Comment by toomanyrichies | Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomanyrichies | Hacker News Reader

I'm planning on moving back to LA within the next few months after having moved away in 2007, and the plan is to not own a car, at least, for the first few months. Instead, I'll take Ubers or the Metro train for cross-town trips, and walk for local trips (grocery store, etc). If I want to take a roadtrip or something, I'll use Getaround or a similar service.

I have no idea how realistic this will be, but my previous experience of living and driving in LA caused a level of stress that I have no interest in repeating. I already hated car ownership before the spike in catalytic converter thefts, due to gas prices, sitting in traffic, dealing with road rage from other drivers, insurance costs, the risk of your car getting keyed / stolen / broken into, etc. I've decided I'd rather pay a premium to Uber / Doordash in order to avoid all that.

I'm giving this plan 3 months to play out. If the lack of a car proves unrealistic, I'll probably relocate to NYC, where I know I won't need one. That's how much I dislike owning a car.

EDIT- I'll be living in East Hollywood, near Barnsdall Art Park. Looks like there are grocery stores, bars, restaurants, etc. nearby. I work remote, so I'm thankfully able to avoid daily commutes.

I have only a single experience walking in the LA area, but I recall all the traffic-light intersections with long waits to be very tiresome. A 2.5 km walk to a supermarket and back to my hotel seemed to take ages longer than in other countries. There were no other pedestrians in sight, and maybe it was all in my head, but I felt like the drivers at stoplights were scrutinizing the weirdo who was walking with his shopping.

Missing Persons - Nobody Walks in L.A. (!)

https://youtu.be/80WyBxo0Hto?si=IeAAD7BLk7wF7I_S

true now and thirty years ago ?

Thanks for that hilarious song. I think the stereotype was well established by the late 1960s: in Antonioni’s film Zabriskie Point, a character’s walking through the LA sprawl instead of driving is part of the overall depiction of the bad situation he’s in.

Very viable in fact especially if you are fine with taking the whole lane while biking. Biking in LA rush hour is actually faster than driving on surface streets at that time thanks to being able to lane split.

Just want to toss out there that if you don't like driving a car or owning one, but still want to have a reasonably navigable city to live in that's not quite the imposing canyonscape and non-stop noise of New York city, and arguably better access to different kinds of interesting opportunities, DC punches well above its weight class here.

Thank you! I hadn’t considered DC until now, this is good to know.

For what it's worth, the "imposing canyonscape and non-stop noise of New York city" applies only to certain areas and can be largely avoided if you work from home... from where I sit writing this comment in my apartment in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn, all I see and hear through my open windows are birds chirping and a quilt of fall leaves. Catalytic converter theft does seem to be a problem, though, for those who own a car and park on the street.

Depends where you are, if you live in one of the hubs where you have shopping etc nearby it can be workable but still not very convenient. LA is too sprawley so if you used to spend enough time in a car to aggravate you, expect to spend way more time and something like $2k/month on ubers.

I lived in Venice and just never went anywhere east of Lincoln. That worked pretty well for not needing a car.

I don’t know why you’d want to live in the LA area and not own a car. One of the things that is actually nice about southern california is the ease with which you can go to the beaches, the mountains and other beautiful places and realistically you need a car to do these things. You don’t have to drive at rush hour.

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