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Comment by TheCoelacanth | Hacker News Reader

DC is at least as good as San Francisco for living without a car. You're having problems because you're out in the suburbs. Move into DC proper or even to a more accessible suburb like Ballston, Clarendon, Crystal City, etc or even just move a bit closer to old town Alexandria and it's very easy to live without a car.

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DC is fine. But "DC" is a tiny part of the "DC area". I grew up in Annandale. A car was necessary. An old friend of mine lives in Alexandria, in Del Ray. He takes the train into DC (which takes him about an hour total, when you add up the walking, waiting and riding). But his family needs a car because his wife works in a school that is not in walking distance, their parents live in Arlington and northwest DC, and most of their kids' activities require driving.

In DC, as in San Francisco, the trains are more for commuters to get into and out of the city. They're not really for connecting within or outside of the city. The NY area is better about that. (But not great.)

If I ever moved back to the area, I would seriously consider Bethesda. Easy access to DC, and a neat town in its own right.

> But "DC" is a tiny part of the "DC area".

Every city has outlying suburbs and not a single one has excellent transit throughout the entire metropolitan area. The DC metropolitan area has the lowest mode share for private automobiles and the highest mode share for public transportation of any except for NYC. It is objectively the second best city in the US for getting around without a car. It is clearly not as good as NYC but it is certainly not worse than San Francisco.

Berlin has excellent transit throughout most of its metropolitan area, and it's a large, low-density city.

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