BellaE

Saw this today: http://realestate.aol.com/blog/galle...without-a-car/
As there are so many who come to this forum expecting to be able to live in the US without a car, I thought it would be interesting to hear from people who live in the cities/areas mentioned in this list and see what they think about accuracy (noting that most of these top 10 lists on AOL are usually wildly inaccurate!)

My son lives very happily without a car in Philadelphia (covered in this list at #3 -- maybe?? Eastern PA??). But he is 23 years old, lives on take-away food, and doesn't have kids. I live outside Philly, and can get into Philly very easily on the train, but would have a hard time getting to my work in another suburb or to do shopping without a car.

N1cky

I'm shocked to see LA 9th on the list. I found it would have been impossible to live there without a car. My hubby sometimes used the Metro to get to work, however, it was a 10 minute drive to the station. He could have got a bus by walking for around 15 minutes then the bus would have been around 20 minutes, followed by 1 hour on the Metro, and a 10 minute walk at the other end. So a commute of 20 miles would have taken over an hour and a half. To get to my work there were no public transport options.

Michael

LA is number 9 but I agree that it shouldn't be in the top 100 unless you live and work downtown.

San Jose is also on the list but unless you live downtown and work on the light rail group or enjoy taking buses, it shouldn't be in the top 10.

New York should be number one instead of San Francisco due to it's subway system. Although BART goes through San Francisco, it is not much use for local commutes since it it primarily for long distance travel. Although San Francisco has a very good tram system and bus system and the city is small, both are inferior to a subway system.

N1cky

Doh, so it was, it came up 2nd and it's early. Now edited my post

King Gimp

I moved here March this year and thought I'd be able to make do without a car. That sentiment was quashed within about a week.

Now I have 4 cars...

(2 are for sale tho )

Giantaxe

I agree. New York should be number 1 and San Francisco number 2. Not only does NY have a decent subway system, it's bus services are better too. I guess one thing in SF's favour is that it's more geographically compact than New York City.

I could probably manage without a car in SF. I walk or take public transport to work and to go to things in the city on evenings. The only time I use a car is when I'm doing a bunch of heavy shopping or going out of town. My locality has a walkscore of 96 out of 100, which is one of the reasons I chose it:

http://www.walkscore.com/

BellaE

That's cool! My neighbourhood gets a 54/100 (somewhat walkable) which I agree with.

BellaE

and my son's neighbourhood in Philadelphia gets a 91 (walker's paradise)!

N1cky

I like that website. Score 66 where I am now, which seems low as I can walk to most things. My LA house scored 26

caleyjag

The presence of LA on that list is an absolute joke.

However, other than that, it's pretty reasonable.

I lived in both San Francisco and Seattle without a car, and getting around either city is pretty painless. I would actually go as far as to say in San Francisco a car is actually a liability in many neighbourhoods, due to the ridiculous competition for parking. I used to stay in Nob Hill (near Chinatown) and it wasn't unusual for my roommate to drive around for an hour of an evening, searching for parking outside his own house.

Having said that, what the article doesn't mention is that no matter which city you live in, escaping from that city without a car is essentially impossible. For instance, let's say you lived in San Francisco. Big Sur, Tahoe and Yosemite are all supposedly in reach. However, getting there by public transport is a nightmare, if possible at all, and once you factor in insurance getting rental cars often quickly becomes very expensive, mitigating the main reason most people want to avoid buying a car in the first place: saving money.

It's a lot different to the UK where you can jump on the Megabus to Aviemore if you feel like getting out and about for the weekend.

N1cky

Do you know anyone who uses Zipcars? that seems like it would be a good solution if you lived in SF and only needed the use of a car a few times a year

Bob

It wouldn't be the US.

If you lived in downtown Boston, didn't need to do grocery shopping, lived on a T stop entrance and worked at a place on another, you could get away with it.

Frankly, it's still shit if you live away from a T stop and who can afford to live in a decent spot on the T? Well, the greenline, but that's like choosing whats better, crabs or syphilis.

It's just mental busy during commuter hours, it shuts down way to early, it's rather pricey and the irony of needing a car to get to a commuter rail or T spot means spending a fortune on parking.

Taxi's are just a rip off.

The circle of cover is also pretty small...you don't have to go far out for the quality of service to drop right off the charts, leaving you with a really dire bus network, that just doesn't cover very much outside of the central main streets anyway.

In winter, it's just balls to walk around.

Bob

I get a 78 and my old town gets a 80.

In the summer, I can some what agree with that.

In the winter, the old town, you couldn't walk half the place because of the snow banks...current place is a little better, the main streets are pretty good, but the side streets are still iffy.

Also, the old town, lot of the side streets didnt' have pavements, so not really doable for a lot of people.

Giantaxe

Renting a car for a few weekends is pretty darned cheap compared to the overheads of car ownership, especially if you have a credit card that covers rental insurance for you.

Bob

Thing is, you'd need to use it a fair bit to make the membership worth while.

I know a few people who use it in Boston, it is good...but not if you wanted to take a weekend trip to the countryside. It's more for the once a month need a car for the grocery shop, or you're buying a bit of furniture from Ikea kind of thing. So you'd use a car for short bursts, but fairly regularly, but not enough to need to buy a car and deal with parking, but more than the cost of a regular car rental.