Moving to SLC,Utah without car (Salt Lake City, Murray: ski resorts, apartment, condo)

[mrdb]

Hi all,

I am moving to Salt lake city with family. I am living in New York. I dont have car and also dont have a practice to drive. My job has moved to Salt lake city I shall be working at Goldman Sachs, my working hours shall be from 6AM to 4 PM. Can I reach my work place by public transport? Which can be a convinient place to live with good schooling district. Can we survive there without car? How is weather compared to Newyork city?

[alexei27]

Originally Posted by mrdb

Hi all,

I am moving to Salt lake city with family. I am living in New York. I dont have car and also dont have a practice to drive. My job has moved to Salt lake city I shall be working at Goldman Sachs, my working hours shall be from 6AM to 4 PM. Can I reach my work place by public transport? Which can be a convinient place to live with good schooling district. Can we survive there without car? How is weather compared to Newyork city?

You CAN get by without a car. TRAX is the local downtown train...and there is a new light rail that has service to the northern suburbs. The busses are pretty good as well. As a current NY-er...formerly living in Utah, I think the mass transit in SLC is pretty good.

[SouthernBelleInUtah]

Whiule you can survive w/o a car, it would be difficult to do grocery shopping w/o one. SLC does not have the big downtown that you are probably used to. It is mostly offices, hotels, and restaurants (many of which close at night). There are certainly good transit routes around town. Are you looking to buy or rent? What is your budget? Where is Goldman Sachs located?

[Zionide]

Goldman Sachs is in the University's Research Park, isn't it?

The University is easily accessible via public transit if you live in Salt Lake City, but getting to the Research Park area will require use of the University shuttle system in addition to public transit.

All of Salt Lake City falls into the Salt Lake City School District, which is pretty much like most other districts in the nation: a few great schools, mostly decent schools, a few bad schools. The quality of the school will depend primarily on the neighborhood in which you live.

If you choose to live outside of Salt Lake City proper, in a suburb city, the main school districts are Granite, Jordan, Canyons, and Murray. Murray is well regarded, though quite small, and the others are very much like Salt Lake City School District. Living in cities that fall into these districts would likely make your public transit work commute significantly more difficult.

I find Salt Lake weather to more comfortable than NYC in most seasons. Like New York, we have cold winters and hot summers (and beautiful springs and falls), but since we do not have the humidity, the extremes in temperature feel a bit less severe. If you are fine in NYC weather, you should have no trouble in Salt Lake. Be aware, however, that should you choose to get a car and drive in winter, it can be treacherous---particularly if you're not experienced with winter driving.

Your budget will really factor into your neighborhood choices, but I'd definitely suggest you look into areas with easy access to TRAX or downtown bus routes. That will get you to work the most efficiently, and your family will probably have a little less culture shock coming from NYC if they're in a city neighborhood. (It will still be quite a change though!) Some of those neighborhoods are: Federal Heights, the Avenues, Sugar House, Central City, 9th & 9th, and Yalecrest. Many of these neighborhoods have Wikipedia entries as well.

As SBIU mentioned, grocery shopping is probably the most difficult thing to do here without a car, but it's not terrible. There are Smith's grocery stores in most the city neighborhoods I mentioned (Central, 9th & 9th, Avenues, and Sugar House, in particular), and if you can walk a few blocks with your groceries you'll be fine.

In short, yes you can absolutely survive without a car---if you pick your neighborhood wisely.

[voxclamantis]

Salt Lake City proper has good mass transit (buses and a couple of light rail lines) but the suburbs extend much, much further out and the quality of the bus system gets a little sketchy out in the suburbs.

I imagine Goldman's offices are located downtown...if that is the case you should look for a place nearby. You can get a very nice condo/apartment right downtown for just a fraction of what it costs you in the City. If you'd prefer a slightly more suburban feel, I'd recommend looking into The Avenues (just due north and stretching east of downtown) or Federal Heights. All of these areas are well-served by mass transit and many people from The Avenues even choose to walk or bike to work. If you don't mind somewhat longer a commute (by bus and/or train, but by no means as long as you might expect in NYC), you might look into the Sugar House or Foothill areas.

That said, it is very hard to get the "most" out of living in Utah sans a set of wheels. I'd consider taking driving lessons if you plan on staying for awhile. You can get to the ski resorts in the Cottonwoods by bus but it can be a pain and Park City/Moab will all be off limits. SLC offers a great range of amenities concentrated in a small area, but everything else is very spread out.

Salt Lake City has a good school district; West High School is easily the best in the state and sends the most to Ivy League/equivalent schools. They have the oldest IB program there. Don't know much about the Elementary/Middle Schools but I'm sure they're excellent, too if you stay on the East Side. The private schools in the city proper are decent, too.

Other neighborhoods to look into would be East Millcreek, Holladay, and Mount Olympus (where I'm from!). Many people who work Downtown commute from these areas but few if any use mass transit. The schools here are part of the Granite School district and I can personally vouch that they are superb, but again, this will be harder to get to from your workplace without a car. If you can join a carpool or work out some other arrangement, though, they are just a 20 minute drive away.

Again, you can easily survive without a car but it will limit your flexibility, especially with respect to neighborhoods and school districts...Do you or your spouse have any driving experience?

The weather is surprisingly similar to NYC temperature-wise...summers are equally-to-slightly-more hot, but minus the humidity. Quite a bit less rain (especially in summer), somewhat colder in the winter and much, much more snow. You'll see flurries as early as late October and as late as early April, although severe blizzards like you'd find in the Midwest are rare. Spring and fall are wet and pleasant.

When are you making the move?