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> Nobody really brings up that the bay area is one of few places in the US where you can live without a car. Is this true? I've only visited the bay for a tota

> Nobody really brings up that the bay area is one of few places in the US where you can live without a car. Is this true? I've only visited the bay for a total of 15 days but only SF and parts of Oakland seemed walkable.

strangus 6y ago
I spent almost 2 decades biking in SF. It's the best way to get around.
tesseract 6y ago
There are suburban "downtowns"/shopping districts near many BART and Caltrain stops where it's quite possible to commute and do most everyday errands on foot/bike/transit. Possibly even easier than a lot of the southwestern half of SF proper. (Having no access to a car at all - through friends or a willingness to use Lyft/Uber - does make some things harder). The older and higher-density suburbs tend to be better for this: for instance downtown San Mateo, Redwood City, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Berkeley, Pleasanton. You pay for the privilege though, and I'm not sure that it's _that_ unique nationally?
- pjlegato 6y ago
  The walkable parts of those cities is vanishingly small, on the order of a few square blocks. The tiny walkable segment is also super-expensive.
  - babesh 6y ago
    Berkeley's walkable area is actually pretty extensive. The others are less so. Berkeley's walkable area encompasses all of Telegraph Avenue down to Ashby (Berkeley Bowl) (South), all of downtown (West), the perimeter of the UC Berkeley campus and the campus itself, and probably half way down University avenue (further West), the North Berkeley area to the north of downtown Berkeley (Chez Panisse, etc...) (North). If you like walking, you can walk from campus all the way to the Bay. If you like hiking, you can hike up part of the way to the LBL. San Pablo Ave is also walkable but wasn't as ritzy. The inaccessible directions are NE and E. W was considered ghetto but has gentrified. The only parts harder to walk are up in the hills (pretty much impossible: narrow, windy, steep, no sidewalks) (E) and the hilly parts of North Berkeley (NE).
    - babesh 6y ago
      The problem with Berkeley is that you can’t get to other areas quickly. BART and the Bay Bridge sucked pre pandemic.
ummonk 6y ago
That statement is true. The Bay Area is a place you can live without a car (namely by living in SF or parts of Oakland or Berkeley, or in many downtowns near a BART or Caltrain station).
cj 6y ago
I lived in 4 different apartments in SF in 4 different neighborhoods, each for 1 year. (Haight/Ashbury, SoMa, Potrero, and Castro). Where I lived in Potrero and SoMa was absolutely not walkable. Potrero was particularly bad because any amount of walking meant climbing a very, very long and steep hill - as in by the time you make it up, you're sweating like crazy. Castro and Haight/Ashbury were walkable, but nowhere as walkable as a city like NYC. The middle ground for me was a motorcycle. Easy to park anywhere. Cheap. Great gas mileage, etc. I had roommates working for Cisco in SoMa who took the bus to work. That was a constant topic of frustration for him. He ended up getting a motorcycle too because of the commute.
deleted 6y ago
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strangus 6y ago

I spent almost 2 decades biking in SF. It's the best way to get around.

tesseract 6y ago

There are suburban "downtowns"/shopping districts near many BART and Caltrain stops where it's quite possible to commute and do most everyday errands on foot/bike/transit. Possibly even easier than a lot of the southwestern half of SF proper. (Having no access to a car at all - through friends or a willingness to use Lyft/Uber - does make some things harder). The older and higher-density suburbs tend to be better for this: for instance downtown San Mateo, Redwood City, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale, Berkeley, Pleasanton. You pay for the privilege though, and I'm not sure that it's _that_ unique nationally?

pjlegato 6y ago
The walkable parts of those cities is vanishingly small, on the order of a few square blocks. The tiny walkable segment is also super-expensive.
- babesh 6y ago
  Berkeley's walkable area is actually pretty extensive. The others are less so. Berkeley's walkable area encompasses all of Telegraph Avenue down to Ashby (Berkeley Bowl) (South), all of downtown (West), the perimeter of the UC Berkeley campus and the campus itself, and probably half way down University avenue (further West), the North Berkeley area to the north of downtown Berkeley (Chez Panisse, etc...) (North). If you like walking, you can walk from campus all the way to the Bay. If you like hiking, you can hike up part of the way to the LBL. San Pablo Ave is also walkable but wasn't as ritzy. The inaccessible directions are NE and E. W was considered ghetto but has gentrified. The only parts harder to walk are up in the hills (pretty much impossible: narrow, windy, steep, no sidewalks) (E) and the hilly parts of North Berkeley (NE).
  - babesh 6y ago
    The problem with Berkeley is that you can’t get to other areas quickly. BART and the Bay Bridge sucked pre pandemic.

ummonk 6y ago

That statement is true. The Bay Area is a place you can live without a car (namely by living in SF or parts of Oakland or Berkeley, or in many downtowns near a BART or Caltrain station).

cj 6y ago

I lived in 4 different apartments in SF in 4 different neighborhoods, each for 1 year. (Haight/Ashbury, SoMa, Potrero, and Castro). Where I lived in Potrero and SoMa was absolutely not walkable. Potrero was particularly bad because any amount of walking meant climbing a very, very long and steep hill - as in by the time you make it up, you're sweating like crazy. Castro and Haight/Ashbury were walkable, but nowhere as walkable as a city like NYC. The middle ground for me was a motorcycle. Easy to park anywhere. Cheap. Great gas mileage, etc. I had roommates working for Cisco in SoMa who took the bus to work. That was a constant topic of frustration for him. He ended up getting a motorcycle too because of the commute.

deleted 6y ago

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