Technology Makes Car-Free and Car-Light Living Easier

Find out how your city ranked! And click here for shareable graphics you can use to tell all your friends about how great your favorite city is. Technology has enabled the creation of new transportation tools that, while useful individually, combine to become more than the sum of their parts. They augment existing transportation systems, strengthening and linking together the existing transportation fabric of American cities, making it possible for more Americans to live full and engaged lives without owning a car.

Jeff Inglis

Policy Analyst

Find out how your city ranked! And click here for shareable graphics you can use to tell all your friends about how great your favorite city is.

 
 

Technology has enabled the creation of new transportation tools that, while useful individually, combine to become more than the sum of their parts. They augment existing transportation systems, strengthening and linking together the existing transportation fabric of American cities, making it possible for more Americans to live full and engaged lives without owning a car.

This is a lifestyle choice many city dwellers – including both Millennials and Baby Boomers – increasingly say they want.

Having a transportation system that integrates various elements – ridesourcing (like Uber and Lyft), ridesharing (like Carma), carsharing (like Zipcar and Turo), bikesharing, real-time transit information, and multi-modal trip planning smartphone apps – offers potential for reducing traffic congestion and improving public health.

Frontier Group’s newest report, The Innovative Transportation Index: The Cities Where New Technologies and Tools Can Reduce Your Need to Own a Car, is the first to look at these services not individually but together, ranking 70 large U.S. cities on their availability of 11 types of technology-enabled transportation services.

Cities ranked higher on the list have more options available for getting around without having to own a car.

The availability of these new services suggests a near future in which people take this type of information into account when deciding where to live and how to live. That in turn will affect the future of cities – influencing decisions about transportation investments, neighborhood development, and community connectedness.

 

If any of the below are your favorite cities, please share to tell everyone how many options people there have, and how well the city did. (Remember there were ties for various ranks!)

AustinSan FranciscoWashington, D.C.New York CityLos AngelesBostonPortland, OregonSeattleSan DiegoMinneapolisDenverDallasChicagoMilwaukeeNewark, New JerseyBaltimorePhoenixDetroitHartford, Connecticut

Authors

Jeff Inglis

Policy Analyst