Fort Collins ranks 12th best for car-free living

FORT COLLINS – No car? Not much of a problem in Fort Collins, at least according to a recent study.

The Larimer County seat has been ranked 12th best for living without a motor vehicle on a list of the nation’s 200 largest cities, according to a best-of-2024 list compiled by HVAC Gnome, a branch of an Austin, Texas-based company called Home Gnome, which seeks to “[make] it easy to find the best home services in the U.S. to get the job done right and on time.” HVAC Gnome specializes in connecting customers to installers of heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems, and said it studied car-free living because “fewer cars on the road reduce air and noise pollution, but air quality matters both inside and outside your home.”

Its study ranked Fort Collins third in the nation for share of residents who bike to work, 11th for the number of ride-sharing and hailing services and 65th for pedestrian fatalities per 100,000 residents.

Fort Collins’ Transfort public-transit system suspended fares in March 2020, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, and is expected to remain fare-free at least through the end of this year. The system, hindered by driver shortages as are many public-transit systems around the country, is gradually working to restore service to pre-pandemic levels. Transfort runs city bus routes as well as the MAX fixed-guideway buses and FLEX regional express service to and from Loveland, Berthoud, Longmont and Boulder.

Among cities in Colorado, the study ranked Denver 29th, Colorado Springs 98th, Aurora 140th, Lakewood 156th and Thornton 183rd. San Francisco topped the 2024 list, followed by Boston;  New York; Washington; Honolulu; Chicago; Jersey City, New Jersey; Seattle; Richmond, Virginia; Pittsburgh; and Oakland, California.

The study compared each city’s walkability, bikeability, transit ridership and pedestrian safety, among 23 total metrics.

Mobile, Alabama, ranked in last place, just below Memphis, Tennessee, at No. 199 and Jackson, Mississippi, at No. 198.

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