Car Free Communities

[jac941]

For a variety of reasons I am DONE with cars. I don’t like them, don’t want to be around them, and don’t want to own one for day to day living. I’m willing to accept the occasional need to rent one for longer distance trips to visit family, but for the most part I don’t want them in my life.

So I’m crowd sourcing from the community. Where is minimal car living feasible? I don’t just mean my own family going without a car, but where there’s little need to worry about cars because they’re essentially not used. A place where the pedestrian is king or queen. Where transit or walking or cycling are the norm and not a lifestyle choice.

I’ve tried searching for this but am striking out. The places in the US where this seem to exist are on university campuses or centers of resort towns or on islands - not exactly places to live - though all have the quiet, people centric environment I’m looking for. Outside of the US, I’ve found more islands and centers of expensive European cities. Am I missing any more affordable communities where people actually live (not tourist attractions) where cars are strongly discouraged or outright banned (beyond commercial deliveries)?

Thanks!

[YoungGranny]

Netherlands has several incredible bike cities, I've only spent time in Amsterdam but have heard good things from a friend who lives in Utrecht as well.

I've traveled around quite a few European cities and found several to be much more pedestrian-friendly (Prague and Berlin come to mind)  and even though there are still cars it's much less invasive than anywhere I've been in the US

I've still live in the US for a now near a University to be in a very pedestrian-friendly area but cars still "rule the road". Hoping to be able to retire to a car-free lifestyle myself one day.

[Roots&Wings]

Freiberg Germany has several car free districts and seemed fairly normal/livable, rather than island or tourist (granted it's been 15 years since I visited). I think it was something like 75% of households didn't own cars when I was there.

[uniwelder]

There's a nice little city (dense 200k population) in Mexico called Guanajuato that's relatively car free.  There are main streets and tunnels that you can drive through, but its very pedestrian friendly with an old European style, so streets are too narrow and steep to support much vehicle traffic.  Its on our possible 'retire to Mexico' list of places--- my wife is Mexican.

[yachi]

Is a place like New York City out because it has car-lined streets?
From visiting it for a job, it strikes me as a place where living with a car is more painful than living without one.  It was very pedestrian friendly when I went there.  There are taxis, but it seemed to me most people got around by foot and on other public transportation.

[Dulcimina]

Is a place like New York City out because it has car-lined streets?
From visiting it for a job, it strikes me as a place where living with a car is more painful than living without one.  It was very pedestrian friendly when I went there.  There are taxis, but it seemed to me most people got around by foot and on other public transportation.

I was wondering the same thing for Maryland  suburbs of DC.   I live a 5 minute walk from a Red line metro station. Many other people live here because they use metro as their primary transportation choice. It's not a car free community, but I have easily been car free for about 7 years.  Uber/Lyft is fairly quick. I have a Zipcar membership, which I use every now and then.

It's about a 30 min walk to my gym/a CVS/Whole Foods. I can also take Metro one stop then walk 5 mins to those places. There's another similar shopping center and public library 30 mins walk through lovely neighborhoods in a different direction, less than 10 mins by two separate bus routes.  The opposite direction takes you to Rock Creek Trail. 

Since Covid lockdown, they've been closing parts of Beach Drive (which runs alongside the creek) from Friday to Sunday to accommodate more use. They used to close Beach Drive in DC proper as well many years ago. I used to drive there to go rollerblading. I'm guessing they still do.  I haven't tried it but I think you can take the trail itself to the National Zoo.  There's another trail (Capital Crescent Trail) that you can use to bike to Georgetown.

My job is about 3 miles walking or 2 miles driving (driving is a shorter route than walking due to using side streets with less traffic).

If cars are a trigger, this might not be the right place. But it works for me to be car free.

[yachi]

I'm not surprised you're having difficulty finding an affordable community without cars.  If an area has cheap land, than it's cheap enough to have a parking space, and cars are very useful for traveling from place to place (like visiting your family).  Then people will use them to commute a little farther away to make some more money or have access to better jobs.  Before you know it, they're being used everyday.

So islands end up without cars because they're small and it's expensive to bring one onto the island.  I vacationed on one where travel was by golf cart or walking.  And you end up without cars in areas where land is so expensive it makes little sense to devote land to them, like large cities.  Except in some large cities you have so few parking spaces everyone drives around in a circle like a clown until one opens up.

[dougules]

Are we just talking where walking, biking, and transit are the dominant form a transportation, or do you mean places that are actually car-free?  I'd say totally car-free is not that common anywhere in the world. 

Also, are you talking about staying in the US, or looking at the world as a whole?  Also are we talking just big cities or smaller cities and small towns?

There's a nice little city (dense 200k population) in Mexico called Guanajuato that's relatively car free.  There are main streets and tunnels that you can drive through, but its very pedestrian friendly with an old European style, so streets are too narrow and steep to support much vehicle traffic.  Its on our possible 'retire to Mexico' list of places--- my wife is Mexican.

Some of the main streets in Guanajuato have pretty heavy traffic, and the sidewalks on those streets are super narrow.  That being said, it's still about as good as you're going to get in terms of pedestrian-friendly in North America. 

In general older cities in Latin America are a good place to look.  It's affordable, and several countries are easy in terms of visas and red tape. 

[StarBright]

You might want to look into New Urbanism and specifically communities planned by groups like DPZ. They aren't cheap cheap, and aren't totally car free, but are designed to encourage a car free lifestyle.

[jac941]

There are some good thoughts and questions here. I'll check out all of the cities listed & the New Urbanism / DPZ communities. Here are the answers to a few of the questions / comments that came up:

I'm not surprised you're having difficulty finding an affordable community without cars.

I should have specified that my definition of affordable is pretty flexible. We own our house in the San Francisco Bay Area and could move most other places in the world and pay far less than what it costs to live here.

Is a place like New York City out because it has car-lined streets?

New York City is out of the question because even though most people are able to walk, bike and take transit, somehow the car has still overtaken the city. Cars are parked everywhere & packed into the streets, so it's super loud and many many pedestrians and cyclists are injured and killed every year by cars. Despite that, the city continues to prioritize private car travel and parking over things like bus rapid transit lanes, protected bike lanes, improved pedestrian crossings, etc. It's a fight for each project because parking or a lane of private car traffic is going to get eliminated.

Are we just talking where walking, biking, and transit are the dominant form a transportation, or do you mean places that are actually car-free?  I'd say totally car-free is not that common anywhere in the world. 

Also, are you talking about staying in the US, or looking at the world as a whole?  Also are we talking just big cities or smaller cities and small towns?

I'm looking for places where walking, biking & transit are the dominant forms of transportation. Meaning that they are actually prioritized over private car traffic. Places where the streets aren't packed with loud cars & where pedestrians and cyclists aren't frequently getting run over.

The US is preferred (but I feel like unrealistic), so we're willing to consider anywhere in the world - big or smaller cities or small towns.

Where we live now, a car is not needed. Our current house has a bike score of 99, walk score of 82, and transit score of 62. We can easily bike, walk or take transit everywhere locally including to work, kids' schools, groceries, hardware stores, festivals, other entertainment, etc. On paper it's great, but in reality despite this fantastic accessibility to nearly everything, most people still use their cars for almost everything. So there's still traffic in the City Center and in shopping areas that would be much more pleasant without cars circling for parking.

The motivation for my question is that I have been hit by a car as have many others that I've spoken to. Many pedestrians and cyclists are seriously injured or killed every year in my city and there's still a huge amount of pushback when the city tries to remove even one parking spot for a bulbout or more visible crosswalk or a protected bike lane. And I'm not even getting into the environmental, noise or overall quality of life impacts. I feel like this attitude that "car is king" is the norm in the US and was wondering if there's a place where we can go where the cars / driving is truly minimal and where people are prioritized.

[windytrail]

I feel you. I was hit by a distracted motorist a few years ago and my right wrist still has pain from it. Then a year and a half ago was in an Uber crash (as a passenger in the back seat) and still have neck pain from it. Others are not so lucky. Unfortunately, cars are king everywhere in the US, despite the usual protests by drivers that it's so inconvenient to get places. It's maddening how much advocacy has to occur before a single bike lane is added or a handful of parking spots removed.

We are thinking of relocating to Europe after FIRE, especially places where you have easy access to the mountains via train. Buying a house there is expensive but if you already own in SF you could afford a lot of places in Europe. As others have mentioned, the Netherlands has great bike and pedestrian infrastructure. And Oslo, Norway is a true "Vision Zero" city in that they achieved zero pedestrian and cyclist deaths for the year 2019.

[firestarter2018]

I feel like a lot of European towns and smaller cities would fit the bill -- not car free, but way less car-reliant than much of North America. First of all, gas is absurdly expensive, so people tend to only drive when there's a real need. Every neighborhood has its own small grocery, bakery, pharmacy, corner store, etc. -- essentials within walking distance is key.  This is where the U.S. fails, IMO -- even in so-called "walkable" urban districts, there's still so many places that you won't be able to access except by car or lengthy transit trip (NYC probably being the exception).

Paris is certainly not car free but cars mostly stick to the larger thoroughfares and the highway that circles the city. People live and run errands in their own neighborhoods and then take transit to work or to meet friends. I loved living there as a student and from what I've read they've tried to become even more pedestrian-friendly since then.

[FLBiker]

The US is preferred (but I feel like unrealistic), so we're willing to consider anywhere in the world - big or smaller cities or small towns.

Where we live now, a car is not needed. Our current house has a bike score of 99, walk score of 82, and transit score of 62. We can easily bike, walk or take transit everywhere locally including to work, kids' schools, groceries, hardware stores, festivals, other entertainment, etc. On paper it's great, but in reality despite this fantastic accessibility to nearly everything, most people still use their cars for almost everything. So there's still traffic in the City Center and in shopping areas that would be much more pleasant without cars circling for parking.

The motivation for my question is that I have been hit by a car as have many others that I've spoken to. Many pedestrians and cyclists are seriously injured or killed every year in my city and there's still a huge amount of pushback when the city tries to remove even one parking spot for a bulbout or more visible crosswalk or a protected bike lane. And I'm not even getting into the environmental, noise or overall quality of life impacts. I feel like this attitude that "car is king" is the norm in the US and was wondering if there's a place where we can go where the cars / driving is truly minimal and where people are prioritized.

Those bike / walk scores are lousy.  We recently moved from Temple Terrace, Florida to Kentville, Nova Scotia.  Our house in Florida was a 22 for biking and walking, our house here is a 5.  We can walk from our house to "downtown" Kentville in 15 minutes, bike in like 5, where there is a library, a post office, a hardware store, a grocery store, a hospital, etc.  It is EXTREMELY walkable, so long as you're willing to walk for 15 minutes (walk score seems to largely be based on things within a 5 minute walk).  And drivers here are extremely friendly to both cyclists and pedestrians.  Our area has taken a lot of steps to promote active transportation with a number of significant off road bike / multi-use trails (ie the Harvest Moon trail which is 110 KM and passes through several towns).   Downtown, you're pretty much biking on the road, but I typically will just lock up as soon as I hit town and then walk (or just walk from my house).

All that being said, cars are still extremely normal here -- all of our neighbors (except us) seem to have one per driver.  Walkability was definitely something we were looking for when we moved last year, though, and we've been very pleased with it.

[StarBright]

I, too, am not down with the walk/bike scores!

My house gets a 66 and yet we walk to school, the library, bank, hair dresser, multiple coffee shops and restaurants, two ice cream stands, a small grocery, and we can ride bikes to church, community garden, several playgrounds and municipal pool, multiple county parks (with more bike trails) and another town w/ movie theater and candy shop and more restaurants on about 80% low car roads/dedicated bike trails/ sidewalks.

We only have to cross one busy-ish thoroughfare for schools and we have dedicated crossing guards for that. (And the traffic isn't anything like a city).

There are perks to flyover country if you can deal with the downsides :)

[dodojojo]

@Dulcimina
I wonder if we're neighbors? ;)

I'm in a downtown neighborhood on the Red Line. 95 walk score and this one is valid since I'm in downtown and really can walk to everything.  Haven't owned a car since leaving Car is King Southern California. That was nearly 2 decades ago. It has been the best benefit of moving to the east coast.  My number one objection to moving back to CA is the car culture there.

[jac941]

Thanks all! I took the info and did some research. Looks like we have some world exploring to do once COVID is more under control. Guanajuato looks promising, and we’ll also look into other older cities in Latin America. I know Norway and Netherlands (and really most of Europe) have some great cities, but they’re definitely more expensive.

I understand the comments on walk score not being that great, but I feel like at a minimum it provides a means of getting an idea of how much a car is needed. I would expect areas with low walk scores to have lots of people who drive even if they are walkable. My intention with providing the scores for our current location is that a car is really really unnecessary and yet most people still drive.

[Chaplin]

This YouTube Channel (Not Just Bikes) talks a lot about the Netherlands and talks about many town beyond Amsterdam that are about as car-free as you'll find outside of some islands: https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes

It might point you in some interesting directions.

[marion10]

I don’t know what is it like to live there- but Mackinac Island in Michigan does not allow cars.

[Chaplin]

I don’t know what is it like to live there- but Mackinac Island in Michigan does not allow cars.

There's a nice island in BC called Savary Island where locals do sometimes have cars, but mostly they just leave them on the mainland in Lund. It's a very walkable/bikeable place, but it's very, very quiet in the off-season. It also doesn't have electricity service - most houses have off-grid systems. It's a wonderful place to visit in the summer.

I can't believe this one hasn't come up yet, and that it took me a while to think of it: VENICE!

[StarBright]

I don’t know what is it like to live there- but Mackinac Island in Michigan does not allow cars.

That is my happy place! But I think in the winter only like 400 people live on the Island.

[Metalcat]

I'm assuming you either are retired or are working remotely?

As for living in cities with cars, the city I live in isn't even remotely car free, but I spend very little of my time around cars. Just a few blocks from my house is access to 500 miles of interconnected bike/walk paths that can get me all over the city. Then on top of that we have countless hiking paths through wooded areas, and this is a 7 figure population city. We have tons of busy streets and sky scrapers, but because I'm retired, I just don't have to go to those areas if I don't want to. I spend the vast majority of my time getting stuck in traffic jams of thousands of Canada Geese, not cars.

There doesn't have to be an absence of cars in order to avoid interacting much with cars, you just need a city that has made recreational paths and preservation of nature a priority.

[jac941]

I don’t know what is it like to live there- but Mackinac Island in Michigan does not allow cars.

There's a nice island in BC called Savary Island where locals do sometimes have cars, but mostly they just leave them on the mainland in Lund. It's a very walkable/bikeable place, but it's very, very quiet in the off-season. It also doesn't have electricity service - most houses have off-grid systems. It's a wonderful place to visit in the summer.

I can't believe this one hasn't come up yet, and that it took me a while to think of it: VENICE!

Venice is the prime example of a car free city!

There are a couple other islands I can think of that sound similar to Savary and Mackinac. Fire Island in New York and Catalina Island in California come to mind. I don't get the impression that they're places to live vs places to visit / spend the summer.

I'm assuming you either are retired or are working remotely?

As for living in cities with cars, the city I live in isn't even remotely car free, but I spend very little of my time around cars. Just a few blocks from my house is access to 500 miles of interconnected bike/walk paths that can get me all over the city. Then on top of that we have countless hiking paths through wooded areas, and this is a 7 figure population city. We have tons of busy streets and sky scrapers, but because I'm retired, I just don't have to go to those areas if I don't want to. I spend the vast majority of my time getting stuck in traffic jams of thousands of Canada Geese, not cars.

There doesn't have to be an absence of cars in order to avoid interacting much with cars, you just need a city that has made recreational paths and preservation of nature a priority.

Do you know of any cities where the recreational paths are good enough to get everywhere -- specifically schools, groceries, and recreation / parks? I would be interested in any location where we can go about our lives while physically avoiding the cars on completely separated paths and infrastructure most of the time.

To your question / assumption - we are not retired but would be in a lower cost of living area. My spouse can work remotely more or less indefinitely -- staying in a time zone that works with US colleagues is preferable, but not a dealbreaker. My job requires a physical presence, but my injuries were substantial so I can't physically go to work for a while so I'm on unpaid leave in the meantime.

We've been actively trying to engineer our lives away from car dependency for at least the past ten years. We thought we had a good thing going here until I was run over from behind when biking on a residential "bike priority" street. The whole incident has soured us even more on cars & car dependency -- hence our desire to avoid them altogether. We also realized that we have spent all this time doing the super responsible thing and saving more than enough for retirement ... and in an instant it would have been for nothing. So there's that.

[jac941]

This YouTube Channel (Not Just Bikes) talks a lot about the Netherlands and talks about many town beyond Amsterdam that are about as car-free as you'll find outside of some islands: https://www.youtube.com/c/NotJustBikes

It might point you in some interesting directions.

I just spent entirely too much time watching these. Thanks for the recommendation. I was somewhat familiar with Strong Towns before, so was interested in seeing his videos on that as well.

[Metalcat]

I don’t know what is it like to live there- but Mackinac Island in Michigan does not allow cars.

There's a nice island in BC called Savary Island where locals do sometimes have cars, but mostly they just leave them on the mainland in Lund. It's a very walkable/bikeable place, but it's very, very quiet in the off-season. It also doesn't have electricity service - most houses have off-grid systems. It's a wonderful place to visit in the summer.

I can't believe this one hasn't come up yet, and that it took me a while to think of it: VENICE!

Venice is the prime example of a car free city!

There are a couple other islands I can think of that sound similar to Savary and Mackinac. Fire Island in New York and Catalina Island in California come to mind. I don't get the impression that they're places to live vs places to visit / spend the summer.

I'm assuming you either are retired or are working remotely?

As for living in cities with cars, the city I live in isn't even remotely car free, but I spend very little of my time around cars. Just a few blocks from my house is access to 500 miles of interconnected bike/walk paths that can get me all over the city. Then on top of that we have countless hiking paths through wooded areas, and this is a 7 figure population city. We have tons of busy streets and sky scrapers, but because I'm retired, I just don't have to go to those areas if I don't want to. I spend the vast majority of my time getting stuck in traffic jams of thousands of Canada Geese, not cars.

There doesn't have to be an absence of cars in order to avoid interacting much with cars, you just need a city that has made recreational paths and preservation of nature a priority.

Do you know of any cities where the recreational paths are good enough to get everywhere -- specifically schools, groceries, and recreation / parks? I would be interested in any location where we can go about our lives while physically avoiding the cars on completely separated paths and infrastructure most of the time.

To your question / assumption - we are not retired but would be in a lower cost of living area. My spouse can work remotely more or less indefinitely -- staying in a time zone that works with US colleagues is preferable, but not a dealbreaker. My job requires a physical presence, but my injuries were substantial so I can't physically go to work for a while so I'm on unpaid leave in the meantime.

We've been actively trying to engineer our lives away from car dependency for at least the past ten years. We thought we had a good thing going here until I was run over from behind when biking on a residential "bike priority" street. The whole incident has soured us even more on cars & car dependency -- hence our desire to avoid them altogether. We also realized that we have spent all this time doing the super responsible thing and saving more than enough for retirement ... and in an instant it would have been for nothing. So there's that.

No, I don't know of any city that has cars where you can totally avoid cars, at least not in North America.

The thing is, North America is fundamentally designed around cars. If you move away from cars, you are going to have to move away from infrastructure.

Even the islands people are talking about, you have to leave them to go to the dentist, to the post office, etc.

Also, you want this location to be lower cost? What makes you expect that a specialty living area would be lower cost?

The good news is that I think what you want is coming in the future, I'm just not sure it exists yet. Although the US is big and I don't live there, so it's possible.

On the note of suddenly dying though, don't forget that easy access to ambulances and hospitals is actually a huge determinant of surviving a likely sudden death incident. The number one predictor of surviving something like an accident or a stroke is how quickly medical staff can get to you.

So if the hatred of cars is risk to your life, then moving completely away from cars might actually put your life at more risk, not less.

[Dulcimina]

@Dulcimina
I wonder if we're neighbors? ;)

I'm in a downtown neighborhood on the Red Line. 95 walk score and this one is valid since I'm in downtown and really can walk to everything.  Haven't owned a car since leaving Car is King Southern California. That was nearly 2 decades ago. It has been the best benefit of moving to the east coast.  My number one objection to moving back to CA is the car culture there.

@dodojojo probably, if you reaally stretch the definition of neighbors! Have you been to any DC MMM meetups? Pre-Covid, of course.

[AlanStache]

One aspect that I have not see discussed here in terms of walking is that often the deterrent to walking is not the distance but the environment you are walking in.  Picture a nice tree lined neighborhood street vs a sidewalk along a boulevard in front of walmart.  When I lived in a city I walked a longer route to work so I could have a more pleasant surrounding than the more direct route.

[jac941]

No, I don't know of any city that has cars where you can totally avoid cars, at least not in North America.

The thing is, North America is fundamentally designed around cars. If you move away from cars, you are going to have to move away from infrastructure.

Even the islands people are talking about, you have to leave them to go to the dentist, to the post office, etc.

Also, you want this location to be lower cost? What makes you expect that a specialty living area would be lower cost?

The good news is that I think what you want is coming in the future, I'm just not sure it exists yet. Although the US is big and I don't live there, so it's possible.

On the note of suddenly dying though, don't forget that easy access to ambulances and hospitals is actually a huge determinant of surviving a likely sudden death incident. The number one predictor of surviving something like an accident or a stroke is how quickly medical staff can get to you.

So if the hatred of cars is risk to your life, then moving completely away from cars might actually put your life at more risk, not less.

You are correct that North America is designed around cars, but I was hoping to still find some places where private vehicles are not prioritized over people walking, taking transit and cycling. I'm fine with emergency vehicles, commercial delivery vehicles, and mass transit vehicles.

I've reflected on your points and don't feel like this is at odds with living in a place where emergency services are readily available. The United States isn't exactly a poster child for good medical care. I do want the location to be lower cost than where we live now (the San Francisco Bay Area), but I don't think that's a very high bar -- there are only a handful of cities in the world that are more expensive. I think that the Netherlands and Norway (mentioned above) both prioritize people walking and cycling over private vehicles. Barcelona, Madrid and Paris are all experimenting with schemes where private vehicles are extremely restricted in certain areas of the city. All of those countries and cities are less expensive than where we are now and have better medical care. I was hoping to find some city or town doing something truly innovative in North America, but it sounds like not. We will probably make a trip to Guanajuato to check that out at least.

One aspect that I have not see discussed here in terms of walking is that often the deterrent to walking is not the distance but the environment you are walking in.  Picture a nice tree lined neighborhood street vs a sidewalk along a boulevard in front of walmart.  When I lived in a city I walked a longer route to work so I could have a more pleasant surrounding than the more direct route.

I agree that this is huge -- and that maybe you hit on a point I failed to realize. Part of my issue is the safety of being around so many cars driving so fast and not looking for me walking. But another big part of what I'm looking for is an improved quality of life. "Pedestrianized" areas with fewer cars and more people are so much quieter and less stinky and generally more pleasant. This can be a quiet residential street -- or it can even be a busy urban space that's closed to cars.

[StarBright]

In the US the other thing to look for are golf cart communities. I know the Villages is the big one (and I think for retirees only), but I was in Peachtree City, GA for work a couple of years ago and multi-use walking/golf cart paths were a thing there. It was interesting!

[dougules]

It seems like most of the places that would fit the bill would be in Europe.  How would getting a visa work?

[reverend]

I've looked for similar, but I am still drawn to decent-sized cities.   In the US, both Portland and Seattle have ranked pretty high.  They have mass transit and greenbelts that would allow me to mostly walk and avoid cars.

While I have limited experience with great swaths of Europe, both Netherlands and Sweden strike me as eminently livable without cars.  I've looked at both Stockholm and Malmö in Sweden and they'd be cheaper than where I am now (Texas) and allow me to have a car if I wanted to, but never really need to use it.

Please keep us updated with what you're thinking/leaning toward.

[dougules]

Portland and Seattle are good by US standards but they're still very car oriented.  It's not going to be any kind of improvement over the Bay Area or NYC in that arena.

[Metalcat]

No, I don't know of any city that has cars where you can totally avoid cars, at least not in North America.

The thing is, North America is fundamentally designed around cars. If you move away from cars, you are going to have to move away from infrastructure.

Even the islands people are talking about, you have to leave them to go to the dentist, to the post office, etc.

Also, you want this location to be lower cost? What makes you expect that a specialty living area would be lower cost?

The good news is that I think what you want is coming in the future, I'm just not sure it exists yet. Although the US is big and I don't live there, so it's possible.

On the note of suddenly dying though, don't forget that easy access to ambulances and hospitals is actually a huge determinant of surviving a likely sudden death incident. The number one predictor of surviving something like an accident or a stroke is how quickly medical staff can get to you.

So if the hatred of cars is risk to your life, then moving completely away from cars might actually put your life at more risk, not less.

You are correct that North America is designed around cars, but I was hoping to still find some places where private vehicles are not prioritized over people walking, taking transit and cycling. I'm fine with emergency vehicles, commercial delivery vehicles, and mass transit vehicles.

I've reflected on your points and don't feel like this is at odds with living in a place where emergency services are readily available. The United States isn't exactly a poster child for good medical care. I do want the location to be lower cost than where we live now (the San Francisco Bay Area), but I don't think that's a very high bar -- there are only a handful of cities in the world that are more expensive. I think that the Netherlands and Norway (mentioned above) both prioritize people walking and cycling over private vehicles. Barcelona, Madrid and Paris are all experimenting with schemes where private vehicles are extremely restricted in certain areas of the city. All of those countries and cities are less expensive than where we are now and have better medical care. I was hoping to find some city or town doing something truly innovative in North America, but it sounds like not. We will probably make a trip to Guanajuato to check that out at least.

One aspect that I have not see discussed here in terms of walking is that often the deterrent to walking is not the distance but the environment you are walking in.  Picture a nice tree lined neighborhood street vs a sidewalk along a boulevard in front of walmart.  When I lived in a city I walked a longer route to work so I could have a more pleasant surrounding than the more direct route.

I agree that this is huge -- and that maybe you hit on a point I failed to realize. Part of my issue is the safety of being around so many cars driving so fast and not looking for me walking. But another big part of what I'm looking for is an improved quality of life. "Pedestrianized" areas with fewer cars and more people are so much quieter and less stinky and generally more pleasant. This can be a quiet residential street -- or it can even be a busy urban space that's closed to cars.

well, there's a huge difference between living in a very pedestrian/bike friendly city vs living somewhere where you can avoid being around cars.

Scandinavian cities are very bike/walk friendly, but they have plenty of cars.

My major city has tons of cars, but I can easily get around quite safely on my bike to almost everywhere, avoiding congested busy roads. As I said, there is huge path infrastructure here.

[windytrail]

@Malcat, what major city are you talking about? I would like to see the safety statistics for bikes and pedestrians. How many deaths and injuries occur yearly? It's hard to make comparisons when using terms such as "quite safely" or "huge path infrastructure," because these depend on subjective experience.

I think OP is looking for cities with substantial cycling infrastructure such as protected bike lanes and dedicated paths, where serious injuries and fatalities caused by motorists are comparatively rare. Scandinavian countries have much lower injury/fatality rates than the US, despite cars also being present there. We know that people make mistakes while on the road; a good road network design will minimize the chance that a mistake kills or injures someone else.

So the metric is not whether you can see cars in your city -- but rather, are the roads engineered in such a way to effectively deter or prevent motorists from killing or injuring pedestrians or cyclists when mistakes are inevitably made? It's possible to design city that allows for cars but also provides safe spaces for bikes and peds. Unfortunately, most of North America leans so heavily on prioritizing flow for motorists at the expense of safety for all other road users.

[Metalcat]

@Malcat, what major city are you talking about? I would like to see the safety statistics for bikes and pedestrians. How many deaths and injuries occur yearly? It's hard to make comparisons when using terms such as "quite safely" or "huge path infrastructure," because these depend on subjective experience.

I think OP is looking for cities with substantial cycling infrastructure such as protected bike lanes and dedicated paths, where serious injuries and fatalities caused by motorists are comparatively rare. Scandinavian countries have much lower injury/fatality rates than the US, despite cars also being present there. We know that people make mistakes while on the road; a good road network design will minimize the chance that a mistake kills or injures someone else.

So the metric is not whether you can see cars in your city -- but rather, are the roads engineered in such a way to effectively deter or prevent motorists from killing or injuring pedestrians or cyclists when mistakes are inevitably made? It's possible to design city that allows for cars but also provides safe spaces for bikes and peds. Unfortunately, most of North America leans so heavily on prioritizing flow for motorists at the expense of safety for all other road users.

OP early on seemed to be specifically saying that they wanted to be able to avoid cars completely.

My city has protected bike lanes in most areas of the city. I live on at the cross section of two major roads and one has protected bike lanes on each side with cement dividers separating them, and the other has a completely separate bike path running parallel to it.
We also have a lot of separate priority bike lights at major intersections.

We have had a few bike fatalities, our highest year was 4, but the two major intersections where they happen were immediately rebuilt to be safer for cyclists. For a city that is covered in snow half the year, we take our bike infrastructure VERY seriously. DH and I rode from the east end to the west end of the city through the entire urban core, east to west yesterday, and the only traffic we had to deal with was geese.

If OP is looking for that kind of infrastructure, then yes, it exists in north america. However, that's why I asked for clarification, because I was under the impression that they were asking for a place with few cars, not just excellent infrastructure. That's why people started with recommending remote islands and such.

There is a huge difference between looking for an urban area that prioritizes biking and walking (like here, Copenhagen, etc) vs an area that doesn't have cars (like venice, or golf cart communities, or remote islands).

[seattlecyclone]

One aspect that I have not see discussed here in terms of walking is that often the deterrent to walking is not the distance but the environment you are walking in.  Picture a nice tree lined neighborhood street vs a sidewalk along a boulevard in front of walmart.  When I lived in a city I walked a longer route to work so I could have a more pleasant surrounding than the more direct route.

Yeah this is a big factor. There are two public libraries within walking distance of my house. To get to one of them, half of the path is along a four-lane arterial road, part of which is a bridge over the Interstate. The path to the other involves mostly quiet neighborhood streets and a lakefront park. The latter library is slightly farther away, but I find myself visiting it much more frequently. Same deal with supermarkets. There's one just past that first library where I have to walk over the Interstate, and another in the other direction where I don't have to walk alongside auto-oriented streets very much. Again, the one with a nicer path is slightly farther away and I still visit it more often.

I've looked for similar, but I am still drawn to decent-sized cities.   In the US, both Portland and Seattle have ranked pretty high.  They have mass transit and greenbelts that would allow me to mostly walk and avoid cars.

Portland and Seattle are good by US standards but they're still very car oriented.  It's not going to be any kind of improvement over the Bay Area or NYC in that arena.

Yeah I don't think you'll find anything here that's significantly closer to your ideal than San Francisco is. We have had some promising developments during the pandemic. The city has set up a network of "stay healthy streets" where car traffic is restricted to local access only, and people have been encouraged to walk and bike down the middle of the street for social distancing. The program has been quite popular and there's quite a bit of support for keeping it around and even expanding it as the pandemic draws to a close. That said, the network of such streets is still very sparse and discontinuous. Completely separating yourself from car-oriented infrastructure still isn't really possible here. I do think we're making good strides in the right direction, but I'd be surprised if we ever get to the point where more than a small minority of streets in the city were completely closed to cars except for deliveries/emergencies/etc.

[dougules]

I don't know if you want to live off on a semi-remote little island, but you might look at Isla Holbox. 

[norajean]

You can live happily car free in any big old (19th c) American city with good public transport and mixed residential and retail. NYC, Chicago, Philly, Baltimore, San Francisco, etc.  Maybe Portland, Seattle, Pittsburgh, etc. Just ignore your neighbors with cars.

[windytrail]

You can live happily car free in any big old (19th c) American city with good public transport and mixed residential and retail. NYC, Chicago, Philly, Baltimore, San Francisco, etc.  Maybe Portland, Seattle, Pittsburgh, etc. Just ignore your neighbors with cars.

I wish the bike and pedestrian infrastructure here was good enough to be afforded the privilege to "ignore" motorists. The opposite is true: while biking or walking on the roads I must be hyper-vigilant for distracted drivers who are on the phone or texting; delivery drivers who are double-parking in our bike lanes and who profit from excessive speeds; old people with impaired vision; sideshows (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QrN5Ci71QHg); and the other myriad ways that drivers' privilege and entitlement manifests itself.

[windytrail]

The Atlantic has a great article about how parking space minimums have destroyed American cities: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/05/parking-drives-housing-prices/618910/

There is progress happening in a few places to reverse the damage by eliminating parking minimums (Buffalo, Minneapolis, SF/Berkeley), but it will likely take decades for all the unused parking lots to be put to better use.

On the other hand, there are more opportunities than ever to be an advocate for people-first cities. The movement is growing. Just here in the Bay Area we have: SF Bike Coalition, Bike East Bay, Seamless Bay Area, Walk San Francisco, Walk Bike Berkeley, Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, SF YIMBYs, Urban Environmentalists, etc...

[havregryn]

I lived happily without a car in Zagreb (Croatia), Vienna and Stockholm and now sort of meh in Luxembourg. I hate cars with utmost passion so yeah, I get it completely. I've never been to the US but that's probably for the better then, as I think my head might explode in a place that is even more car-centric than Luxembourg. We get by, but it's a shadow of the quality of life we used to have. I even caught myself looking at a car catalogue, had to have a shower afterwards. I still resist but I might ultimately succumb. I have three kids.

For cheap and liveable without a car I'd try cities in Croatia. They would not be to the standard of Vienna or Stockholm, but they would be good enough and unlike these better options, would also be REALLY cheap and legally doable for a non-EU citizen. It is simply more common for people to not have a car (the reason used to be poverty, not eco-snobbery) and the cities are sort of organised around this premise, every block will have a grocery store and other basic necessities, there will always be some public transport to any point of interest, you can always have people who will drive you somewhere for a little cash if you absolutely need to be driven somewhere etc.

This is my favorite city in Croatia  https://www.pulainfo.hr/

Info on their new visas for digital nomads  https://www.expatincroatia.com/digital-nomad-visa-croatia/ 

[dougules]

The Atlantic has a great article about how parking space minimums have destroyed American cities: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/05/parking-drives-housing-prices/618910/

There is progress happening in a few places to reverse the damage by eliminating parking minimums (Buffalo, Minneapolis, SF/Berkeley), but it will likely take decades for all the unused parking lots to be put to better use.

On the other hand, there are more opportunities than ever to be an advocate for people-first cities. The movement is growing. Just here in the Bay Area we have: SF Bike Coalition, Bike East Bay, Seamless Bay Area, Walk San Francisco, Walk Bike Berkeley, Walk Oakland Bike Oakland, SF YIMBYs, Urban Environmentalists, etc...

Just as an example, there's a parking lot where I used to live in an apartment several years ago.  It's in a city that prides itself on being anti-sprawl and that is starting to have its own serious housing affordability crisis. 

[dougules]

I've never been to the US but that's probably for the better then, as I think my head might explode in a place that is even more car-centric than Luxembourg.

I'm pretty sure your head would pop like a grape under a truck tire if you came here, then. 

[havregryn]

I've never been to the US but that's probably for the better then, as I think my head might explode in a place that is even more car-centric than Luxembourg.

I'm pretty sure your head would pop like a grape under a truck tire if you came here, then.

Most probably...but also let's not underestimate Luxembourg :D There is really only a very narrow zone here where you can realistically even attempt to live without a car as a family with kids and it comes with a hefty price tag.  I imagine one could also zone in on such a magical unicorn in any more developed area of the US. But on average, it is really not possible to live a normal life of a family without at least one, ideally 2 cars. Public transport is rare, unreliable and poorly connected. Sidewalks are rare, bike paths as well. And what I find particularly indicative for the difference between "rather inconvenient" and "simply impossible", in a lot of these "cheaper" areas you have no real access to a taxi service of any kind. So if you needed to go to the hospital for something that is not quite urgent enough to call for an ambulance but too urgent to wait for your twice a day bus on the following day, you're screwed.
And I really don't know how you'd manage groceries or anything. It's a different planet compared to what I'm used to, I'm willing to bet that it is more similar to the US than large urban centers in Europe.

[E.T.]

You could be car free in Baltimore if you stick to the harbor. The city overall is definitely designed for cars but if you stick to the water front, you can walk or bike along the promenade for pretty much everything without interacting with cars much if at all. There's a free commuter ferry for pedestrians at different points on the promenade during the week days and decent public transit in the city. One end of the promenade is pretty close to Fort McHenry and the other end has a protected bike lane heading north to connect it to Patterson Park which has walking paths as well. It's fairly low cost of living for a big US city and you can always hop a train over to DC or NYC for a visit. They're also working on an initiative called Complete Streets to prioritize pedestrians and bikes so things may continue to improve in Baltimore.

[PathtoFIRE]

The superblocks idea in Barcelona is intriguing, haven't seen anyone mention that yet, or give their impression.

[yachi]

The superblocks idea in Barcelona is intriguing, haven't seen anyone mention that yet, or give their impression.

It looks like the Poblenou neighborhood of Barcelona is one of the older superblocks in Spain.  Cars are limited to deliveries and residents.  It seems Google Streetview opted to use a bicycle for their imaging.  This area is great: https://goo.gl/maps/AJTRPPYFGB5QfmZr7  You can see the line of people takes priority and it's "excuse me, can I get through here on my bike?"

[AlanStache]

The superblocks idea in Barcelona is intriguing, haven't seen anyone mention that yet, or give their impression.

It looks like the Poblenou neighborhood of Barcelona is one of the older superblocks in Spain.  Cars are limited to deliveries and residents.  It seems Google Streetview opted to use a bicycle for their imaging.  This area is great: https://goo.gl/maps/AJTRPPYFGB5QfmZr7  You can see the line of people takes priority and it's "excuse me, can I get through here on my bike?"

I am putting my stuff on craigslist and moving to Barcelona next week.

[yachi]

The superblocks idea in Barcelona is intriguing, haven't seen anyone mention that yet, or give their impression.

It looks like the Poblenou neighborhood of Barcelona is one of the older superblocks in Spain.  Cars are limited to deliveries and residents.  It seems Google Streetview opted to use a bicycle for their imaging.  This area is great: https://goo.gl/maps/AJTRPPYFGB5QfmZr7  You can see the line of people takes priority and it's "excuse me, can I get through here on my bike?"

I am putting my stuff on craigslist and moving to Barcelona next week.

Their newest superblock will be even larger: covered here on Bloomberg

That article states that cars in Poblenou are limited to 10km/hr (<7 mi/hr).  That's basically idling speed in many cars, and easily passable by bicycle.

[Chaplin]

I am putting my stuff on craigslist and moving to Barcelona next week.

I'm with you! I last visited Barcelona in 1994. It was amazing then and these superblocks among other things make it look like it's even better.

[alsoknownasDean]

Car ownership is really expensive in Singapore and there's a very good transit system (the MRT in particular is really cheap).

Of course that's because it's a small, densely populated city-state.