15 Cities for People Who Hate Driving and Long Commutes

[ProjectMaximus]

http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/15-cities-for-people-who-hate-driving-and-long-commutes.html

[David]

No surprise seeing Portland there, it's a city full of fixed gear bicycles!

Pittsburgh's great for parking the car too, you need to walk with all the delicous food they have there.

[Wacca Pilatka]

My sister lives in Syracuse.  I do not mean this as a shot at the city at all, because it's a nice place and I hate to insult cities anyway, but it has no business being on this list.  The city is spread out, the vast majority of people live in the northern suburbs (sites of almost all recent development) and drive to work, and there are absurd traffic delays on Interstate 81 because of the insane plan to build it at an elevated grade through downtown in the 1960s--that elevated roadway is now in need of serious repairs, and it causes massive backlogs rush hour or not.  The area also poorly planned and relatively quickly abandoned a commuter rail line, as Lakelander covered in a full article here.

I suspect the stats on pedestrian travel to work consists mainly of people who work on and around the Syracuse U. campus, because it's pedestrian-friendly, as are the surrounding neighborhoods, and it's the #1 employer (or close to it) and leading economic engine.  Sadly, 81 cuts it off from downtown.  I'm not sure there are many living options in downtown, though it'd be awfully nice to see some great older buildings like the Hotel Syracuse redeveloped into apartments.  Syracuse has a couple of great urban squares--virtual time capsules of well-kept architecture without much modern intrusion--and it's easy to imagine a future of very nice walks to work from one of those fantastic old buildings, once again vital and teeming with residents, across those squares to the business district.  At least, outside of wintertime.