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It depends upon one's expectation level for service. Someone who has lived in NYC, Chicago or DC for example probably would find most transit systems entirely inadequate. The fact of the matter is one can survive carless in most larger cities if one can discipline themselves to work their schedule around the transit schedule which often times is an every 30 minute occurrence waiting for a bus or train, versus a few minutes in the rare instances mentioned above. I found that living carless in a big city was fine, particularly if one has car-sharing available. Check out Zipcar...which is in many US cities and offers the opportunity to run errands, shop or just to plain get out of town for a few hours/the day. Zipcar
But in it, just as any city, where you live, where you work, and how much you want to travel far and wide through the city affect how easy it is to live carless. But I know a lot of people here who manage it just fine.
Probably many, if not most. It will depend on where you live within a city though.
And depending on the city, how much you are willing to do to make it work. In New York, being car free is often the best choice. Some other cities where that might be the case for certain neighborhoods would be Boston, Washington DC, Chicago, Philadelphia, maybe San Francisco. After that, there are several cities where it can be done, but might not be the most obvious choice.
Trains seem to be the thing that urbanism geeks go crazy for but from a practical standpoint you can live without a car in any city that has a good bus system and walkable commercial nodes. I lived without a car for five years in Minneapolis, it is very do-able.
to me NYC, Chicago, Boston, Philly, DC, SF have it others are all a step below (ore much more limited in the areas where highly present). To me this adds to the walkability factor
Trains seem to be the thing that urbanism geeks go crazy for but from a practical standpoint you can live without a car in any city that has a good bus system and walkable commercial nodes. I lived without a car for five years in Minneapolis, it is very do-able.
Trains are superior to buses in that they bypass the traffic. Also, it has set stops, so you know exactly when it'll stop (if it's running smoothly). I hate riding a bus when some requests a stop at every block. It's the worst knowing that they're making my commute that much longer.
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