The Best (US) Cities for Living Without a Car
 

https://www.redfin.com/blog/2017/02/...out-a-car.html

For discussions of the remaining top 10 cities, go to the link.

Wow, that shows the problem with this company's lists.

Commute mode splits, how parking relates to development, population density, and other factors play in.

^^Rank them your way (with explanation).

There is no way SAN Francisco should be #2 in transit score.

Easily Chicago and probably Washington DC are better.

And again, how the hell is SF #2 in bike score? With those hills?

Redfin needs to stick to selling homes. Car ownership in SF is relatively high for a well-transit served city.

Dumbest list ever

Miami more walkable than Chicago and D.C.?

These guys are on shrooms. Actually, they are on mescaline and shrooms, laced with LSD

I don't wish to debate you but I will give you an explanation which you probably won't accept. I live in SF but I grew up in DC and have been there since the Metro was built. I've been to most of the other cities on the list except Minneapolis (#1 bike score with those winters?!).

I also live without a car in San Francisco.

San Francisco's transit policy, largey met, is to have no citizens more than 2 blocks from a transit stop and, generally, once on a transit vehicle you can get to your destination with no more than 1 transfer. Other than New York, I have not experienced that as being the situation in other cities, certainly not Washington. Where the city is usually seen as falling short is the length of its rail transit network. But San Francisco is physically smaller (7 miles square) than most of the others and while riding a rail vehicle is preferred by most, the bus gets you there too.

As for the city's bike friendliness, the weather certainly helps (no hot summers or cold, snowy winters) and the city has laid out bike routes covering the city that largely avoid the hills. Residents for any period know how to get most places (exept someplace on top of a hil) without climbing a hill. And for when you have to go uphill, the busses all have bike racks on the front.

I don't know what the debate is. Of those on the list, I've been to SF, NYC, Boston, Chicago, Miami, Seattle, and Oakland.

I don't think it's that farfetched as some of you are making it seem that SF could be 1st. Keep in mind it is a composite score. It's a dense, compact city, and has lots of sights to see, making it very walkable. Rail, while not as extensive as some of the other cities, is still decent, and can get you to most parts of the city. Like Pedestrian said, there are bus stops within two blocks of 90% of all residences in the city. Of the above cities that I've been to, SF has the highest number of recreational cyclists and bike commuters, despite the hills. And like Pedestrian said, there are many alternative routes you can take to avoid the steepest hills.

Of the top 10, the only one I'm surprised about is Miami. Only South Beach is walkable. Getting to other sprawled out parts of the city required driving, and I never saw anyone ride the bus/rail or ride their bike.

Miami is way too high. It's the BS of the walkscore list only grading proximity not quality of walking environment or lack of barriers.

Of course I'm also looking at Seattle as a homer...should rank a couple spots higher on transit.

Why don't you explain why you agree with the list? So far it's just a quote, except defending why your city ranks highly.

SF doesn't have particularly good transit, at least not for a city of its weight class. I would probably rank it behind NYC, DC, Chicago, Boston, and Philly.

And any list that doesn't have NYC at #1 is silly. Yes, I'm a homer, but there's a gigantic gap between NYC and every other U.S. city in terms of transit orientation and % car-free households. Something like 70% of U.S. rail passengers are in the NYC area. 55% of households don't own a car, in the other U.S. transit oriented cities, the share is like half that.

Also, Walkscore sucks. It's only useful for knowing if there's stuff in proximity. It says nothing about the relative quality of walkability.

One problem of these scores is that cities like San Fran and Boston cover a far smaller geographical area compared to cities like Chicago and Philadelphia. Philly's scores, for example, are skewed a bit by more suburbany areas in the outer parts of the city. If you took the core area of Philly that is comparable to the area of the whole city of Boston, I am sure the scores would improve.

Have you been to Miami? South Beach is definitely more walkable than any part of Seattle.

South Beach is part of a separate city (Miami Beach), not the city of Miami.

Boston is #2 in bike score? I found the bike infrastructure to be rather lacking there. And while the subway has good coverage around the city, its very, very old and isn't the most pleasant to use. Reliability suffers as a result as well.

South Beach (especially the walkable part) also a very small area, and I bet that car ownership is high even there. South Beach isn't known for transit or job proximity.

Look at commute mode splits as a far more important data point.

2 things:

1. any list of this sort for US cities that doesn't have NYC as #1 should probably be immediately tossed into a trash can.

2. for these kinds of exercises that look solely at city limits, small cities that don't include annexed suburban areas will always look better on paper than larger cities that incorporate hundreds of square miles into their city limits that will bring overall averages way down. if we controlled the major cities to a more consistent 50 sq, mile "urban core", it's possible that we might get some different results.



all that said, the usual suspects are all at the top of the list, so whatever, it's probably not far off, but NYC not being #1 is a serious head-scratcher.

Houston and Phoenix.

Agreed. Sometimes I think LA has better transit, which is nuts considering how walkable SF is in comparison.

BART and Muni have been terribly mismanaged.

In this list New York WAS ranked #1 in walk score and transit as it should be but it fell way down in bikeability, as it should, because of the heavy traffic, lack of designated bike lanes and weather. You appear to be arguing that bike friendliness just shouldn't be a factor, in which case New York would be #1 in this list, but that is a debatable question.

At my age I don't bike, but I will repeat I live in SF but spend enough time in NY and get by without a car in both cases. I'd say they are pretty close. The distances in NY are farther so it's good they have a good subway system but that's mainly useful in Manhattan for going uptown/downtown. New York's bus system is NOT as good as San Francisco's and it matters going crosstown. As for walkability, again they are pretty close. Both cities have areas where it's less than ideal but I happen to live in a neighborhood with a "walk score" of 96 (last time I checked it).

Might as well throw this in: It's a map of designated SF bike routes, many (if not most) of which now have designated bike lans marked on the pavement:

https://www.sfmta.com/sites/default/...?itok=GP_RIplF
https://www.sfmta.com/maps/san-franc...ke-network-map

By contrast, here is a transit map. You can see how close they come to the goal of no one having to walk more than 2 blocks to transit:

https://im1.shutterfly.com/media/47a...D720/ry%3D480/
https://www.google.com/search?q=SF+M...NruYrxIyyfo1M:

The good news here is the overall top 6 are correct. NY should be first, but after that as long as you've got SF, DC, Philly, Chicago, Boston in whatever order, that's OK. NY is a clear tier 1 and the next 5 are a clear tier 2. After that... all pretty debatable.