10 Best Universities for Urbanism In North America: Colleges With Great Transit, Walking and Biking
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 3 янв 2023
- This won't be your typical "best universities" list -- rather, these are the best colleges, not necessarily in terms of exclusivity or research grants, but in terms of where you can live, work and study without a car and still live in a great city with lots of urban amenities. In other words: urbanist universities.
We'll look at the university campuses that have great walk and bike scores, but also have strong rail transit connections within their cities, and are sited away from urban freeways. It ends up being a pretty interesting list, and I hope you enjoy!
----------
Patreon - a way to directly support continuing CityNerd output! Thanks to all who have signed up so far.
/ citynerd
----------
Mastodon: @nerd4cities@mstdn.social
Twitter: @nerd4cities
Instagram: @nerd4cities
----------
Previous CityNerd Videos Referenced:
- Simulated Urbanism: • In Search of Car-Free ...
- Small Cities, Big Transit: • Smaller Cities With Gr...
- Busiest Bike Bridges: • Bikes and Micromobilit...
- Lifestyle Centers: • What Makes Lifestyle C...
----------
Resources:
- US universities by enrollment: nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d...
- Culdesac, "the first car-free neighborhood built from scratch" in Tempe, AZ: culdesac.com/
----------
Images
- Washington Avenue Bridge By Runner1928 - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
- Columbia U subway entrance By Harrison Leong - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...
----------
Music:
CityNerd background: Caipirinha in Hawaii by Carmen María and Edu Espinal (RUclips music library)
----------
Inquiries: thecitynerd@nebula.tv 
Наука
The NYC Subway may not the best, there’s no denying it’s still an effective and convenient system with how many stations there are. Gustavo Petro says that a developed country is where the rich use public transportation, and this is what we see with NYC. ALL walks of life use it! The city relies on the subway to function. And NYU’s location when it comes to the subway is perfect. As for our own Kim Il-sung University, it’s by Jonu and Polgunbyol stations on the Pyongyang Metro’s Chollima Line. And there’s the Kumsusan tram line which connects Kumsusan Palace of the Sun (on the east side of campus) to Samhung on the Metro’s Hyoksin Line
Well that took a turn
Thank you for supporting pedestrian friendly transportation options, Kim Jong-un.
Based Kim
Citynerd please go to Pyongyang and do a special video on the city's transit.
glory to north kora public transit
I’m shocked George Washington University didn’t make an appearance on this list, even as an honorable mention. Right in the heart of DC with metro lines running under it and protected bike lanes throughout.
Thought the same thing, GW is as urban as you can get when it comes to universities
Beat me to it! With the Foggy Bottom station and a quick walk to the red line, I figured it would be a no-brainer
Agreed!
I had the same thought, but I looked on the map and I think it might have been dinged for being too close to the I-66 rats nest.
As someone who went there, it was pretty shocking as well. It has a metro stop and multiple metro bus and circulator routes. You can walk to many places from the foggy campus.
I went to George Washington University (in the heart of D.C) and I believe we deserve a shoutout! Metro stop right on campus, new bike lanes and capital bikeshare brought into campus, no freeway, all walking distance from the National Mall, The White house, Smithsonians, Georgetown, Dupont, and many other places in the city!
George Washington was done dirty fr ain’t no way USC’s blue line light rail comes close to the utility of having the orange, silver, and blue lines stop within the campus of GW
I thought of that one but I'm guessing it doesn't have the enrollment or at least would have gotten a mention.
Not to mention the Farragut West metro stop which is like a second station for GWU - especially for students living on the east end of campus.
@@saddestchord7622 it has 25k students
I think it went down a couple notches because lack of places to eat, shops, etc within walking distance. Tourists would like the central location to visit all the landmarks you mentioned
The funny thing about University Village in Seattle is how it's a simulated urban walking/shopping lifestyle center adjacent to actual walkable neighborhoods. Despite being "pedestrian-friendly," it still manages to be disconnected from the fabric of the relatively pleasant city around it with a confluence high-traffic roads and sprawling parking lots discouraging actually walking to it. It's like if you took a Vegas shopping center and dropped it right in the middle of walkable residential area. For a fun contrast, see also: U District.
It really is a hellish walk from campus to u village
Exactly, taking the bus down from campus drops you off across a heavy road from it, where you cross into the QFC area, which doesn't have sidewalks at all on the side you'd enter the core of it from so you have to walk through a parking lot to get to somewhere like the Chipotle, which is what I always end up having to do. Just did it yesterday actually
Yes! I bike to it from time to time (and they actually do have decent bike locking options and trail access, even if getting TO shops from the trail is odd since it's 100% for cars) but a lot of the shop keepers seem pretty weirded out by someone showing up with a helmet. Lol.
@@Purplesquigglystripe , how have you walked to it? The Burke goes directly past the back entrance of U Village. It's a bit far to walk but a bike/scooter is pretty darn easy, imo. Now, it's totally awkward to go from the Burke into U Village since it's just giant driveways until you get to the walking core, but there are better ways than trying to cross the Parkway if that's how you went. 🙂
@@emma70707 The short way is down and up the 45th Viaduct, but pretty unpleasant.
I went to northeastern university and absolutely loved the walkability, bike ability, and transit access. From my dorm I could hop on a green line train, transfer to commuter rail and be in my hometown ~45 miles north of the city at the end of a line without ever having to take a car. It was incredible
Love that. Norhteastern has a great location -- and a Seattle campus last I checked, haha
Agreed!! Ruggles is such a convenient station for having so many connections via transit to other parts of the city and eastern Mass. Allows a lot of professors to take the train to the university as well, which is great! It's also realy convenient to have two rapid transit lines through campus, since if one is down/having issues (which is often with MBTA), you can just take the other line and it will get you to/from Back Bay or downtown in approximately the same time.
Northeastern is absolutely spoiled by train lines. Not to mention Ruggles being one of the largest bus hubs of Boston. Very happy to see it on the list.
@@CityNerd Northeastern has a Seattle campus and a downtown campus in the Boston financial district as well. Professors would take the T between classes all the time.
northeast just acquired Mills college in Oakland too
George Washington University in DC got absolutely robbed, a Metro station on campus serving 3 lines, a 97 Walk Score, protected bike lanes abound and situated in the city blocks from the National Mall and White House
He did mention enrolment as a qualifying factor. >15,000 for consideration. GWU enrolment was 11,106 in 2021 according to the US Dep't of Education.
Suggestion: since you ran out of stadiums to shout out for your subscriber count, maybe you could shout out a new interesting city every week that your subscriber count has surpassed, maybe giving you a chance to shout out cities and areas you haven't touched on before. Plus it'd be cool to think about how your subs have surpassed entire cities where you or your subs live/visit!
This sounds super cool!!
love this idea
Normally, I hate academic rankings of Universities based on random bogus metrics. But this is one ranking that I actually appreciate! (From a University of Toronto faculty member who, from his office, can see the corner of College Street and University Ave. that was featured in your video).
I am shocked that someone with the handle 'microtubules' is a university faculty member. (/s, my grandfather was a biology Prof at Mac and wrote a history of the program there).
@@jtsholtod.79 I've had that Google handle since I was a grad student (pre-youtube) when I was studying microtubules (a component of the cell cytoskeleton).
@@microtubules still speaks to a certain way of thinking though, eh? Just as I would not associate the user beerkegfart69 with being a faculty member (apologies if that Venn diagram does have an intersection -- looking at you, Carleton -- again, just kidding, my aunt went there and is a very good doctor).
"#1 in canada, top 20 in the world"
"🅱️oundless"
10. University of Minnesota [3:47]
9. Toronto Metropolitan University [4:13[
8. Arizona State in Tempe [4:42]
7. Northeastern University [5:57]
6. University of Washington in Seattle [6:20]
5. UC Berkley [6:54]
4. University of Quebec in Montreal [7:22]
3. Columbia University [7:52]
Honorable Mentions: [8:33]
2. Toronto University [10:04]
1. New York University [10:32]
As an ASU student, being on the Tempe campus basically inspired my love of urbanism, everything is just so damn convenient and fun to get to.
It's amazing how much Tempe has changed since I graduated. The towers on Mill Ave were still being built. I need to check out Cul de Sac when it's finished
Same! I wish the rest of the valley emulated downtown Tempe’s convenience.
Me too!
I grew up in a typical American city where the car is king, and the number one thing that set me on a path towards New Urbanism and channels like yours was my experience at Drexel. After 4 years of incredibly easy access to subways, buses, regional and intercity trains, walkability, etc. I grew to hate cars and couldn't go back to living anywhere else. The campus itself leaves a lot to be desired, but the location is top tier. I'd actually rate Drexel higher than Temple just because of 30th St Station, but then there's also the Schuylkill River trail and Penn in close proximity. Obviously I-76 is right there, but I can say from experience that it's a lot less obtrusive than other urban highways because of its position below street level at the major crossings.
Yeah I was surprised and annoyed that Drexel and Penn rated lower than I would've thought in Walk/BikeScore ratings. Didn't seem right but I don't have the resources to sanity-check every Walk/BikeScore rating. It's a drag, but what can I do. Love the experience you shared.
@@CityNerd University City has solid transit access to Center City, but amenities (like grocery stores) can be a bit sparse in places, especially close to the Schuylkill River. I believe WalkScore is primarily a measure of amenity density. I bet UArts in Center City would have done better had it met the student body cutoff.
@@CityNerd I've lived in NYC, Boston, and Philly, and I personally don't find Philadelphia, including the Center City and University City, THAT bikeable, at least compared to cities listed here. I loved biking around in Boston, and NYC was manageable, but Philly was a different story. It's still better than most American cities out there, but not as good as the cities listed here. So I'm actually not that surprised Penn and Drexel aren't listed here although they're pretty darn good urbanist schools. I'm more surprised MIT and Harvard (and Tufts since they extended the green line there on top of the red line...but it's a small school) aren't here, but that's probably because there's only a red line there. I imagine they would go a notch up if we include all the bases. But the same can be said about Penn/Drexel and the 30th st station. You always have to pick and choose when you create a ranking, and I think you did a great job here! And I'm glad to see so many schools being mentioned in the comment section!
@@CityNerd Oh, the amount of research that has to go into this is insane, so I totally understand just using the resources you have readily available. You're making great content and I appreciate it. As @rockfender pointed out, there is a dearth of local grocery options and I expect that's the biggest hit to the walk score. It's gotten better since I was a poor college student hoofing it 10 blocks to the Fresh Grocer, but still not ideal.
Yeah was gonna say this as well, Drexel and UPenn are definitely better from an urbanist perspective. Also they're closer to heart of the city. Temple is not bad though
Where was George Washington University? Metro stop about .2 miles away, 98 walk score, 74 bike score. The only dock that I can see is I 66 ending about a half mile away.
The metro stop is literally on campus! Definitely think GW should be in the top 10, its as urbanist as you can get
@@tedsmith1232 you’re right, didn’t realize how big the campus was.
This was AWESOME to see. I am studying urban studies at Fordham University and it was great to see it in this video even if it’s slightly small. Great transit with the Metro North and subway plus more and super walkable surroundings. Thanks for the content! People like you are what inspired me to start studying urbanism, keep it up👏🏻👏🏻
A (female) friend of mine who went to Fordham had a "Fordham Girls Love the D" shirt
@@neckenwiler only real New Yorkers (or railfans lol) get the joke and quite honestly, that's a good one XD
Not to mention the Lincoln Center campus which is a block away from the Columbus Circle subway station(1 A C B D). Also protect bike lanes either side of campus on Columbus and Amsterdam. (Am a current student studying comp sci at LC)
Had to include Fordham. Very cool location
It would be interesting to see a video on the top 10 cities that ignore urbanism and continue to go down the spiral of becoming a car dependent hellscape (eg. Widening highways, sprawling outwards, destroying neighborhood to build new freeways (I'm looking at you bakersfield) creating more car oriented development as opposed to densifying and upzoning.)
In defense of that specific freeway project in Bakersfield, it’s more about regional connectivity than their own local transportation infrastructure since it’s the most direct route from anything north of there in California to anything in the rest of the southwestern states like Las Vegas, Phoenix, etc. They basically just got screwed by being the first available mountain pass gateway south of the Sierra Nevada that can actually accommodate freeway level traffic (particularly trucks for delivery of goods). Granted the rest of Bakersfield is entirely car-dependent suburban sprawl, but them tearing down some old houses to build a regional freeway connection isn’t inherently part of their own poor development choices.
Austin Tx would definitely be one
How would you narrow that to 10?
So… Texas for half the list?
@@peskypigeonx 50/50 Texas and Florida
I went to NYU (Class of 2017). I wouldn't change it for anything, but it always felt like I never had the "true" college experience. It felt more like I moved to NY in my own apartment at 18. There is no campus rather it's just a bunch of buildings scattered all across the city. I remember having to go to class on 4th St and walk 15 minutes to 11th St. Some classes were even in Brooklyn. You had to build your class schedule based on where the classes were located or you could miss a class due to commute from one building to another.
NYU is my dream school, thanks for writing this comment!
Hi! I’m just wondering what we’re your stats when you got into nyu? I’m a rising senior! So I would like to know
The "college experience" is fun but moving to NY at 18 sounds just as fun if not better. I found in my big state school that the culture was very conformist and I kind of struggled to find a wide social circle in my chosen major. In NY you can meet people from all walks of life easily and find your niche even if it means venturing off campus.
I visited NYU for a work conference a few years ago and was seriously impressed with the transit options and walkability. I’ve been dreaming about going back ever since.
Honorable mentions for NJIT and Rutgers Newark. Yes NJIT has a light rail, but it’s underground and acts like a subway so it’s faster. Not to mention there’s a special underground fare if you’re just going between downtown stations (Penn, Military Park, Washington St, Warren St/NJIT) which is even cheaper than the regular fare. As for Rutgers, besides using Warren Street or Washington Street, you can also use the Broad Street extension which connects the two NJT rail stations of Newark, Newark Broad Street station to Penn. And of course, both are close to Newark Penn Station which is on the Northeast Corridor.
Also within a 10min walk you have NJT Morris and Essex Lines/Montclair Line. That also have a light rail connection.
@@thetrainguy1 That's what I meant by Broad Street extension!
Yeah Newark really has a lot going for it. Hopefully more bike infrastructure and maybe someday more rail lines.
Both have small enrollments compared to this list.
@@ASQ1Fan yeah but in a lot of ways they function as interrelated schools, a lot of programs at both Unis have curriculum requirements at the other. That and proximity, the main campuses are across the street from one another, means they have a very interconnected social life.
DePaul in Chicago is being slept on. Red purple brown line service. Halsted, Fullerton and Belmont buses offer great E/W service. Not to mention Lincoln park and the lakefront trail. I’m a UIC MUPP so I’m surprised it made the list
the irony of getting a mercedes ad on an urbanist video cant be overstated lol
Pitt ranks high on WalkScore 94 and BikeScore 75, which is impressive giving the terrain that requires stairs and escalators to access half of campus.
It is served by many frequent bus routes but no rail.
Now to just get the football stadium back into Oakland where it belongs.
They've been trying to build a subway there for over a century, but PRT has now publicly stated that they've given up. Tragic.
The soon to go into construction Bus Rapid Transit in Pittsburgh will bookend campus, and there's no room for a football stadium anymore, not with the athletics master plan they're working on. As a pitt grad, I would love a stadium there, but it's just not feasible.
@@thomaskeane5723 dont want my tuition money to go to gentrifying Oakland
@@wvubjd yeah its also more environmentally friendly to share with the steelers at Heinz
Surprised GWU in DC didn't get a top ten or honorable mention. Metro stop right on campus with 3 lines, in a very walkable neighborhood.
As a former ASU student, I loved how walkable the university is. It has become an urbanist university in the last 15 years due to the light rail passing through. They’re planning planning to expand the streetcar.
I’m curious if you’ve been to their downtown Phoenix campus? I saw it has a walk score of 81 but I wonder how that actually translates
Trolleys 🚎 seem like fun I wish we had them by us
@@Roma_eterna downtown campus is great. Connects to the light rail as well and has a more urban feel. Its kinda in a way like NYU(obviously on a smaller scale) where you have a campus in the middle of a downtown business district.
As a student at McGill University, I can say that I'm satisfied with the infrastructure that's on campus/close to campus. We have a metro station a block away, the rem will be here soon. There are protected bike paths on university Street and on a street parallel to Sherbrooke. There are many bus lines that get to McGill. There's no proximity to any highways. I'd like to highlight that this is pretty much the experience at ETS and Concordia, since both universities are in close proximity to McGill.
TLDR: any university in downtown Montreal is great for urbanism
Indeed, all of the main campuses of the universities in Montreal are in walkable areas and well served by transit. Université de Montréal isn’t downtown but it’s still accessible by metro and in a generally walkable area, even if its campus feels ever so slightly more car-oriented as a lot of space on campus is given to parking. One thing that McGill doesn’t have that all of the other universities in Montreal (UQÀM, Concordia & UdeM) have is an underground connection between (at least some) buildings and the metro, which can honestly be very useful when the weather isn’t nice.
Very true, all of the main 4 universities in Montreal are great for urbanism. And even the one that 'feels' the least urbanist - Université de Montréal - still has 2 metro stations on campus (3 if you count Côte-des-Neiges), and will also be served by the REM when it comes into service.
And again, the other 3 universities are even better (for walking and biking). Montreal is awash in urbanist universities.
I was going to say the same! McGill has a walkscore of 98, although I think UQAM is a strong contender... For example, there are more things students would want more readily accessible to them (eg. nightlife on St. Lau/St. Catherine's). Montreal is a strong walking/biking city no matter where you are, but it definitely does say something that many McGill students will live in closer proximity to UQAM (in the Plateau/Latin Quarter) than directly next to McGill (in Milton Parc/Golden Square Mile). I never lived directly next to McGill, and that was the function of 2 things: transit always got me on campus quickly, even if I was in a different part of the city; and the McGill area never had anything I really wanted to frequent (GOOD grocery stores, nightlife, cafes, parks that weren't up a hill, etc). Although this video didn't take that into consideration, its strange that (imo) I feel like UQAM is more deserving of being on this list than McGill (although not Concordia).
Not gonna lie, I 100% expected Concordia University to be in the top 3, seeing how it’s directly connected to the Green line via Guy-Concordia station and just one block off the Orange line and 3 commuter rail lines via Lucien-L’Allier. That’s on top of its excellent walkability, the Maisonneuve bike path that crosses downtown and its direct link by bus, metro or bike McGill, UQAM and UdeM.
I thought Concordia and McGill might get on this list. UdeM is actually shit for walking, lots of parking lots and garages and it's on a hill, which hampers bikeability
As an admissions counselor at a university on this list, im going to use this list in my information sessions.
So so excited to have recently landed a job at NYU. Over the past year or so I became obsessed with urbanism and transit and anything city related (a city nerd) and have loved watching your videos. Thanks for everything Ray!!!
the university of chicago deserves a dishonorable mention for somehow managing to be incredibly inaccessible by transit despite being in a top 5 transit city in the us
That's on purpose though. In converse, Uic's east campus location was chosen due to its ease of access to transit and express way.
also dishonorable mentions: ubc and ucla
and stupidly dangerous "hood
And how about Northwestern University in the Chicago suburb of Evanston? Great transit, short walk to Downtown Evanston, and biking along the lakeshore.........
Surprised that DePaul (Chicago) and GW were not in the top half of the list. DePaul is 23k students, three transit lines on campus at Fullerton stop, 95 walk score, not near a highway.
growing up in the suburbs. going to college was the first time i realized that a car-free life was not only attainable but also way more convenient and cheap (in the right place, of course). maybe that's what my grandparents meant when they said sending me to college would turn me into a liberal
I grew up in the country, i really don't think transit should be political. From a freedom perspective more options is more freedom, from an economic perspective transit is way cheaper/better than cars, and from a climate perspective its a no brainer to have electric trains even if powered by natural gas they are better. (Litterally any political side should be able to see the advantage of more transit options, unless you are bought and paid for by British Petroleum or Shell.)
Public Transit sounds "socialist" which scares many conservatives but it is really for the benefit for everyone. It really is the great equalizer in society where white and blue collar, rich, poor and middle folks travel together on the same transit system. That is NYC and other great transit systems in the world.
@@jasonreed7522 As much as cities and the old walkable lifestyle (which is what is really needed) have been gotten away from, the realistic time scale for reorganizing how people arrange their lives is not one that even BP or Shell NEED to worry about.
If I were going to call two things out it would be military spending (because that is the scale of the investment that is needed to make transit big enough for it to be a normal choice) and the make-work nature of roads projects (because that's what they consistently are in built-up areas where transit would be a better choice). A lot of "work" is getting done merely to keep people employed at the jobs they happen to hold now, and that even goes for a lot of ostensibly transit-centered projects. We know that adding road lanes doesn't help traffic. But we do it anyway.
As a UIC student, once you said proximity to freeways I knew we were fucked
Fun(?) fact: uic used to be the university of Illinois at chicago circle, named after the nearby interchange
Totally had the same feeling haha but at least we were hon mentioned. UIC class of 2020 here
Awesome video! I attended Arizona State and was thrilled to see it on this list. I personally rode around campus on a kick scooter but the access to public transit was amazing and it connects to the airport and downtown which was hugely helpful! Keep up the great videos!
Yeah, though it really depends on which campus you’re on. West and Polytechnic campuses are in suburban areas and have slightly better bus connections than neighboring suburbs, but it’s still not great, and the university at least provides buses between the campuses in the valley. Only Tempe and downtown Phoenix campuses have connections to the light rail and are adjacent to city downtowns, though the Tempe campus is more relevant. I’m not sure why he didn’t really cover the other campuses. I also attend Arizona State University, and I had a few classes on west campus, and use it to get home over the weekend without having to drive, which I don’t know how to do.
Hi! I appreciate this list, but excluding George Washington University in Washington, DC was a major oversight. It's got every criteria you considered! I fell in love with the urban-ness of that campus and how integrated it was into the city, so much so that I moved across the country to go there for two years. After having later worked adjacent to USC in LA for twice that long, I can genuinely say GWU should score waaaaay higher than USC in terms of walkability, bikeability, and transportation. Gallaudet University in Washington, DC should also get at least an honorable mention. It's a school for deaf and hard of hearing students, and it's smaller in terms of student population than you were considering. But it's got pretty much all of the other criteria. Consider these DC schools if you make a follow up to this list. Thanks for your content!
Howard University and George Washington University are in the heart of DC with trains, busses, bikes, scooters and high walk scores
Fun fact! The University of Illinois Chicago used to have the dubious distinction of being the only University named after a traffic interchange. Its previous name was The University of Illinois, Chicago Circle Campus, named after what is now the Jane Byrne Interchange, fresh off of an 8 year, $800 million dollar rebuild.
Is the Jane Byrne actually done now? Sounds like it's time to rebuild again. Bring back the suicíde ramps!
Ugh, now I'm annoyed I didn't know that
I mean I knew about the rebuild, not the old name haha
It was NOT named for the intersection. It was named for the Circle outdoor forum on the roof of their central building. A dear friend worked on the construction of the walkways. Many friends and family went to school there, and we were all quite aware what a horrendous scar the interchange was to our fair city. And that goes both for those who drive and those who do not. It was really inconvenient to find a way around that mess best known as the spaghetti bowl.
@@CityNerd A lot of people still call it Circle since "Illinois" means UIUC
As someone who grew up in the Toronto area, I was also caught off-guard by the name change to Toronto Metropolitan University (and its confusing similarity to the University of Toronto). But given Egerton Ryerson's involvement in the creation of the Canadian indian residential school system, which was concluded by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission as an assimilation that amounted to cultural genocide, a name change was long overdue.
You mean TMU doesn’t stand for Toronto Mediocre University. Rye High forever
I can’t take the new name seriously after seeing all the memes about it
I remember TMU as a Polytechnical Institute (i.e., college). The fact that it has had graduate studies for 25 years now is mind-blowing.
Ah, as a Vancouverite, I know nothing of who Ryerson was, and so I was guessing it was something like this which prompted the name change.
Denver has a similar issue because they have Metropolitan State University of Denver, and the much more simple University of Denver. To the point where there was some concern from DU that their name recognition was being stolen as Metro State's name change was relatively recent.
I'm a bit surprised that Cambridge, MA missed the list completely - Harvard, MIT and Tufts all have great transit, and are in extremely walkable areas.
I was thinking the same thing!
Not even 16th place is weird. Maybe it didn't make the cut in terms of students numbers?
Of the three, only Harvard has enough students.
SDSU is definitely an interesting one with a direct light rail and transit center on campus as well as campus bike lanes but as soon as you exit campus it’s a freeway with disappearing bike lanes
Great video, as always. I'd love to see a list of new and upcoming car-free neighborhoods like that one in Tempe. Would be cool to see where urbanism-focused development is cropping up.
berkeley transit is convenient with ac busses going around campus but honestly its such a pretty campus i prefer just to walk, its got great connections to the wider bay area through the bart
As a Northeastern student, I had a feeling that my school would be on this list!! The proximity to the Orange Line (subway/metro) and the Green Line (tram) is super convenient, along with the 1 bus on Mass Ave that is decent at taking you to/from Cambridge. The fact that multiple transit lines operated through the campus was one of the main reasons I wanted to go to this school. The new combo bus/bike lane on Huntington Avenue (the main road through the center of campus) is also extremely convenient, and opens up the doors for cycling for a lot of people. Glad you covered it!
Fun fact, University of Alberta has four light rail stops named after it.
Great video. Though I was surprised more Chicago area schools didn’t make your list. U of Chicago, Northwestern, DePaul and Loyola. None are by freeways and all are near train stops, shopping and other walkable areas. Maybe their enrollments weren’t enough to qualify. Thanks for another great video.
I agree...but University of Chicago ("where fun goes to die") gets demerits for its history of combative and frankly racist relations with adjacent neighborhoods, particularly Oakland-Kenwood to the north and Woodlawn to the south. The University of Chicago was very much an island unto itself on Chicago's South Side.
I once met a guy in grad school at UIC who would bike to U Chicago for seminars.
Go down there, U of C is isolated and is not close to an L stop, I know, I lived in Hyde Park for 10 yrs.
@@mp4373 there is an IC/South Shore station on 56th and Stony...but a lot of the folks in Hyde Park don't really get out of the "bubble". To be fair, there is no need to go anywhere...decent restaurants, cultural attractions, close to the lakefront.
@@MikeB3542 Doesn't run frequently enough to make a difference.
As a Pitt grad I get why it wasn’t on the list (no rail) but one perk was that our student IDs gave us free public transportation access all over the city. I think that should have been a criteria, does the school subsidize transit fair for students and faculty.
This. Maybe once the BRT lanes planned for Fifth and Forbes are completed Pitt will get a shout-out in these rankings. The current bus slip-lane on fifth is going to be converted to a bike lake which will only help also.
Still, there are like 18? different bus lines that run through campus and with the fares being free for students, it is really easy to be car-free or car-lite.
@@ryankrug1500 I lived car free at Pitt Greensburg, It was a limited life, but it was very beautiful. Had all I needed in walking distance, even though it was all university run.
I went to CMU and was thinking the same thing. It made planning with friends so much easier because you don’t have to say “I can drive people who can’t get there by bus” etc etc
Great food, groceries, parks, and housing all walkable or busable. Some of my California friends didn’t like the winter but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ being from Wisconsin I didn’t mind
When I'm feeling stressed, if I watch one of your back catalog videos I soon feel more relaxed. Thank you! ❤
I truly wonder what DePaul would've scored, as the Lincoln Park Campus is probably 4 blocks by 3 blocks and right next to Fullerton which is serviced by the Red, Brown, and Purple lines
Loyola University and DePaul University both could have made this list. They both have rail stations in the middle of campus (DePaul's station serves 3 lines) and they are both incredibly walkable and bikeable, with Loyola having direct lake access.
I think DePaul would have been in the top 5 but it is 14,000 students not 15,000. Loyola is smaller than DePaul.
DePaul easily top 5. 3 lines right on campus, extremely cheap city bikes, and great bus system. Highway is nowhere near
I was going to make this comment as well. DePaul more so than Loyola but they're definitely both worthy of spots
DePaul is over 20,000 students. Hard to score by any metric since you have two distinct campuses. My guess is it got dinged by bike score. Still, it’s hard to justify leaving out a university where one campus is served by three El lines and the other is served by all of them.
if you bike by Loyola, you will get smushed, come on....
I live next to TMU Ryerson campus.. a new Ontario metro line is scheduled to be coming through it soon...
Also IIT Chicago and DePaul University in Chicago are really well connected.
DePaul has a wonderful walkable neighborhood 😊
I’m SO happy you mentioned Northeastern, my alma mater 🥰 it’s worth noting that the Acela and NE Regional trains (as well as MBTA commuter rail) also pass through the campus parallel to the orange line. Literally a railfan’s dream
Ruggles is genuinely one of my favorite stations in the Northeast. I'm always studying in a building adjacent to the Northeast Corridor so I can watch the trains go by... it's a bit too distracting though but I dont care!! Loll
Pretty happy to see my Alma Mater (USC) make the honorable mentions. I took the Expo Line to campus every day, it was such a relief!
Great list! University of Minnesota grad here. I'm sure you took it into account but didn't mention, there are three green line stops on campus and there is a dedicated bus/bike road between the Minneapolis and St Paul Campuses. This campus is so walkable/bikeable/transitable that I found walking to be the best way to get there in the winter and I had to cross a freeway (I also owned a car so I had the choice not to). I also had friends who would bus in from the suburbs (utilizing park and rides). Thinking about this time reminds me of a good topic to cover and that is biking in the winter in either the PNW (Oregon transplant to MN here) or in the great lakes region. People always say you can't bike in these places because of the weather but they are home to both Portland and Minneapolis which switch places in being the most biked in the US. I found biking in the rain to be more miserable than in the cold, but biking on too much ice and snow just makes it impossible without a fat tire bike. Both weather conditions just require gear and public investment in operations (plowing)
I thought we would’ve gotten dinged with 2 close freeways but glad to see us up there!
For out of state students, you can also hop on lite rail on campus and go all the way to the Airport.
Shoutout to the University of Alberta, which has two grade-separated light rail stations on campus serving two lines each, great walkability, plenty of protected bike infrastructure, and close proximity to the river valley park system.
u of a is the closest we get to car free in edmonton !
No Harvard or MIT on this list was a surprise to me. Northeastern is well deserved but these two campuses are pretty much the most human friendly places in all of New England.
MIT doesn't have enough students
I’m an alum of both NYU and Columbia. Pretty much any university in Manhattan or Downtown Brooklyn could be on this list, but I agree that NYU is unbeatable. Part of that is, besides already being in Greenwich Village when you’re on “campus”, you’re just a few minutes walk away from Chinatown, Little Italy, SoHo, Tribeca, and so many other great places. I put “campus” in quotes because the campus is really just Greenwich Village … Of course, NYC is a pretty expensive place nowadays.
Columbia 'hood not especially safe
@@peterpicard4028 It’s not bad at all, as long as you stay West of Morningside Park. I’ve got a friend who’s lived there for 15 years or so, and people are out walking around there, there’s great nightlife … it’s actually a great neighborhood.
"Anytime you have a metro station on campus that's named after the university and serves 3 different lines, you're already way over-performing"
*stares in GWU*
Where did DC universities like George Washington rank? My brother used to go to GWU in the late 80's-early 90's and I remember the subway being pretty easily accessible and the campus being very walkable. I know 30 years is a lot of time, so things could have improved or worsened, but I'd think they would rank pretty high.
Also, being from the Philly area and having been on all the Philly campuses mentioned, I totally agree that they're very walkable, transit oriented campuses. That being said, I wish you had factored crime into your metric. A campus like Temple has a high crime rate, so that lowers the amount of walking and transit usage by a bit.
Suprised not to see any Chicago schools crack the top 10! (Especially my school DePaul🥺) I assume it’s because of DePauls low percentage of on-campus undergrads, but DePaul has served as an ideal urban campus for me. Bountiful transit options, strong bike and walkability and delightfully affordable for living in the US’ third biggest city. Also compared to other Chicago schools (loyola, northwestern, uic), we’re posted up pretty close to the city center (right on top of the brown, red and purple lines)and far from stroads/highways and other anti-human development. I think we deserved an honorable mention at the least🫠, but great video as always. Thank you for always teaching me something
my school too
As a Columbia student, I have to give it to NYU for their great location with regards to transit in NYC. Being next to the 1 and multiple bus routes for me is a big step up from my home in the suburbs, but from around NYU you can get to so many more places in the city with less interchanges. Not to mention how there’s so much more to do right around NYU than there is around Columbia.
We do always joke that Columbia is for the academic and quiet students, and NYU for the party animals
Columbia student here too and I totally agree. NYU’s location is prime time-and they aren’t gentrifying Harlem
And Columbia is not that accessible from Harlem...unless you're particularly fond of crazy and endless staircases lol
@@tedschmiedeler1336 Akthough look at how they've muscled in along Third Avenue in the Village.
@@Hal10034 good point. east village got heck of gentrification...to the point people don't even know that it got gentrified lol
glad to finally see some Twin Cities love!
My first foray into car-free/light was at university, specifically NC State in Raleigh. We didn’t have rail, but do have several university specific bus routes between portions of campus. Plus close proximity to the state capital
glad to hear the Drexel mention. Going there was where I really learned to make transit a part of my daily life, and I've never looked back. Having access to the subway, regional rail, megabus, and Amtrak all within a 10 minute walk was such a life changer for me.
Thanks so much for doing this video, it was awesome to hear your answers as I was one of the viewers who requested this! FWIW, I asked because I work at a university and am on a selective job search right now and prioritizing great urbanist areas with walkability, transit, and biking. Your top 10 list had 6 of the 10 places I have on my shortlist :) I actually have grown really interested in Philadelphia from your channel, it is such an underrated gem of a city with its transit but also its incredible affordability. If you have any connections at Penn, tell them Patrick from RUclips is a great hire! lmao
if there was a "worst universities for urbanism" list, USF in Tampa would be number 1
GWU in DC had access to two metro lines, bike paths, and is placed along an upcoming BRT corridor. I’m pretty sure it has a higher walkscore than most in this top ten.
I went to Drexel, and I loved how easy it was to get around the city and beyond (30th street for trians and the airport accessable by rail as well) with public transit.
So happy to see University of Minnesota on the list! Love my alum Ater.
I am a British retired University law lecturer with a strong interest in transit. I therefore started applying your methodology to British Universities! My own former employer (Nottingham Trent University) would do well, as it is based (mostly) in the centre of a city with good public transit (NTU even has its own tram stop) and the city is very walkable - bikeable not so good. Univ of Birmingham, from which I have a PhD, is quite good. It has its own main line station! (My supervisor used to commute from Wolverhampton by car, but on the day after the station opened, he tried the train. He never drove in again! By contrast. Univ of Manchester is poor. Not on any rail system. Transit is entirely buses badly affected by congestion.
Many university towns and cities in the UK have the university actually IN the centre of town anyway, so have a pretty good head start (Oxford and Cambridge are the obvious ones). I went to Coventry and the campus takes up one third of the city centre and there are good bus routes all around. Eton College also has Windsor's 2 stations very close to it. I'm sure London uni's would also score very highly.
@@mdhazeldine Eton is not a University! Otherwise I agree with your comments. London's public transport is so much better than the rest of the UK (extensive heavy rail, cheap bus services with 24-hour service on many routes) that I suspect that London Colleges would fill most if not all top ten spots. Many modern post-1950 UK Universities are on relatively remote out of town campuses. Eg Lancaster, Exeter, Kent (outside Canterbury), York and Sussex (Outside Brighton). On a broader point, City Nerd's 'Patrick' is obviously American, but his equivalents could exist in any nation of the globe!
Georgia State University in downtown Atlanta would have been a good mention. There’s three MARTA rail stations that serve the campus in addition to having the streetcar running through the campus.
I’m a GSU alumni and I actually couldn’t believe Georgia State had no mention at all. I lived on campus for 2 years with no car and had no issues basically; this was before Uber and other ride sharing services too.
Another GSU alum here and I was also hopeful we'd at least get an honorable mention. Sure, Atlanta is known as a car-centric city, but GSU's downtown campus is hard to beat in terms of multi-modal connectivity. @citynerd I'd love to know where on your ranking list where Georgia State landed.
Thanks for the wash u clip at the start! Telling STL a bit, we don’t show up much on urbanism channels understandably
OK, love this topic! One thing I wish was considered is how steeply discounted a student pass is for a semester. I went to ASU and while I know the Valley Metro Light Rail is heavily used, the free neighborhood circulars (ORBIT, specifically the Venus, Mercury, Jupiter, and Mars routes) get CRAMMED full of students. It should also be noted that ASU Downtown, the second largest campus has a light rail stop, but so far as I can tell the preference for inter-campus travel fell to the ASU shuttles which were very liable to get stuck in traffic. This is in direct contrast to our rival school, the University of Arizona in Tucson who has a VERY heavily used free streetcar and their shuttle system (Cat Tran) is a nice complementary service.
Would have loved to see some dishonorable mentions! JMU comes to mind, with a freeway literally dividing the campus in two. The freeway noise can be heard throughout most of the campus (not even any sound barriers).
Yes! And I want to hear about the campuses where most student drive from building to building between classes.
@@chadnewton5721 I actually don't think this is a thing really anywhere? Maybe some community colleges, but typically even then you probably just drive to a single building and then go home.
Where is JMU?
@@tomfields3682 Harrisonburg, VA
i was thinking about going to TMU for planning, but chose UWaterloo instead, as it had the better program in my opinion. as much as i’d love to be in toronto, waterloo is actually doing some really cool urbanist projects like the ion light rail, new bike lanes, and pedestrian only streets!
As a UW grad from two decades ago (yikes), when I went back last year to see the campus and the town, I was blown away. It was almost unrecognizable. At least the walk from campus to REV is still a barren wasteland in the winter.
UWaterloo has got to be one of the most auto-oriented campuses though. Also don't go to Ryerson for anything period
@@andrepoiy1199 The actual campus itself only has Ring Road around it, and I liked that cars couldn't drive through -- unlike UofT. (I was also back there recently and HOLY CRAP all the green spaces got filled in with buildings. Kind of a shame. I graduated in 2000 and it's changed a lot since then.)
TMU was great for planning, when you're in 3rd or 4th year the competition kind of goes away. 4th year wasnt really about competing for jobs but making those connections in the small planning world. I just wish they'd close down Yonge st to cars already. Highly recommend going UW-TMU planning conferences.
Great list and video! I couldn't help but think of my alma mater University of Houston which seems to have some how combined all the positive and negative components you listed in one university campus. It was a commuter school for a long time that's be trying to evolve into an urban campus, but I think it's an interesting case study on how hard it can be to restructure car oriented neighborhoods/campuses
As a alumni from the University of Toronto this list does confirm some things in my mind. It was arguably the best 5 years of study I could have asked for and now I live on the polar opposite in Tulsa OK. Soon to be in Chicago though which should be exciting! Great video.
University of Pittsburgh Alumni here, Not surprised we didn't make the list, Transit is very good, and so is walkability, but it is all busses and no rail. It is also really hilly which made traversing the campus very difficult, but it was a good workout. I lived at the branch Campus in Greensburg and didn't have a car, even though the university is not centrally located in the town of Greensburg, I still had everything I needed on campus. When I transferred to main campus I couldn't afford to live on campus, so I drove from my parents suburban home to a park and ride, and took the free bus to Pitt everyday, and it was quite nice, The Oakland Neighborhood where Pitt is located has alot of really ugly and run down areas, next to amazingly beautiful buildings... It was quite different from Greensburg where Most of the buildings were pretty mediocre looking, but the natural scenery is really beautiful.
Yeah, he said it had to have rail to be considered. Blame the city government back in the 1990s that never built the Downtown to Oakland light rail line.
My Professors Gonna Love this.
Love your videos! I went to Northeastern University and it was a great location for education and culture. The Green line for transit is right on the quad. Keep up the fabulous work and yes, learning about urbanism and all the permutations is so much fun.
This is such an awesome list, with so many contenders. I would have liked to see a top 25 for this one instead of top 10 (with honorable mentions bringing it up to 16 or so).
Glad to see ASU's Tempe campus here! FWIW, I talked with folks at Culdesac last week, and they said they're still looking for renters for spring. So maybe the waitlist is for some types of units, and others are still open.
I would also mention that there is another BART station close to campus called Rockdrige. Its like a 15 minute max bus ride from UC Berkeley using college ave or Claremont ave. Very convient to use depending on which side of campus you live/go closer.
What a fantastic video! I'm currently a high school senior looking to study civil engineering and urban planning in college, and many of my criteria for choosing which universities to apply to were very similar to the criteria you used to rank each university in this video (although I'll admit I didn't dive into the ped/bike/transit quantitative scores like you did 😉). I was really just looking for schools with decent engineering programs in cities with high-quality transit, and coincidentally (or perhaps not) many of the schools I applied to were featured in this video.
I actually live in Austin, Texas, and UT Austin (one of the honorable mentions) is definitely a consideration for me, despite the current lack of robust rail transit access. Austin is in the midst of a significant public transit expansion program that will bring much-needed light rail and rapid bus services to the region, and UT will be situated directly between multiple of the proposed new transit corridors, so I'm optimistic it'll become much more of a transit-accessible campus over the next several years.
University of Washington also sits high on my list of preferred schools to attend, simply because of Seattle's natural beauty (which I must say Austin - and really Texas as a whole - is sorely lacking of) and its generally pro-transit constituency. If you have any comments regarding your time attending the university and its pros/cons, please feel free to share them. I'd love to know more about the UW and I could totally see myself going there if I do happen to get in.
Thanks for keeping me and all my fellow city and transportation nerds entertained every week - it's nice to know there are others out there who share my same fervent passion for these subjects.
Not specifically about this vid but gosh i love thie channel. All this stuff is pretty interesting and it so neat. Thank u
Ayy, my city finally made it!
Compared to the rest of the Phoenix area, downtown Tempe is actually an urbanist utopia. Going to college there I had a great time being relatively car-free and making extensive use of their built in transit networks and inherent walkability and bikeability.
Honestly though, all that just made the transition off campus after graduation all the more miserable by comparison.
Love this channel
While I am not saying this video was necessarily the deciding factor in my college decision, you and other "urbanist" channels helped me realize why I felt like I was missing "something" while living in suburbia all my life. After visiting and falling in love with the campus and city, I am proud to say that I will be attending UC Berkeley for college. Thank you for all the content you have put out which has helped me learn more about the flaws in American cities and introducing me to concepts I did not even know existed.
The auraria campus in Denver is another good one. Three schools on one campus next to downtown, with 2 rail stops, bus service and bike paths nearby. They should infill some dense student housing but otherwise a good urban campus!
This, yes! CU Denver grad here
my top picks all belong to Boston for both quality of school and transit accessibility
Harvard,
MIT
NorthEastern
Boston College,
Boston University,
UMass Boston
Another solid video, thanks and I hope you feel better soon
Thank you for blessing me with the term "Traffic Sewer".
Rutgers was a great urban school but had its limitations since New Brunswick is kinda small. They’ve added a few new HUGE 10+ story student apartments with restaurants in the past few years though so it’s growing. also the bus system wasn’t great occasionally because of rush hour traffic and was packed like sardines a lot. I had a car to drive to some classes in the morning which was 10-20 mins faster. on the plus side, big 10 footbal and NJ transit into NYC or Princeton
New Brunswick has rail downtown which is great, but depending on where you are, it's hard to get to the station without a car. The new bike lanes on Livingston Ave are like the only bike lanes I can think of and they're not protected, so if you're not super close to Easton Ave it kinda sucks to walk to the station. At least Rutgers runs free buses.
A note on ASU: the walkways are all super wide, and campus is large enough that matriculating students are encouraged to bike to class. The bike score is 100 because the entire campus puts bikes first.
Also, surprised no DC universities on the list. DC has a great bike score, plus several large-enough universities (Howard, GW, and UDC have heavy rail) to make the cut for consideration.
Yeah. It’s a shame that administration had to ban bikes in the center of campus, though it’s probably way too busy, and some walkways are still not wide enough for bikes to mix in with pedestrian traffic, so I don’t really understand the 100 bike score rating.
The Phoenix metro area has always been bike friendly. There's been dedicated bike lanes on most roads for decades now.
Definitely gotta do a video about Culdesac in the future! something like top 10 new urbanist developments, or just a general video about new urbanism or new downtown style commercial streets
A wonderful concept for a video! ❤
Canada had a good showing here with 3 out of the top 10.
I'm trying to improve transit, cycling, and walkability in my hometown of State College, PA. Could you do videos on what small to mid-sized cities can do to improve these things?
You could see if anyone at YIMBY Action is working in your area. It's housing focused but of course dense housing and transit are like PB&J
Isn't Penn State literally bigger than the rest of State College
@andrepoiy111999 ~20,000 people at University Park and ~90,000 people in Happy Valley. Downtown, Orchard Park, and the Highlands, as well as campus, are dense and have decent transit.
We have a few pretty bad stroads in the surrounding townships, and the busses aren't great even though so many people take them. We should also have separated bike lanes, which are really lacking considering the number of people who don't own cars.
Script for this vid was on point with being accessible to a non-regular viewer while also retaining all the typical City Nerdery that subscribers have come to love.
As a temple alum, it was awesome to see the Cecil B. Moore stop kick off the episode! Temple campus is pretty decent, tho IMO they’ve been building too much (and mostly bland boxes… boo. Long live the brutalism!). More recently, I also lived near Northeastern, so this video really felt like a personalized nostalgia trip double dip.
Thanks for an amazing year. Your channel was easily my favorite YT discovery of 2022!
This was great! Please do top 10 medium universities, small universities, and junior colleges! This would be a great series.
Love your channel. The new lighting is not great though! Whatever you were using before was better :)
BU has released plans (or at least publicly voiced a desire) to cap over the Mass Pike through central campus and build several new classroom/research/residential buildings over the top. Would do a lot to improve the feel of central campus.
BU has tried to do that for decades, without success.
applying to college soon, thanks for this 🙏
Great video! Thanks for finally doing this👍💯😀
Not really sure why DePaul or Loyola Chicago didn’t make your list, both fit all your requirements far better than most of this list, and for sure better than UIC. DePaul has the red/brown/purple Fullerton stop running right through campus too!
FOR SURE BETTER THAN UIC. thanks for saying what we're all thinking