Palo Alto without a car

April 19, 2015 9:27 AM

I will be moving to Palo Alto pretty soon -- likely living on or near Stanford campus. I can't drive and do not plan to have a car. How will that impact my lifestyle, and what should I do to mitigate the impact?

I have lived in pedestrian-friendly Northeastern cities my entire life, and I'm trying to get a sense of what's in store for me out in Palo Alto. I'll be living on a grad student budget.

• How crazy is it not to drive?

More specifically:

• Can I shop for groceries without a car, either by walking or (I suppose) via online ordering?
• Are there reasonable entertainment options accessible without car? Bars, restaurants, movie theaters?
• How bad is getting around the larger Bay Area without a car? I will be living very near my place of work, but if I want to go up to SF or Berkeley for professional or entertainment purposes, how much of a headache is that?

posted by grobstein to Travel & Transportation around Palo Alto, CA (19 answers total)

I did this for a summer. You will need to bicycle a lot and live near a Caltrain station. Caltrain, however, is a commuter system and only runs at 30 minute to 1 hour intervals. Also, UberX will be a useful part of your transportation toolkit.

If you're willing to use all of these modes-- bicycling, planning ahead with CalTrain, and Uber, you will be fine. I would definitely not depend on walking as my only form of getting around
posted by deanc at 9:34 AM on April 19, 2015

A few more things: Getting to the east bay by transit alone from Palo Alto is a huge burden. San Francisco is ok.

Downtown Palo Alto on University Ave. is nice but it is an area that caters to wealthy people and students. Lots of cafes and upscale furniture stores. Very little in the way of hardware stores and movie theaters.
posted by deanc at 9:36 AM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

I live in Mountain View in a 2-adult, 1-car household.

I agree that a bike would be a good investment. The good news is, this area is a ridiculously bike-friendly place.... Drivers are considerate, the weather is good most of the time, and most routes from here to there are flat.

For groceries, if you find yourself out of walking range, both Safeway and instacart should have delivery options for you. Google Shopping Express can also be handy.

For the rest of it, I think deanc has a good handle on it.
posted by another zebra at 10:30 AM on April 19, 2015

Buy a bike.

Getting to SF is via Caltrain. Palo Alto is on the Baby Bullet schedule so it's fairly quick. The station is on University smack between El Camino and Alma so it's literally on the north side of the Stanford Campus. It's not a bad ride considering you don't have to deal with SF surface street traffic and pay for parking.

Getting to Berkeley is Caltrain and switch over to BART at Millbrae. It's about 2 hours or so because you literally have to loop around the peninsula, Palo Alto and Berekley being on opposite sides. If you had a car you could take the 84 over to 880 and do it in half the time.

Getting to most of South Bay is either light rail or commuter rail. Light rail is slower but gets you into downtown San Jose whereas commuter rail basically runs to the wrong side of the airport and 87 alongside San Jose. However you need to catch Caltrain to Mountain View to even get on light rail.

Palo Alto has lots of stuff. Mountain View has lots of stuff too but will be a train ride. Los Altos has lots of stuff which is a bus ride away. You'll be fine so long as you don't like football. Getting to Levi's Stadium on game day will be a pain in the ass.
posted by Talez at 11:01 AM on April 19, 2015

It's possible, but it can sure turn a couple-hour task into an all-day event sometimes when you have to go to one specific place and not just e.g., any coffee shop. I think it won't be so bad, but I'd rethink the "can't drive" part. Make an effort to learn to drive and get a license. Even if you don't ever plan to use it, this is the West coast where driving a car is a skill expected of an adult. Maybe you'll want to get a job that requires occasionally driving a company vehicle. Sometimes (rarely) it's just the only non-ridiculously-complicated way.

[Plus, knowing how to do something is always better than not knowing. Yay knowledge for it's own sake!]
posted by ctmf at 11:11 AM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

Can I shop for groceries without a car, either by walking or (I suppose) via online ordering?
Are there reasonable entertainment options accessible without car? Bars, restaurants, movie theaters?

This will depend very much on where you end up living; plug your options into google maps and then do a "search nearby" for stuff. Palo Alto is reasonably dense but it's not San Francisco- or Boston- or NYC-dense. Grocery and farm box delivery options are rampant in the area, so that at least you can depend on if you need to. Palo Alto has lots of bars and restaurants. Nthing that getting to stuff in the East Bay will be a chore. And getting home from a night out in San Francisco will take planning so you don't miss your last train.

To me, the biggest drawback of not driving is all the awesome outdoor stuff that will be difficult or impossible to get to in a reasonably timely fashion. You may not care about that, but if you do, consider learning to drive, as it will open up a ton of options. You don't have to own a car (we have car shares and regular rentals like everywhere else).
posted by rtha at 11:15 AM on April 19, 2015

San Francisco is fine -- usually about an hour by Caltrain, 45 minutes if you take an express. The last train down from SF is a local and leaves at midnight on Saturdays, 9:15 pm on Sundays, so you'd get back to PA an hour later.

I definitely recommend getting a Clipper card, which is the all-Bay-Area transit card and works for the bus/train/BART/ferry/etc.

The University Avenue Caltrain station is also a hub for buses up and down the peninsula (and even to the East Bay -- the Dumbarton Express will take you to Union City BART, but it looks like it's only on weekdays); the Marguerite is Stanford's free shuttle that goes to both University Ave and California Ave train stations.

In terms of grocery stores, I'd agree that ordering online is probably your best bet for large items/orders. Instacart allows you to order from Costco, Safeway, and Whole Foods.

Both downtown and Cal Ave have farmers' markets on the weekends, and Cal Ave has a natural foods store (Country Sun) and a Mollie Stone's grocery store. If you take the 35 bus, it goes to San Antonio Shopping Center, which has a Trader Joe's and a Walmart. There's a Safeway and a BevMo on El Camino Real in Menlo Park, and there's a Walgreens and a CVS on University Avenue.

There are a few independent movie theatres in Palo Alto/Menlo Park -- the Aquarius is downtown but is currently under renovation, and the Guild is on El Camino in Menlo Park. There's another theatre (Palo Alto Square) on El Camino, closer to Cal Ave. For big studio movies, you'll probably need to go to downtown Redwood City (walking distance from Redwood City Caltrain) or Mountain View. The Stanford Theatre on University Ave is great if you like classic movies.
posted by littlemisslaika at 11:31 AM on April 19, 2015

I'd definitely get yourself very familiar with all the online delivery options. I'm sure there are more, but off the top of my head:

- Google Express is great - same day or next day delivery from stores like Target, Walgreens, BevMo, Costco. Nothing perishable/cold. I use it and rarely have to go get personal and household supplies from Target, etc., anymore.
- Does your insurance have an online pharmacy?
- The Bay Area is teeming with full-on grocery delivery options. Safeway, Instacart, Amazon Fresh...and there are probably more. Also there are CSAs if you're into that.
- The ready-to-heat dinner delivery options from from Munchery are good.
posted by radioamy at 11:33 AM on April 19, 2015

There's another thing I would advise-- don't try to duplicate the lifestyle you had in New England in the South Bay. It's a different culture and way of life, and if you don't grapple with that, you will spend all your time unhappy that you can't live the way you did in New England in Northern California.

My honest advice is to accept that you are moving to a place where people generally own a car, even if they only use it a couple of days a week, and work around that reality.
posted by deanc at 11:38 AM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

I've done it.

Between a bike, smart phone with transit apps, taxi/uber, friends with cars you should be okay.

You can get grocery delivery if desired, Caltrain gets you to SF pretty quickly, though hoping on BART gets you to the middle of things a little quicker sometimes.

511.org and google maps w/ transit option will be your friends.
posted by bottlebrushtree at 1:02 PM on April 19, 2015

If you are going to be a grad student or postdoc or new faculty member, it may be worthwhile to check with a friendly person at the department you'll be in. I am in academia in Los Angeles and grad students and new faculty at my school sometimes need to go to meetings, conferences, appointments, borrow equipment, meet with faculty, do outreach, go on research trips, etc into places that are not accessible via public transit. This is posed as a given, like if your advisor says to head out to Pepperdine to talk to someone, you undertake the 45 min drive. Or as a new faculty, youll be supervising the beach cleanup club so you have to be on the shore at 6 am every third Saturday.

As deanc says the california mindset is that car-owning is a given, and a drivers license ownership/ability to drive is standard. I take public transit to work. There are 50 people who work in my library. 3 of us take public transit. Everyone else drives alone. From my colleagues in similar libraries in NYC, philly, and boston, this is an opposite pattern of commutes.
posted by holyrood at 1:41 PM on April 19, 2015 [1 favorite]

If you're living on the Stanford campus, everything you need is handy and quite accessible with a bicycle, as mentioned previously. In fact I'd welcome that arrangement, living car-free in Palo Alto with just a bike. The immediate landscape is quite flat although you can ride up into the hills if you're so inclined. (In fact I once dated a native from a large family who told me how her brothers would pester their mother into driving them and their bikes up to Skyline so they could just ride down the hill, to home.) Those reasonable entertainment options are all available in Palo Alto, but over time they'll get a little stale and eventually you'll be yearning for an automobile. But you can definitely get by without one.
posted by Rash at 2:53 PM on April 19, 2015

I lived in Palo Alto without a car for about eight weeks. It's doable but a pain in the ass. Learn to drive.

If you're absolutely set on not driving, I'd recommend living near University Ave, so you're at least within walking distance of Whole Foods and restaurants.
posted by ewiar at 3:19 PM on April 19, 2015

It depends where you need to go. And if you can bike. Definitely get a bike if that's an option for you, with a fender; despite the current drought it *will* rain sometimes and wetbikebutt is no fun.

You can get to SF (SOMA and Potrero Hill) via Caltrain, and to the airport via the exchange to BART, and if for some reason you want to go to Fremont (??) there's the Dumbarton Express. Mountain View and Menlo Park aren't too far for biking but you wouldn't want to transit there too regularly (short but infrequent coverage). You *can* do everything you need to do, but it won't be like in Boston. If you want to go up to Berkeley from Palo Alto, it can take 2 hours.

If you're going to be primarily on campus, the bus system associated with it is at least ok.
Oh also, if biking on that campus is anything like it was 15 years ago... they police pretty tightly. Follow the traffic rules and don't bike drunk. Probably holds true in town around too.
posted by nat at 4:11 PM on April 19, 2015

Totally possible. The campus is sprawling but extremely bike-friendly. There are also a lot of Zipcars on campus, and lots of buses. Caltrain is convenient, as mentioned above. And downtown PA is walkable. You'll also be in the epicenter of new transit (and delivery) startups. Good for you not adding to your carbon footprint. Please don't listen to those who say a car is necessary. My parents have been living car-free, by choice, in the area for decades even though they have licenses. It's not like living in a compact city for convenience, but the beautiful weather helps make up for the extra time you might spend outside.
posted by three_red_balloons at 4:57 PM on April 19, 2015

It's technically possible but you'll miss out on so much in the area without being able to drive. Even if you don't want to own a car, get a license and sign up for ZipCar or another car-sharing service.
posted by barnone at 6:28 PM on April 19, 2015

I'll just chime in and say biking in that area is awesome! I moved to Redwood City for a job in Menlo Park and my first task was buying a cheap bike (Marin Larkspur that turned out to be a workhorse that lasted forever) and turning in the rental car. Although I hadn't been on a bike in a long time it was easy to get up to speed and bike the Redwood City/Menlo Park/Palo Alto areas. Get a bike with a couple of racks and fenders and baskets and lights and you're all set for getting around and getting basics at the grocery store and farmer markets. Plenty of entertainment and food options in Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Mountain View etc. that you'll have easy access to - plus no worries about finding a parking spot.

You can take your bike on the train into San Francisco and have access to the city that way as well, but it's a bit less mellow than down on the peninsula.
posted by mikepop at 7:57 AM on April 20, 2015

I lived in Palo Alto and I had a friend who was from NYC and for that reason had never learned to drive. She lived with her boyfriend and he drove, but he was away back in NYC for around three weeks out of the month. She was miserable; she had to wait until her boyfriend showed up to do simple stuff like get groceries; even if she didn't mind walking to the Whole Foods (which she didn't), she was limited to what she could carry, which didn't work so well for large shopping trips.

I'm one of those drivers who tries never to drive if I can walk or bike, and I used to bike everywhere possible when I lived there, but still, no way could I have managed living in PA without a car. And as someone noted above, it'll also be hard to do a lot of cool stuff without a car, like go to the Santa Cruz Mountains.

In short, I would really, really, really recommend learning to drive and at least using Zipcar. My recollection is that parking in Palo Alto was not at all difficult.
posted by holborne at 9:49 AM on April 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Palo Alto native and frequent visitor here.

It is possible to meet your basic needs without a car, especially if you live in a neighborhood like College Terrace (near California Avenue, great farmers market on Sundays) or around Downtown. Palo Alto is very bicycle-friendly and services like online grocery shopping and Lyft/Uber/etc do open up additional options.

That said, I have never done so much non-commute driving in my life as when I lived in Palo Alto. People there think nothing of driving several miles to run an errand. Palo Alto is a premium suburb but a suburb all the same. It forms part of the greater Peninsula and South Bay Area sprawl, and many amenities are in nearby towns easily reachable by car but much less convenient to reach by bicycle or public transit. Restaurants in Palo Alto tend to be higher-end and expensive, so I did most of my every-day eating out in Mountain View and Sunnyvale. Moderately priced independent grocery stores (like the charming Milk Pail Market) and ethnic specialty shops are also generally further south. The nearest multiplex movie theater is in Mountain View. And so on, and so forth. As someone else pointed out a car also gives you access to the wide range of outdoor activities in the area.

Caltrain works very well for getting to some parts of San Francisco during commute hours, but less so during off-peak times (local trains only, and infrequently at that). For getting to other parts of SF I had better luck driving up to the Daly City or Millbrae BART station and taking BART into the city from there. Getting from Palo Alto to Berkeley and back via public transit would be an all-day affair, over 2 hours each way at commute time versus about 45 minutes by car outside of rush hour.
posted by 4rtemis at 11:34 PM on April 21, 2015