subway takes u everywhere and it runs 24/7.

[Catlover133]

On 1/23/2017 at 4:06 PM, goldenangel1 said:

Not just UCSD, but California in general. It's hard to get aroun without a car, especially San Diego because everything is so spread out. 

I agree, I'm from San Diego and the public transportation out here isn't that great. There are buses, trollies and trains but they definitely don't come that often.

[Coffee Snob]

Hi there,

I'd really love your thoughts on LA's (USC area) transit system.

I know LA's transit system is complicated, and it's not like SF or NY, but at least people don't have to wait at the bus shelter in the cold weather, right?

How about biking? And if one decides not to have a car, does having zipcar membership helps?

 

[emilyf413]

Can anyone give me some more up-to-date info on living in Los Angeles without a car? Currently considering a grad program at USC and I hate driving!

[KKT condition]

For the record, I did live in Los Angeles for 4 years without a car. So it is doable. Hard, but doable.

[clowy2000]

I think the hardest part of not having a car in LA would be that its is so counter-cultural. The assumption is that everyone drives, so of course your friends will make plans 45 minutes away without thinking about public transportation options. Public transport in LA is better than it once was and depending on the university, for day to day life and where you live, you can probably get away with it. Part of LA's over-dependence on cars is that most people live really far from where they work because of housing costs or being wealthy enough to live in the beach cities and work downtown/Hollywood. I would say if your housing works out go for it, but expect everyone in LA to think you are crazy.

[DogsArePeopleToo]

As others have said, DC and New York are great without a car. In fact, in some cases, New York is better without a car.

I lived in New York for five-six month stretches over several years. On more than one occasion, I took a cab thinking I would get to a meeting more quickly but ended up getting there in the same time as the subway would or even slightly later.

I've lived in Manhattan, Queens and Brooklyn, all of which are very easy to get around with the subway or the bus. The subway is 24/7, which is great.

I lived in DC for two years and never felt like I needed a car. There are buses and the metro. The metro doesn't operate around the clock, but once you know the hours, you will be fine. I lived in Columbia Heights, Friendship Heights and Alexandria (VA) and did fine without a car. Reagan National is a subway rude away, and even Dulles in VA is doable with a bus-metro combo.

[momorenae]

USC has a lot of what you need around the campus and a straight shot to downtown LA via the metro. I did my undergrad at SC and went the whole time without a car. Took a bus and the metro to my internship an hour away. I had to budget an extra 10-15 mins just in case the bus or train ran late, but it's doable. With the University Villiage project finishing up, you'll have access to loads of food and entertainment options within walking distance. I'd advise keeping your Tap card on you at all times, wear comfortable walking shoes, and look at your maps! 

Downside, all housing is expensive and there are a lot of scammers. I had to drop a semester because I got scammed into a house with so much mold that it took me months to recover. 

[jazzontherocks]

Thanks so much for the info. Just like emily, I really dislike driving. I'm also looking at USC for my Masters (Annenberg to be specific). I've had the opportunity to live in LA for almost 3 years but I was at a music college in Pasadena back then, and Pasadena's easy to get around without a car, though I did get to visit other parts of LA every week due to having friends who drive (at times I would use the public transport). I'm actually terrified to drive so that's why I've considered doing grad school in NY but I miss LA and a lot of my friends are still there and have been asking for me to come back, so maybe I just need to get over my fear and start doing more driving before I head back there.

[rising_star]

This recent Business Insider gallery of the 12 best cities for public transportation in the US might be helpful to some. The major cities on here (NYC, SF, Boston, DC) aren't a surprise but I was surprised to see Long Beach, CA on here.

[cowgirlsdontcry]

On ‎3‎/‎13‎/‎2006 at 5:20 AM, Guest intstudent said:

Thank you. I've heard that transportation is generally rather poor in the south east. What's your opinion about that? What about the midwest?

I'm heading to UA this fall. I think right around campus within a mile are a lot of stores, coffee shops, hangouts and even a mall. No public transportation to speak of, except campus transport that goes to some apartment complexes. My house is a few blocks from stadium and English department is behind that, so it's .7 mi to the English dept and that's too far to walk in the pouring rain, which there is a lot of in T-Town. My guess is you could get by without a car if you live on campus or in one of the nearby complexes, but if you ever want to get away from campus, you need a car.

[AlexaBarret]

On 20.06.2012 at 0:54 AM, Guest Gnome Chomsky said:

I know major cities like NY, Chicago, DC, Philly, Boston are very easy to live without a car. But how about smaller cities like Minneapolis, Seattle, Madison WI, Davis CA, and other places?

It`s interesting to me how can it be easy to live without a car in such big cities like Chicago or NY? Can you explain me, please?:)

[TakeruK]

8 hours ago, AlexaBarret said:

It`s interesting to me how can it be easy to live without a car in such big cities like Chicago or NY? Can you explain me, please?:)

In big cities *with good public transportation*, it can be easier to live without a car than if you lived in a suburb. Big cities generally have your necessities closer together and lots of buses/trains/etc to get you to where you are. In suburbs, public transit is harder to find and you might have to travel quite far to get to things. I lived in a suburb for my PhD and basically everything was a 25-40 minute car ride away, or over an hour on the bus (and most places don't even have good bus routes). 

Also, there is more incentive to avoid using a car in a big city where there might be a lot of traffic and/or very expensive parking so that walking or taking a train might be just as fast and much cheaper than driving!

[AccessGranted]

Interesting topic! I asked my classmates a similar question last week, they recommended the twin cities for decent public transit. It might also depend on your cost of living, SF has BART but is costly like NYC. Maybe Florida has some decent transit systems in the mid-small cities?