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Transportation- For Those In Large Cities

S

Sideonecincy

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Sep 29, 2003
421
0
Well I will soon be coming up on graduation from college and I have been interested in a while to move to a city that is heavily dependent on public transit rather than dependent on cars. I currently live outside of Cincinnati and we have a public bus service in Cincinnati but in only certain areas. I am not that crazy about driving either.

For those who live in large cities with a dependable transit system, do you even find the need to own your own vechile? Or is it pretty much, no matter what city you live in, you are going to have to own some sort of independent transportation? How much do you estimate that you save per year by not driving or owning a car? How much do you spend on transportation in a given month?
 
I live in Vancouver BC.

I dont have a car. I dont need a car.
Public transport here is great. Plus the bike routes are well laid out so you can actually use them to get somewhere.

The stats seem to indicate that car use in Vancouver had dropped 12.5% in the last 5 years. I get to work/school faster taking public transport than I would driving.

Now when ever I go visit family in Seattle I am appaled by the crappy system they have down there. Compared to Vancouver.
 
I live in Los Angeles, enough said :(

However, I know that most of my friends who do live in cities with good transit systems, they often take advantage of car sharing programs like flexcar for when they really need a car - cheap and convenient.
 
Leareth said:
Now when ever I go visit family in Seattle I am appaled by the crappy system they have down there. Compared to Vancouver.
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oh my god its terrible here. In the city it is ok, but thats not where the problem lies. Its all the suburbs around Seattle. They honestly need to do something fast, or it will get out of hand.
 
I'm glad that public transportation is good in Vancouver because the driving is nightmare! :p There's no decent highway system, you just get dumped into the city, traffic is horrible, terrible drivers, haha I could go on forever ;). In all fairness, Vancouver is a great city, I go there occationally. Fun place :)
 
I live in London and use public transport to get to work every day, as well as for most social purposes. I still own a car but it's not a necessity. It's a luxury. I treat it basically as a big toy :D
 
Heh, well I live outside of Cincinnati, too, so I guess I can't help you much! Though, did you know that Cincinnati was supposed to have a subway system, but the project was cancelled?
 
I lived in London. Fantastic transportation system. Really. People complain about it, but the coverage is outstanding.

I'm from Toronto, and the "subway" is pretty fast and reliable, but coverage is poor, meaning most of the public transport there consists of buses.

Hong Kong: What's a car, and why do you need one? Have been in cars in HK, but the train and mini-buses are so much better.

Sydney: Get a car.
 
san diego is pretty good. bike traveling is pretty easy all around the city, with bike lanes on most major streets. public transportation...kinda spotty though. but if you're going outside the city limits, you're sol.

south florida is definitely not on the list, i currently am trapped here without a car and it feels like prison. public transportation doesn't even exist in my town, you have to go at least 20 minutes from here to get to a bus stop.

san francisco and new york are obvious. portland is also good. i think i had a thread earlier this year asking similar question like that.
 
I think here in Toronto the transit system is ok. Expensive though. Many Americans I have met, have asked me "do people here have cars?" I go, well I don't...

I am looking forward to buy a bike. Although, I am afraid of thieves.
 
It very much depends on the city.

I grew up in Los Angeles. No way would I be without a car there.

I now live in London, England... but I'm outside of inner London enough that it's not a bad idea to have a car. When going into inner city, having a car is more of an inconvenience, public transport is preferred.

It's an unfair estimate of price here however (freakin expensive arse London) so I'll leave that one to others.
 
Kamera RAWr said:
I'm glad that public transportation is good in Vancouver because the driving is nightmare! :p There's no decent highway system, you just get dumped into the city, traffic is horrible, terrible drivers, haha I could go on forever ;). In all fairness, Vancouver is a great city, I go there occationally. Fun place :)
Click to expand...

Believe it or not the entire highway thing is intentional. The GVRD is trying to cut down on the use of vehicles in the city. I feel they are doing a good job.
I can walk to almost anything within 10 minutes. Longer distances are very doable via bike or rollerblades and I can get to most of the colleges and universities in 30 minutes and one bus.

One thing proposed is no vehicles in the downtown core. I can see it working, the RAV line to the Airport will start there, the skytrain ends there, and there are dozen or so bus routes. Alot of the people who work in the downtown core do not drive to work, they take public transit - faster and cheaper.
 
Sideonecincy said:
...I have been interested in a while to move to a city that is heavily dependent on public transit rather than dependent on cars...
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Just being pedantic, but you really wouldn't want to live in a city that was dependent on either car or public transport, what you want is a city that has acceptable options to use either...in an ideal world.
robbieduncan said:
... I treat it basically as a big toy :D
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I have a fantastic image of you holding your car in enormously out-sized hands and going "bum-brum" as you run it back and forward on the floor:D
iBlue said:
...(freakin expensive arse London)...
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Mmmmm London arse, worth every penny.
 
I'm in NYC and obviously don't need a car :p My brother has never owned a car. He went to college in Boston and lives in NYC now. The times he's needed a car, he's rented one, and it's only been a few times.
 
I live in NYC as well and you never need a car if you're on the island of Manhattan, but if you plan on going to any one of the 4 outer boroughs you should have a car. Buses take forever and the subways that reach out to them are also slow.

Also soon you'd be better off with a car anywhere in new york because of how old the subway system is. Being most of it is over a century's old, it wasn't built to handle all the riders it gets today (16 million riders a day I hear). The system is maxed out.
 
Peterkro said:
I think 4.3 million per day is a more correct figure.
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This ad in all the cars confused me. :p Didn't realize they counted each eye as opposed to pairs. I should have believed them when they said they're counting every one of them.


ssss3_t.jpg
 
I said that because I believe NY,London and Paris shift the most people around and and NY at 4.3 is 1.3 more than London the oldests of the systems.(there are 8 million stories in the naked city and this is just one of them :) ).
 
It's an oldie but a goldie:) :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Naked_City
Synopsis

"There are eight million stories in the Naked City," as the narrator immortally states at the close of this breathtakingly vivid film—and this is one of them. Master noir craftsman Jules Dassin and newspaperman-cum-producer Mark Hellinger's dazzling police procedural, The Naked City, was shot entirely on location in New York. As influenced by Italian neorealism as American crime fiction, this double Academy Award winner, The Naked City remains a benchmark for naturalism in noir, living and breathing in the promises and perils of the Big Apple, from its lowest depths to its highest skyscrapers.
 
Public transit in Montreal is awesome as far as I'm concerned, but I say that coming from a town in Newfoundland with a population around 2000 ;)

I spend about $100/month on day-to-day transit, which includes getting two and from work, and moving around the city for events and parties. I do carpool to work about half the time, but mainly because it saves me about an hour a day and is much cheaper. Plus, my carpool buddy would be driving regardless of whether or not I accompanied him, so I don't feel like I'm negatively impacting the environment.
 
Here in Chicago it's about the same as NYC- you won't want a car. It's too expensive and impractical. I haven't owned one in over 8 years now. I can't imagine ever owning a car again. They are the worst place I can think of for your money to go.

The transportation is good here. If I ever need a car to go out of town, I rent one. Good for you if leave Ohio too. ;) I grew up there. You aren't going to believe how good life can be outside of that state.

Oh- I spend $80 a month on transportation. You can't beat that.
 
The New York Subway is very nice. I go there quite often, and to tell the truth, I am a "metrophile." My number one aspiration is to become a NYC subway train operator... that's a dif. story. NYC is building more onto the subway and working to make it better and more efficient. The reason it's crowded is because the trains run 8-10 blocks apart, being that there is not a system employed yet to know their exact location, but the MTA is working on that. Just as well, they are currently constructing the Second Avenue line to help with the crowding, it will begin to function around 2014, with it being whole around 2020. The NYC subway is getting better, just give it some time.
 
Spain has some of the best public transportation ever (in my opinion of course). Even the po-dunk towns have decent bus system, or are so small you can just walk from end to end in five minutes.:)

In Madrid with the Metro and Buses you can go anywhere (even the moon) for around a euro. I've needed a car twice since I've lived here, and I just rented one for the day (around 50 euros).

Even in cities without good public transportation, it depends on where you live whether you need a car or not. A lot of cities are trying to re-urbanize and make the city livable to help stop urban sprawl, and you can generally find everything you need, if its done right, within a 5 block radius. But of course where you work/go to school can come into play as well.

So, choose carefully where you live and you can save some major money (insurance depending on age/record/car/coverage 500 - 3,000, gas-another 1000-3000 a year, car payment 7,000-10,000 per year).

Disclaimer: the quoted prices might vary depending on your habits (if you buy a porsche or a ford, you drive 600 miles a week or 50, you are 17 with 5 speeding tickets vs 30 married with 2 kids no tickets etc...) and are just there for some idea.
 
I grew up on Long Island, so I know how awesome NYC is.

I went to university in Washington, DC. The city sucks at first glance (well, after you finish with the sights) but if you dig a bit deeper, you find that DC can be a cool place - many good bars and restaurants. Anyway, back to the point, the public transportation there isn't bad, I never had a car and never needed one. There's some areas of the city that's hard to get to with public transportation, but most places that are worth going to are easily accessible with the Metro.

I will be moving to San Francisco in a month for law school. I visited there to scope it out, and the public transportation there is a bit confusing, but seems decent. They are all a bit confusing at first, but when you get used to it, you couldn't imagine being confused ;)

I also visited Los Angeles, and to be honest, I don't like the city. The public transportation is what I call "umm... this is LA, and this is it?" And most of LA doesn't even look like a city!

I visited London and Paris recently. London has a very nice underground system. Very compact and strange-looking :)D) and confusing as hell. But it's like the above, you just have to get used to it. It covers a lot of areas, so it seems pretty nice. I haven't used it much, however. I just walk :)

As for Paris... very interesting, needless to say. It's very similar to New York's subway in many ways, and looks much older, and looks like it's in much more of need of renovations. But it's functional at least, and I used it a lot to see as much of the city as I can in one day. (Yes, ONE day. Ain't enough, I gotta get back there someday).

I really want to visit Chicago one day. Sounds like an awesome place.
 
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