The Best (US) Cities for Living Without a Car

[dave8721]

Originally Posted by mhays

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.

29% of Miami Beach residents do not own a car, I assume the % is much higher just in South Beach, people claim "more than half" do not own a car. City of Miami is at 21.5% not owning cars.

A big part of this though is just a measure of geographic city sizes.
Carless % of the cities on the list:
NYC: 55.7%
DC: 37.9%
Boston: 35.8%
Philly: 33.1%
SF: 30.4%
Chicago: 27.3%
Miami: 21.5%
Minn: 18.1%
Oakland: 17.3%
Seattle 16%
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/ca...-city-map.html

Though not listed on the Carless list, 25.2% of Pittsburgh residents do not own a car. Same with Detroit. And 30.6% of Baltimore residents.

[ue]

In more transit-friendly US cities like New York or Boston or Chicago, do people live car-free/car-lite even outside the dense, urban areas? Like is there a sizable group in Garden City or Walham or Schaumburg living without a car (excluding kids/seniors)? That's one area where I perceive a difference between Canadian and American cities. The transit-friendliness doesn't seem to extent as much into the suburbs like it does here, but I'm curious if this is also true in the traditionally robust transit cities mentioned in the article.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by ue

In more transit-friendly US cities like New York or Boston or Chicago, do people live car-free/car-lite even outside the dense, urban areas? Like is there a sizable group in Garden City or Walham or Schaumburg living without a car (excluding kids/seniors)? That's one area where I perceive a difference between Canadian and American cities. The transit-friendliness doesn't seem to extent as much into the suburbs like it does here, but I'm curious if this is also true in the traditionally robust transit cities mentioned in the article.

my hunch is that pretty much the only people who live carless in the vast majority of suburban chicago are those who are too poor to own a car.

chicago has a pretty good commuter rail system (metra) to get the folks out in the suburban bedroom communities to their downtown jobs in a fairly efficient manner, but outside of that, the only other transit out in the burbs (other of a handful of older inner ring burbs like oak park, evanston, & cicero with CTA rail service) is provided by the PACE suburban bus system, and it leaves A LOT to be desired.

in a nutshell, if you live in suburban chicago and you can afford to own a car, chances are pretty damn likely that you probably do.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by ue

In more transit-friendly US cities like New York or Boston or Chicago, do people live car-free/car-lite even outside the dense, urban areas? Like is there a sizable group in Garden City or Walham or Schaumburg living without a car (excluding kids/seniors)? That's one area where I perceive a difference between Canadian and American cities. The transit-friendliness doesn't seem to extent as much into the suburbs like it does here, but I'm curious if this is also true in the traditionally robust transit cities mentioned in the article.

There are NYC-area suburbs that are as car-free as anywhere in the U.S. outside NYC, but they're almost all urban suburbs, of course. Places like Paterson, NJ, Bridgeport, CT, Yonkers, NY, and really all of North Jersey close to Manhattan, have low car ownership. Newer, sprawly suburbs in the U.S. will never be particularly transit-dependent.

Railroad suburbs, and suburbs on major express bus and ferry routes, will often have very high transit ridership, even if car ownership is high. Wealthy suburbs like Greenwich, Scarsdale or Rye will have high transit ridership.

[mhays]

Originally Posted by dave8721

29% of Miami Beach residents do not own a car, I assume the % is much higher just in South Beach, people claim "more than half" do not own a car. City of Miami is at 21.5% not owning cars.

A big part of this though is just a measure of geographic city sizes.
Carless % of the cities on the list:
NYC: 55.7%
DC: 37.9%
Boston: 35.8%
Philly: 33.1%
SF: 30.4%
Chicago: 27.3%
Miami: 21.5%
Minn: 18.1%
Oakland: 17.3%
Seattle 16%
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/ca...-city-map.html

Though not listed on the Carless list, 25.2% of Pittsburgh residents do not own a car. Same with Detroit. And 30.6% of Baltimore residents.

That is good evidence. However I bet it's very different if you control for income. Census commute stats are unsurprising with that in mind.

The Census 2015 ACS shows Seattle with double Miami's walking commute and transit commute percentage based on city-of. This is remarkable given Miami's tighter city limits and higher density. Walking was 9.6 to 4.5%. Transit was 20.1 to 11.4%. Drive alone was 50.1 to 69.4%. Miami Beach was 10.6% walking, 11.6% transit, and 52.9% drive alone.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by mhays

That is good evidence. However I bet it's very different if you control for income. Census commute stats are unsurprising with that in mind.

This is the other nuance. Detroit has basically the same % of car-free households as Chicago or SF, but Detroit has a fairly awful transit system. Obviously Detroit has a significant proportion of non-choice car-free households.

Middle class or wealthy areas with modest vehicle ownership and/or high transit ridership are probably a better proxy for transit quality.

[ue]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

my hunch is that pretty much the only people who live carless in the vast majority of suburban chicago are those who are too poor to own a car.

chicago has a pretty good commuter rail system (metra) to get the folks out in the suburban bedroom communities to their downtown jobs in a fairly efficient manner, but outside of that, the only other transit out in the burbs (other of a handful of older inner ring burbs like oak park, evanston, & cicero with CTA rail service) is provided by the PACE suburban bus system, and it leaves A LOT to be desired.

in a nutshell, if you live in suburban chicago and you can afford to own a car, chances are pretty damn likely that you probably do.

Yeah, I know the Metra goes pretty far out, but unless you're going into the city, it's not useful. I was thinking more along the lines of the everyday, local stuff... visiting a friend, going to the mall, going to the arena, etc.

The 905 in Toronto and suburban Vancouver both have pretty decent transit ridership. Even Edmonton, which is an archetypal automobility metro, has very usable transit service in the suburbs. It's currently mandated that ETS (which provides for the City of Edmonton and some commuter services, and includes the majority of Edmonton's sprawl) have a bus stop within 400m of every house, even on the edges of suburbia, with few exceptions. This may be changing as we move to a more high frequency, efficient bus system, but it will still make suburban transit fairly usable.

That being said, outside of the very central areas (Downtown, Oliver, Strathcona, Garneau), if you can afford a car, you will, in most cases. The only exceptions I find are younger people (18-25), usually still living at home while going to school, or immigrant families. But based on my experiences, I'd rather be stuck without a car in Clareview than Beaverton OR or Chandler AZ.

Originally Posted by Crawford

There are NYC-area suburbs that are as car-free as anywhere in the U.S. outside NYC, but they're almost all urban suburbs, of course. Places like Paterson, NJ, Bridgeport, CT, Yonkers, NY, and really all of North Jersey close to Manhattan, have low car ownership. Newer, sprawly suburbs in the U.S. will never be particularly transit-dependent.

Railroad suburbs, and suburbs on major express bus and ferry routes, will often have very high transit ridership, even if car ownership is high. Wealthy suburbs like Greenwich, Scarsdale or Rye will have high transit ridership.

This makes sense. I remember Stamford CT having a very walkable core with rail access into the city, making it an option to live car-free, even if most won't. You see this in a lot of Canadian suburbs.

[10023]

I have a real problem with weighting these equally.

With all due respect to Steely, the bike score doesn't matter. Transit matters most and walk score is a close second. A very, very small minority of people uses or even considers bicycling as a form of transportation (rather than recreation).

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

New York's bus system is NOT as good as San Francisco's and it matters going crosstown.

You are out of your mind lol. New York's bus system is so large it doesn't even have a unified map. The map for NYC buses is split by boroughs, and then there are zoom-in sections. There is no bus map that covers the whole city limits like there is for the subway.

Here is just the bus map for Brooklyn:

http://fr.nycmap360.com/carte/image/...s-brooklyn.jpg

[the urban politician]

Originally Posted by dave8721

29% of Miami Beach residents do not own a car, I assume the % is much higher just in South Beach, people claim "more than half" do not own a car. City of Miami is at 21.5% not owning cars.

A big part of this though is just a measure of geographic city sizes.
Carless % of the cities on the list:
NYC: 55.7%
DC: 37.9%
Boston: 35.8%
Philly: 33.1%
SF: 30.4%
Chicago: 27.3%
Miami: 21.5%
Minn: 18.1%
Oakland: 17.3%
Seattle 16%
http://www.governing.com/gov-data/ca...-city-map.html

Though not listed on the Carless list, 25.2% of Pittsburgh residents do not own a car. Same with Detroit. And 30.6% of Baltimore residents.

This goes back to what Steely said: Chicago is huge (city limits), diluting its numbers. Boston, SF, and D.C. pack a lot of urban punch into a tight space, but if you only looked at a 2 mile or so radius from downtown Chicago and it's north lakefront, you would likely see a a huge drop in car ownership.

[JManc]

Mackinac Island

[Steely Dan]

^ that's a quality answer.

[ue]

Originally Posted by 10023

I have a real problem with weighting these equally.

With all due respect to Steely, the bike score doesn't matter. Transit matters most and walk score is a close second. A very, very small minority of people uses or even considers bicycling as a form of transportation (rather than recreation).

That really depends on the city and its culture. It's definitely a considered transportation alternative in Portland, Montreal, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen.

[maru2501]

I'm not going to descend into city vs city, but that list is plenty messed up, and I've spent time in all of those places

[chris08876]

The city of Rikers Island. No... not the city that Rikers Island is in, but Rikers Island itself!

[Shawn]

The point about Boston being physically small is valid, but the flip side is that Cambridge, Newton, Somerville, Brookline, etc. all have MBTA transit coverage (including subway / light rail / frequent Commuter Line services) that rivals most central cities.

[dc_denizen]

Miami. is. A. Death. trap. For. Pedestrians.

[mja]

Originally Posted by 10023

I have a real problem with weighting these equally.

With all due respect to Steely, the bike score doesn't matter. Transit matters most and walk score is a close second. A very, very small minority of people uses or even considers bicycling as a form of transportation (rather than recreation).

Originally Posted by ue

That really depends on the city and its culture. It's definitely a considered transportation alternative in Portland, Montreal, Amsterdam, and Copenhagen.

I mean, plenty of people in Philadelphia use / consider cycling an alternate mode of transportation.

[10023]

Originally Posted by dc_denizen

Miami. is. A. Death. trap. For. Pedestrians.

Miami is a death trap for drivers too.

Originally Posted by mja

I mean, plenty of people in Philadelphia use / consider cycling an alternate mode of transportation.

A certain type of person with a certain type of job. It's not an option for everyone. And the numbers in all of the top cities pale in comparison to the number that use transit or walk or drive.

[mja]

Originally Posted by 10023

A certain type of person with a certain type of job. It's not an option for everyone. And the numbers in all of the top cities pale in comparison to the number that use transit or walk or drive.

I'm a teacher in Philadelphia. A full quarter of my colleagues use a bike to get to work everyday and on some days that can go as high as a third. It's a widely used option, particularly in and around Center City.