You Can Ditch Your Car in This Minnesota City

For a lot of us, the thought of being separated from our vehicle for a long period of time is the stuff nightmares are made of.

But there are actually some places where you might be better off 'hoofing' it instead of driving.

LawnStarter looked at things like a city’s walkability, transit ridership, climate, and pedestrian safety, among other factors to come up with the list of 2023's Best Cities to Live Without a Car.

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Minneapolis landed in the top ten.

Minnesota's largest city is number eight thanks to a fourth overall ranking in access, which considers how easy it is to walk or bike in a city, the availability of bike and electric scooter rentals, and the number of ride sharing services.

LawnStarter highlighted Minneapolis' 9.5 mile skyway system which covers 80 city blocks and keeps walkers warm despite some of the coldest weather in the country.

Top-ranked San Francisco is number one in access and second in commute culture, which factors the in the share of residents who ride public transit, carpool, bike, or walk to work.

BEST CITIES TO LIVE WITHOUT A CAR

San Francisco, California
Boston, Massachusetts
Washington, DC
New York, New York
Seattle, Washington
Portland, Oregon
Fort Collins, Colorado
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Madison, Wisconsin
Sunnyvale, California

In South Dakota, Sioux Falls landed just outside the top 100.

South Dakota's largest city is 102nd and weather (not surprisingly) is one of the biggest factors.

According to LawnStarter's research, Sioux Falls has the second-highest yearly average number of very cold days in America, trailing only Anchorage, Alaska

Iowa's largest city, Des Moines, was 128th. The rankings in Climate (115th) and safety (pedestrian fatalities, shootings, and bike thefts - 148th) helped keep the city in the bottom half.

WORST CITIES TO LIVE WITHOUT A CAR

Mobile, Alabama
Clarksville, Tennessee
Little Rock, Arkansas
Shreveport, Louisiana
Memphis, Tennessee
Miramar, Florida
Murfreesboro, Tennessee
Huntsville, Alabama
Jackson, Mississippi
Pembroke Pines, Florida

LOOK: See how much gasoline cost the year you started driving

To find out more about how has the price of gas changed throughout the years, Stacker ran the numbers on the cost of a gallon of gasoline for each of the last 84 years. Using data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (released in April 2020), we analyzed the average price for a gallon of unleaded regular gasoline from 1976 to 2020 along with the Consumer Price Index (CPI) for unleaded regular gasoline from 1937 to 1976, including the absolute and inflation-adjusted prices for each year.

Read on to explore the cost of gas over time and rediscover just how much a gallon was when you first started driving.

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