Getting to know a city by its transpiration options (planner, Atlanta, transportation)
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Philly's small -- or rather, the area most tourists would be interested in is. You can walk from the Art Museum to Geno's Steaks in a couple of hours, tops, and those are the extremes (and you might as well skip Geno's). If you're living there and going to places outside the tourist areas, living without a car is much less convenient.
Philly's subway system made the city feel pretty convenient, especially if one lives in the more urban neighborhoods.
Philly's small -- or rather, the area most tourists would be interested in is. You can walk from the Art Museum to Geno's Steaks in a couple of hours, tops, and those are the extremes (and you might as well skip Geno's). If you're living there and going to places outside the tourist areas, living without a car is much less convenient.
We stayed just west of University City, so we used the transit system a bunch. Car might have been faster a few things, but a bit more stressful and we weren't in a big hurry.
I lived in San Francisco for 17 years and had a car when I moved there, and my house had a garage, so I kept it. But I mostly used it for large grocery shopping trips and out-of-town weekend trips. I never drove downtown; between Muni and BART, there was no need to go through the hassle and parking expense. I live in an area where I'm car dependent now, and I miss that aspect of living in a large city with a good transit system. When I get older I might move to a smaller, less expensive city and just rent a car for the occasional times when I need one, or use a service like ZipCar.
I lived in San Francisco for 17 years and had a car when I moved there, and my house had a garage, so I kept it. But I mostly used it for large grocery shopping trips and out-of-town weekend trips. I never drove downtown; between Muni and BART, there was no need to go through the hassle and parking expense. I live in an area where I'm car dependent now, and I miss that aspect of living in a large city with a good transit system. When I get older I might move to a smaller, less expensive city and just rent a car for the occasional times when I need one, or use a service like ZipCar.
Northwest car dependency is much different than the rest of the country I feel. Though I can see how you could crave for a less car dependent area. I am kind of curious where that more ideal city would be for you.
I'm surprised more cities in our country don't have a rail or bus option that has direct service from the major airport to downtown. To me, that is the very best way to experience some sort of transit option while not experiencing the "yeah, I'm on vacation because rental car/hotel/wait/bags" game we all play.
Whenever I visit a city for the first time, I try to experience as much as I can on foot. Once I feel like I have a handle of the city from foot, then I start to incorporate transit options or biking if I can. Where I am from, Portland, Or is a city that is best experienced on a bike.
Whenever I visit a new city that has rail transit I try to schedule a ride (not always possible). Last time I visited LA I rode the light rail and subway but couldn't do commuter rail. Haven't had a chance to ride Houston's rail despite several visits. Of course, such trips are much easier when the airport has rail service.
I'm surprised more cities in our country don't have a rail or bus option that has direct service from the major airport to downtown. To me, that is the very best way to experience some sort of transit option while not experiencing the "yeah, I'm on vacation because rental car/hotel/wait/bags" game we all play.
Agreed. It's funny, we were just talking about this at work the other day. Denver is just now building a line to the airport. You'd think, especially with the airport practically in western Kansas (!) that one of the first priorities would have been to connect the city to the airport with rail. (There is good bus service from the airport to town.) It's the same with Pittsburgh, and probably many other cities. Does anyone know why?
Agreed. It's funny, we were just talking about this at work the other day. Denver is just now building a line to the airport. You'd think, especially with the airport practically in western Kansas (!) that one of the first priorities would have been to connect the city to the airport with rail. (There is good bus service from the airport to town.) It's the same with Pittsburgh, and probably many other cities. Does anyone know why?
That was my biggest complaint when visiting Denver, good to see that finally happening.
Airport lines are tricky because a lot of travelers use those lines but typically commuters don't, and travelers are often times coming from all over the city rather than from one particular area.
There are cities who have worked rail into their airports and have been successful with it, but even cities like NYC, you can't hop on the subway and take it straight to any of the airports, they all require you to get off and take a little shuttle train once you get close to the airports, and LaGuardia doesn't even have a rail option, for them it is just a bus option.
My sister and I have been doing transit only trips. So far Santa Fe, Portland, Seattle and DC. People looked at us like we were crazy, but the way we see it is, the $40 a day we save on car rental is out towards better food and more cocktails! And no one has to be the DD in a strange city.
We do that fairly often in the wintertime. Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore, NYC of course, Boston (one place we went was insistent on validating our parking, but the car was back at the rail station in PA), Montreal, Chicago. We were just in Santa Fe but since we were doing other things on that trip we drove and parked for a couple of days while walking it. Definitely some evapotranspiration happening in Santa Fe.
Agreed. It's funny, we were just talking about this at work the other day. Denver is just now building a line to the airport. You'd think, especially with the airport practically in western Kansas (!) that one of the first priorities would have been to connect the city to the airport with rail. (There is good bus service from the airport to town.) It's the same with Pittsburgh, and probably many other cities. Does anyone know why?
My guess is that while airport lines are useful, they don't get a whole of everyday usage so they may not have the ridership to support it. So, it only makes sense if there's stuff right by the airport.
Boston has lots of rail, but only BRT to the airport. Works fine as it's a short distance (goes in a tunnel for a mile or two downtown, too). LaGuardia Airport has no rail connection, though recently they added a non-stop bus to subway or LIRR, the previous local bus was painfully slow.
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