Visually impaired non-driver considering San Diego (Los Angeles, San Francisco: apartment, rentals, home)
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I'm a non-driver (not by choice) with a visual impairment that's bad enough that being able to drive will never happen for me. I'm considering moving to San Diego but have read enough on here and other websites that I know this might not be a good idea considering how car-dependent SD, CA, and, let's face it, 99% of this whole country is. Are there any forum members and current SD residents, who can't drive at all, who might be able to discuss their experiences living in SD with no car and no ability to even utilize something like ZipCar, etc. Things like walkable areas/neighborhoods, how bad, really, is the public transit, do you need to have 20/20 vision to even bike around SD without getting run over by cars, how hard is getting to other parts of CA, up and down the West coast by train, planes, bus, etc.
I'm 41, single male, currently living in Minneapolis and just can't take the weather and somewhat isolated location in my home state anymore. I have a stable long term job (~$75K a year right now) and would be telecommuting full time. I do have relatives near LA and up near Seattle but wouldn't know anyone at all in SD. I've lurked the SD forum for awhile now and have some ideas about the more walkable neighborhoods, like downtown neighborhoods, North Park, Hillcrest, OB, PB, etc. and have looked at these areas on Padmapper just to get an idea of 1-2 bedroom apartment rentals, which is what I'd be looking for. Also spent several hours on Google Street View in several of these areas to try and get a feel for them. I may actually end up making a visit later this spring and will fortunately have a relative, who has lived there previously, that can show me around a little but that will be by car, more than likely.
I've also considered places like Davis, Berkeley, other cities in northern CA, and other big cities like Seattle and Portland. I'd really rather live in a smaller, walkable town than right in the city but definitely would prefer the weather of CA over areas further north, like Seattle and Portland. I've always been stuck living in a larger city due to lack of a car and living right in the city Minneapolis has gotten very old. Just very tired of dealing with / worrying about public transportation that's just never that good in medium sized cities. I'd just rather walk/bike in a more human scale smaller town with good weather. But, if San Diego might work for me, I'd still consider a larger city.
I'm planning on moving out of Minneapolis at the end of August.
Thanks for any info anyone can provide, especially from SD residents in the same boat as I am regarding the not being able to drive part.
Generally speaking our mass transit system doesnt receive glowing reviews.
I personally think its great to have, but whether in of itself is great for the masses remains to be seen. I really enjoy the convenience of not having to drive as we live in a walkable part of the comunity where we can get to the trolley station no problem.
The very tough part of our trolley system is that the density isnt there to supply a strong ridership to/from job centers. Plus 9/10 in San Diego, its still far easier to drive as we just dont have the same traffic levels as say an LA or Bay Area.
Many of the white collar job centers in Sorrento Valley area for example might be near a Coaster or Surfliner route, but the buses are the Achilles heel to get to the job centers (likely in Suburbs) without waiting.
IN short, unless you have absolute specific point A> point B destinations that you will be going to/from the majority of the time you are in SD, will it probably work very well. Outside of those parameters it may leave a lot to be desired.
Dont get me wrong either, our trolley line goes quite a ways outside of the SD City boundaries to East County cities like El Cajon and Santee. Based on this level of infrastructure, this gives some of these cities more of a city/suburb feel moreso than pure suburbs which have little to no mass transit options.
Personally, I'd look at downtown. Shmoov is right that the mass transit in general sucks here. The exception is the Coaster, which does provide good service up the coast, especially to beaches/attractions in downtown Encinitas and Carlsbad. You can walk everywhere, and pretty much everything you would need can be bought at the downtown grocery stores, mall, Office Depot or delivered by Amazon. It's also walking distance to the Santa Fe station, so you can take Amtrak up to LA to see relatives. It's also a $12 cab ride to SAN if you need to fly. Biking is fine, there is a path between near Seaport Village to Petco Park that runs parallel to Harbor Dr., and I found that as long as you stay off Market, 5th and Broadway, biking is incredibly easy with very little traffic. For any other big box type shopping, the trolley to Mission Valley is easy (one of the few destination I think the trolley excels at).
I have a bit of experience with this, giving that I've faced a similar situation myself. I live in San Diego, and I've never had a drivers license as I've had depth perception issues that inhibited this in the past. I moved here from Ann Arbor, MI, which has public transportation (though VERY poor weekend service - buses end at 6pm!) but gets quite cold in the winter and has limited options for getting elsewhere within the state (or even just east into Metro Detroit). The weather was also a factor for me, as it was the combination of this and the limited transit that lead me out here.
Anyway, the transit situation in SD is not as horrible as some make it out to be, though by no means is it up to Northeast/Chicago/San Francisco standards. It is probably closer to what Minneapolis has, though we do have more train and light rail service. The main bus system (MTS) serves the City of San Diego proper and the east/south suburbs - in general, the most frequent lines run about every 15 minutes during the day and every 30 at night/weekends (though a few lines run every 15 min on weekends), generally running from about 5am-11pm give or take an hour (some routes end around 10, others go later than midnight). Other (less frequent) lines run every 30 min during the day - sometimes every hour on weekends. We also have a light rail system (San Diego Trolley) which has 3 lines and runs on similar frequencies to the buses. They cover some areas, but by no means all - many of the more walkable communities are in fact only served by bus service. As for intercity service, we have the Coaster commuter rail which goes to coastal communities north of San Diego proper (North County), as well as Amtrak which has regular service to Los Angeles and Orange County (11 times/day in each direction) as well as connections further north (the Amtrak California train/bus network is pretty extensive).
As far as particular areas to live, you are somewhat limited by the fact that you will want an area that is both walkable with a reasonable transit commute to your job. This can be quite limiting in some cases - particularly if your job ends up being somewhere other than downtown. For instance, if your ideal job ends up being in Rancho Bernardo (30 mi or so from downtown), you are looking at a 80+min bus ride each way unless you want to live in suburbia. A good way to map this out is by using walkscore.com - that will show you areas within a certain commute distance of a location via your preferred mode of transportation. I work at UCSD, and I ended up living downtown because I could catch an express bus to campus yet still have easy access to amenities/transit (many buses and trains come downtown, and its only a 15min trolley ride to the Old Town Transit Center where you can get buses to most of the coastal areas further north. I also can walk to a grocery store, shopping mall, and the restaurants and other attractions down in the Gaslamp. In general, the neighborhoods closer to downtown (such as Hillcrest/North Park) and the coast (Mission Beach/Pacific Beach/Ocean Beach/coastal La Jolla) are better for transit/walkability. I generally find myself frequenting those areas most - besides work, the only other place in SD I go often outside of downtown is Mission Valley (which is where the major shopping malls/big-box stores are) - it's definitely suburban and car-oriented, but having the trolley go through there definitely helps. as for biking, I really don't know about it - people do bike on the streets here, though some areas may be easier than others.
In short - it's not the easiest place to live without a car, but its not the hardest either. A lot depends on where you live and where your job is (and if you can make these two fit). Also, though San Diego has a population of 1.2 million, it really feels smaller than that given the city is composed of smaller distinct neighborhoods that arge somewhat spread out (as opposed to the density of San Francisco, which is actually a smaller city by population but feels much bigger). Overall, if weather and transit are your main concerns, San Diego is worth checking out - though it definitely has its caveats. SF would definitely be easier to do without a car than San Diego (then again, many jobs may be out in the suburbs - though at least they have BART/Caltrain/shuttles). However, San Diego definitely feels like a smaller city and has better weather - though SF is definitely preferable to the east coast/Chicago/Northwest unless you like cold and snow.
You might consider contacting the Institute for the Blind or some similar organization for information. I know you're not completely blind but I'm sure that they would have alot of information that would help you in regards to getting around SD.
I had a co-worker years ago who was in a terrible car wreck back east and was just terrified to drive and I think she had lost her drivers license for awhile too. But she got around SD for the 10+ years that I knew her, I know she took the bus to work downtown and had friends drive her on weekends, etc. for socializing so it is possible. But, one has to accept the fact that CA is very car-centric and even in the "walkable" places there are still cars zooming around all over the place.
SF has the BART which would probably work out well for you. It's more of a real "city" than SD and has city transportation.
Personally, I'd look at downtown. Shmoov is right that the mass transit in general sucks here. The exception is the Coaster, which does provide good service up the coast, especially to beaches/attractions in downtown Encinitas and Carlsbad.
Coaster is nice but since it's commuter rail and doesn't carry a lot of passengers it has pretty low frequency, especially when compared to the Trolley. You basically have a 3 hour gap in the middle of the day with no service on weekdays.
If you don't have to commute to work (which the OP doesn't), living in SD is not that bad without a car imo. The radius you will be willing to travel might be limited but there are areas where it's easy to live without a car. The problem is when you want to explore other areas of the county, you just will need to leave yourself some time to do so if you want to go farther out.
When I lived in PB there were plenty of weekends my car never moved.
Yes - I missed the point about telecommuting, which makes things much easier in that you don't have to worry about where you're commuting to. I can see how that would be the major problem with SD transit - where I am works now for going up to UCSD (though it is a bit long, I at least get to ride a nice express bus), but if I had to work in one of the Mesas (Kearny, Mira, Serra, Sorrento) or Rancho Bernardo I'd be stuck with an insanely-long bus ride (and multiple transfers) if I wanted to live in a nice walkable neighborhood.
The buses seem to do a good job of hitting the more walkable areas (near downtown and the beach) - and you probably won't have a desire to go to the more suburban neighborhoods unless you know someone there (except for perhaps Mission Valley, which the trolley will get you there). The bus routes for the beach areas (as well as the #10 which goes through Hillcrest) all lead to Old Town Transit Center (which also is an Amtrak/Coaster stop), so being able to get there quickly would be a plus.
Also, obviously you'll have to account for cost of living being higher here than in Minneapolis - though that pretty much applies to anywhere you'd go with better weather and/or transit (though some cities like San Francisco would be even higher...)
Thanks, everyone, for the responses. They're very helpful. This is why I really like CD. I actually feel a little more optimistic now about possibly giving SD a try this year. The public transit in Minneapolis isn't exactly stellar either so it's probably not a humongous difference between SD and Minneapolis. And I'd rather be standing around waiting for a late bus in SD weather over what we have here a large portion of the year any day. I'm not even a fan of summer here. Too humid for me and I've lived here all my life.
As far as being in downtown, how is the situation with homeless people / panhandlers bothering the average Joe/Jane walking around doing stuff or going grocery shopping? You don't really get bothered too much by panhandlers here, although it does happen a lot more around bus/light rail stops, which I do tend to end up at more than the average person here. But I have been to Portland, OR a few times and walking around parts of downtown there was definitely on a whole other level compared to Minneapolis/St. Paul. Couldn't stand at a LRT stop without getting hassled. Because of the good weather there, would anyone say downtown SD is anything like Portland as far as people harassing you for money, etc.?
IMO, San Diego is up there with some of the worst cities for homeless people, all CA cities are actually as it probably relates to the weather. I've never been to MPLS but I would easily assume they are worse in SD.
I used to live in Pacific Beach and work downtown and in my experience I found the downtown homeless to be worse than the homeless people by the beach, a bit more aggressive and strung out imo. The homeless by the beach seem less agressive (OB may be an exception though) and from time to time they will go through your garbage in alley ways but I really never had an issue while living by the beach with them. I don't think they're that bad or aggressive but I've only lived in SD and the SF Bay Area and SF easily has some of the most aggressive homeless so my perspective is probably different than yours.
I really would visit here first and see if the homeless bother you that much. I used to take the bus and trolley and wasn't bothered too much from what I recall but there are def times you will get asked.
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