leeannpal Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 In a couple of years, my husband and I would like to move to an area of America that has access to decent public transportation. Cars seem to be the bane of our existence, and we would like to be less dependent on them. having lived overseas for a number of years, we actually miss good public transportation. We live in the Orlando are now, but in a suburb, and the public transportation leaves a lot to be desired. Weather does not matter to us. We would like a livable place with decent cost of living and good public transportation. What would you suggest? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prairiewindmomma Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Pipe dream? The cities here with good infrastructure also tend to have a higher cost of living. Most local municipalities with a reasonable cost of living have only bus service, which I find limiting. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kewb Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 NYC and DC are the only two I've got. But I am an East Coast Gal. The West Coast may have some good mass transit cities. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MeaganS Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Utah is ok and it seems like they are always trying to make it better. It is definitely better than most non-huge cities I've been in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greta Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 We would like a livable place with decent cost of living and good public transportation. So would we! I sure hope you get some good answers, because I'd love to know as well. We hate having to own cars. But I think that combination (with the moderate cost of living) just doesn't exist in the U.S. I can tell you: don't move to Albuquerque! We have some friends who lived in Europe for 8 years, and when moving back to the states, they chose Abq because of the low cost of living and the fact that the bus system looked great. In theory. In reality they discovered that the buses never run on time, so they gave up and bought a car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilyGF Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 There are areas in Chicago with excellent public transportation and a fairly low cost of living. Just don't end up in a suburb. Sent from my ALCATEL ONE TOUCH Fierce using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirty ethel rackham Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 There are areas in Chicago with excellent public transportation and a fairly low cost of living. Just don't end up in a suburb. Sent from my ALCATEL ONE TOUCH Fierce using Tapatalk I agree with most of this. However, the areas of the City of Chicago that have really good public transit options are going to be more expensive. (I suppose expensive is a in the eye of the beholder - compared to New York - much less expensive.) Many of the poorer areas have spottier options. Some closer in suburbs have good public transportation ... into Chicago. Suburb to suburb transportation is much less available. I know lots of people in Chicago who do not own cars or get by with one car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FaithManor Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Some areas of Chicago are about the only ones that I can think of that do not have uber high COL and still has great public transport. We've got nothing out here. There is one handicap bus that runs in the county seat only and only 8-5 p.m. by appointment. Granted numerous persons with disabilities do use it to get back and forth to medical practitioners that happen to be located in the county seat, but if you have to travel more than 8 miles outside the range, you are out of luck. There isn't funding. Tax revenue has remained level since the late 80's while the prices of everything the county has to do have risen by staggering percentages. So programs that aren't mandatory just keep getting cut more and more. There isn't any job growth in this area. If you become a student at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, MI, you can ride the city bus for free and it does tend to go pretty much every where from about 7 a.m. - 7 or 8 p.m. if memory serves. :D Now, I'm not saying that your options are great. Yes, COL is low, and you do have Target, Walmart, Kohls, JcPenny, Home Depot, Menards, several grocery stores, a kind of decent hospital and support medical staff but not big and state of the art by any stretch compared to say U of MI Medical Center or Beaumont in Troy, sporting events on campus, and very limited fine arts events, but there is a cute little quilt store not far from campus! :biggrinjester: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluegoat Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Portland is supposed to be a very livable city with great walking and good public transport, as is Boston. It can be worth concentrating on smaller cities though, for a combination of accessibility and good COL. Sometimes the public transport might be somewhat less snazzy, but smaller size still means you can get around easily, and they are less expensive than the really big cities. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Katy Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Has San Francisco been mentioned yet? I have half a dozen friends who have lived there for at least a year or two after college without cars. Not a cheap town by any means though. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Amira Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 I've lived in DC, Seattle, and Salt Lake without a car (or, at least without driving at all except on the weekends when we wanted to get out of the city). I walk a lot more than I take public transportation though. Personally, I'm willing to have a higher COL to not have to drive all the time so I have been happy in DC and Seattle despite the higher COL. I think Salt Lake could be a decent option, as long as you were living downtown. I used public transportation a lot there. Downtown SLC is one of the very few diverse parts of the state so it's not so much like living in stereotypical Utah there. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farmgirl70 Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 San Francisco has good public transit...lots of people here live without cars. The cost of living is very high, though. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Seattle? I lived there without a car and it was okay, but that was a long time ago. I know Portland is good, but the housing market has gone nuts. We live in DC and the public transit is pretty good, but the cost of living is enormous. There was just a study released that said it's more expensive to raise a kid here than in NYC, which is just mind boggling to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Of the cities I have lived in, Seattle and the surrounding areas had the best area transit. I have not lived in NYC or DC though. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardenmom5 Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 Portland is supposed to be a very livable city with great walking and good public transport, as is Boston. only if you plan on a very small area of transit. I wouldn't plan on no car in Portland. Of the cities I have lived in, Seattle and the surrounding areas had the best area transit. only if you plan on living IN the city. and 'walkable' neighborhoods within the city are higher cola. relying on metro for employment transportation is very limiting. metro transit is a joke. as far as they are concerned - downtown seattle is the center of the universe. never mind more people live in seattle - and commute to the eastside. park-n-rides are nice - but most of the transit is workday based and some of those buses only run during the workday commute. one way. one year, the middle school did a "metro bus rally" sending kids all over so they could see where they could get on a metro bus. biggest. disaster. p.r. stunt. ever. all it did was convince kids they never wanted to use metro. ever. metro is what convinced 1ds he really did want a driver's license. to get 20 minutes up the free way to a job (literally from our house to employer) - was a two hour commute by bus, and walking almost a mile. each way. my latest frustration with them is a football game on a Friday. no extra buses - and when the game got out, no extra buses for a far greater crowd of people. we ended up splitting a taxi with another couple. it was much faster (especially since the bus was late, and according to the local 'where's my bus' app, it was going to be 30 minutes LATE.) - and we knew we'd have transportation. the crowd was so big, not everyone was getting on the ONE bus that was still coming before they shut down for the night. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prairiewindmomma Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 I cannot call Seattle or Portland cities with a good cost of living. Housing is incredibly expensive, especially for families. The pp's point about only the downtown areas being walkable/usable is a good one. DC seems workable if you are on a metro line. Perhaps if you lived out in the 'burbs it would be affordable, but going to doctors, etc. still wouldn't be easy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bluegoat Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 I think with most cities, if you want to go without a car, you are going to need to think carefully about where you settle. But - a car is a big expense, so that will mean you might be able to afford a different sort of housing. It also depends if you are talking about living with kids or just a couple. My city has not great transit for suburbs or outlying areas, but when we moved in, access to transit was a priority, specifically so my dh could bus to work. So - we got a place in an inner suburb, but not one that is trendy, but the street has three bus routs. One goes downtown to dh's office and big connection to downtown. One goes to the mall, the big downtown, my church, my mom's house, and the university. One goes somewhere else. We can also walk to a strip mall with grocery, drug store, our dentist and our doctor. So - we could, if we wanted, depend entirely on public transit and walking. But - it isn't (yet at least) a cool area to live in. We can get to cool stuff though. One possibility might be to look instead at the COL you would like, or other things you want in a city, and see if there are neighbourhoods that appeal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gardenmom5 Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 For perspective - seattle has a housing cola of 252. Overall is 154. On a scale of 100 being average. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted September 8, 2015 Share Posted September 8, 2015 The Pioneer Valley in Western MA has a great bus system. It's free to students, but I think anyone can use it. Western MA is probably still relatively expensive compared to the Midwest, but it's cheap compared to, say, living in Boston or NYC. It's also really beautiful out there. The problem would be finding a good job. I lived out there 4 years without a car and never missed it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brit29 Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 Tacoma area. Lower cost of living than Seattle. Seattle is a good public transit city. Denver is pretty good. If you go north, Fort Collins is getting better with transit, but you'd still need a car. I think I could easily live in Tacoma or Seattle without a car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilyGF Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 If you want to move to a place with good public transportation, you have to approach it as a city. Good public transportation means density, which often means high rises (or walk up buildings) and little to no yard. It means bad parking (if parking were easy, everyone would get a car, so the city zones to have minimal parking even in new buildings). Older cities will have housing built back when everyone took the street car, so you might find an "apartment" with wood floors, beautiful crown moldings, a maid's room, and 2000-3000 square feet. You'll have to learn to get along with a condo board. If you don't want any neighbors, you may find a tall elevator building (which comes with higher costs because elevators are expensive to maintain). We moved here from California. All our neighbors felt sorry for us because we had to move into an apartment (which turned out to be beautiful). The other people in the apartment building became our friends. We love it here because we actually know our neighbors. BUT, if we lived like this were the suburbs, we'd be miserable. I generally use my car 2-3 times per week. I use it to go to Costco (can't cart that much home any other way). I know families with 3+ kids who are without cars, but they generally have chosen their place to live based on being the most walkable around. We wanted a backyard, and paid for it in a higher cost for the house and lower density (we sometimes drive to friends' homes, especially if the weather is bad). Two stories. I had the car in the shop and had forgotten that I had a 7 am dentist appointment in another part of the city, about 5 miles away. I started freaking out. My husband said, "You don't live in a suburb. You can take the train or bus." I went with the train. Another time, in winter, our car was being worked on and I had to get my kids to a class 14 miles away. We took the bus to the train and then had to walk one block. Can't do that in a suburb! And then, on the way home, we met up with another family from the class and took the train with them. It was a lot of fun. Emily 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 I cannot call Seattle or Portland cities with a good cost of living. Housing is incredibly expensive, especially for families. The pp's point about only the downtown areas being walkable/usable is a good one. DC seems workable if you are on a metro line. Perhaps if you lived out in the 'burbs it would be affordable, but going to doctors, etc. still wouldn't be easy. When I looked it up it said DC was 10% more expensive than Seattle. The burbs can be just as much here. I agree with the above suggestion to pick the place and the vibe and then look at the public transit. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 Tacoma area. Lower cost of living than Seattle. Seattle is a good public transit city. Denver is pretty good. If you go north, Fort Collins is getting better with transit, but you'd still need a car. I think I could easily live in Tacoma or Seattle without a car. What. You all have been on very different Seattle public transportation that I have. Trains and buses in Seattle are the worst, most inconvenient, most circuitous I have ever seen in my life! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 If you want to move to a place with good public transportation, you have to approach it as a city. Good public transportation means density, which often means high rises (or walk up buildings) and little to no yard. It means bad parking (if parking were easy, everyone would get a car, so the city zones to have minimal parking even in new buildings). Pioneer Valley is an exception - it's actually more on the rural side even than a suburb. The only reason there's any public transportation is the 5 colleges, spread among 3 towns, so you can actually get pretty far on it, too. You'd just have to buy a house strategically near the bus routes. I've been quite surprised, now that we're looking at colleges for my dds, that other outlying college areas don't seem to have the same transport as the Pioneer Valley. Here's a map to give you an idea of the extent of it. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommymilkies Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 NYC, San Francisco, and Portland have great public transportation from my experience. I've been less pleased around Chicago, Raleigh, Cincinnati, and St. Louis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alessandra Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 Washington's metro system extends outside the city limits, into the suburbs. In NYC by comparison, there are different systems once you cross city limits. Awkward. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 Washington's metro system extends outside the city limits, into the suburbs. In NYC by comparison, there are different systems once you cross city limits. Awkward. The Metro extends beyond the city limits, including Metrobus, but there are also different bus systems in nearly all the adjacent jurisdictions. Plus, there's now a popular and growing additional bus system in the city (Circulator) and the streetcars (if they ever manage to make them work) will be yet another connected by separate system. I've found that nearly everywhere has a patchwork system like this though. Now though, with the advent of apps and map programs that will simply tell you the best way from A to B, I think it's less of an issue. I remember the summer I lived in Seattle calling the toll free bus number constantly. "Hi, I'm here, can you help me get to there?" and they would look it up and just tell you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carol in Cal. Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 San Francisco's public transit is the best I've seen, but it's very expensive to live there or nearby. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted September 9, 2015 Share Posted September 9, 2015 Honestly, I think that is true pretty much everywhere in a US city. When I lived in Seattle, I did live in the city, or close enough. My friends live on the East Side and use the park n ride to work. Their son can use the bus system in their area to get to UW Bothel, so it works for them. In LA, I knew people who tried to use the train and bus to get to where i worked and it took them 2 hours when it only took me 30 min. by car for the same distance (thankfully we had to go in so early we avoided the really heavy traffic.) only if you plan on a very small area of transit. I wouldn't plan on no car in Portland. only if you plan on living IN the city. and 'walkable' neighborhoods within the city are higher cola. relying on metro for employment transportation is very limiting. metro transit is a joke. as far as they are concerned - downtown seattle is the center of the universe. never mind more people live in seattle - and commute to the eastside. park-n-rides are nice - but most of the transit is workday based and some of those buses only run during the workday commute. one way. one year, the middle school did a "metro bus rally" sending kids all over so they could see where they could get on a metro bus. biggest. disaster. p.r. stunt. ever. all it did was convince kids they never wanted to use metro. ever. metro is what convinced 1ds he really did want a driver's license. to get 20 minutes up the free way to a job (literally from our house to employer) - was a two hour commute by bus, and walking almost a mile. each way. my latest frustration with them is a football game on a Friday. no extra buses - and when the game got out, no extra buses for a far greater crowd of people. we ended up splitting a taxi with another couple. it was much faster (especially since the bus was late, and according to the local 'where's my bus' app, it was going to be 30 minutes LATE.) - and we knew we'd have transportation. the crowd was so big, not everyone was getting on the ONE bus that was still coming before they shut down for the night. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tap Posted September 10, 2015 Share Posted September 10, 2015 Portland Oregon is pretty good. The city proper has pretty good options, and it is bike friendly. It isn't a cheap city to live in but there is a pretty high quality of life here. If you want to leave the city you have some options for Amtrak and Greyhound style buses. I know people who live in Portland without cars, and then just use a day rental service for cars when they need it. Or they keep an inexpensive car and just use it when they want to go shopping for a larger item or road trips. Some of the suburbs and over the border in Vancouver (Washington) also has some public transportation that goes into Portland but city buses in the burbs don't run too late, so it is really more of day commute option. Most people do a park and ride option, but from my house in Vancouver, you can get into Portland using just public transportation if you have an extra hour or two each way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura in CA Posted September 10, 2015 Share Posted September 10, 2015 San Francisco is easy to get around in without owning a car – BART (subway/train), streetcars, cable cars of course, lots of buses ... Uber ... car-sharing, bike-sharing, ZipCar, etc. I know plenty of people who live there with no car. And parking is a bear. BUT who can afford to live there??? ETA: I'm a big supporter of public transportation. I've lived in several European countries. Even outside of SF, it's possible to use the public transit system if you live in the right places. Caltrain runs up the peninsula from San José to SF, connecting with BART, and Amtrak and the ACE train serve the East Bay (ACE train runs from Stockton (I think) to San José). My son attends college in the SF Bay Area. I don't drive on the freeways – at all – but my son can and does take BART/bus to easily travel the 40 miles between home and school. For about $5 and no hassle with a car. :) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catz Posted September 10, 2015 Share Posted September 10, 2015 Minneapolis/St. Paul public transit is coming on strong. I know many people now who are using it primarily. I live urban and can catch 3 different lines blocks from my house. You'd want to live urban, if you weren't going to have a car at all although the commuter service is good now and I have a sibling that takes it every day from an outer ring suburb. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fairfarmhand Posted September 10, 2015 Share Posted September 10, 2015 *snort* NOT Nashville. I'd love to have a good way to get into the city without getting in a car. There isn't one. My brother lives in town and doesn't drive because of a disability. He rides his bike and city buses and stuff sometimes, but it's not always easy or convenient. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raptor_dad Posted September 10, 2015 Share Posted September 10, 2015 Minneapolis has a decent bus system and a truly world class biking infrastructure. The cost of living is low and there are many neighborhoods where you don't need a car. Transit-wise it is on par with Seattle or SF and slightly behind Boston. Biking-wise it is on par with Portland and Europe and very slightly ahead of Seattle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Daria Posted September 10, 2015 Share Posted September 10, 2015 There are definitely DC suburbs that would work, depending on what kind of housing you want, whether public schools are an issue,and your definition of affordable. DC itself is out, due to affordability, but your money will go further in the suburbs. I live in an area that has a reputation as super expensive, and I saved $1000 a month in rent by moving here from somewhere comparable in the city that is 2 metro stops away. But if I didn't want to stay close to my mom and keep DS in the same school I'd look at parts of Hyattsville, Mount Ranier, or the Forest Glen area of Silver Spring. All would be fine without a car. Forest Glen would also be fine for schools all the way through. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirty ethel rackham Posted September 13, 2015 Share Posted September 13, 2015 Minneapolis has a decent bus system and a truly world class biking infrastructure. The cost of living is low and there are many neighborhoods where you don't need a car. Transit-wise it is on par with Seattle or SF and slightly behind Boston. Biking-wise it is on par with Portland and Europe and very slightly ahead of Seattle. I consider myself a hardy Midwesterner and work hard to cultivate my inner Norwegian (there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing.) When I was in Minneapolis a couple of years ago, I was amazed at the number of people who bike to and from work in really, really cold weather - like below zero with 20 below wind-chills. I've walked the dog in that weather, but 10 - 15 minutes was our maximum. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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