DC without a car?
 

Finishing watching the second season of House of Cards seems to have implanted a subliminal message in my head that I should go to DC on my next vacation. Funny, The West Wing never did this; must be all the outside shots. :)

Looking at doing the usual tourist stuff: Look at the White House, Capitol Hill, National Mall, Vietnam Memorial, The Smithsonian, etc.

Is it feasible to get around to these places without a car? The Metro system seems pretty good.

Avoiding the obvious bad parts of town, is it safe to walk around?

Not only is it feasible to not have a car in DC, it's largely hopeless to expect to drive anywhere near the places you want to go. And, if you do, you will pay more to park your car than for a nice room at a good hotel.

DC has good public transportation (MetroRail and Circulator bus are great - Metro Bus not quite so much), much of it is very walkable and taxis and Uber are plentiful.

If for some reason you were motivated to drive to DC, I would advise you to park your car outside of town and use public transportation anyway.

Great, that's actually the answer I wanted to hear!

What about safety when walking around on foot? The usual big city precautions aside, should I be worried that I might accidentally get into areas where one shouldn't be walking around?

The touristy areas of DC are extremely safe by US standards. The worst you'll see are some random homeless folks shambling about. Unless you're going to any of the gentrifying neighbourhoods (Far side of H St NE, fringes of Eastern Market, Hill East, Petworth, etc...), you'd have to try quite hard to mistakenly wander into a sketchy area. Of the places you mentioned wanting to see, you'd have to wander miles before you end up anywhere even remotely objectionable.

I second the no car. Having a car in DC is a huge pain, as traffic is terrible and parking ranges from nonexistent to exorbitantly expensive. All of the places you mentioned are easily walkable from one another.

I've lived in DC for 12 years. Never owned a car here. Totally doable.

Transit links:
http://wmata.com/ -- metro & bus system
http://www.dccirculator.com/ -- circulator bus, which runs a few downtown routs
https://capitalbikeshare.com/ -- bikeshare

Triple that.
The Metro is great, get a hotel near a station,
and everything is walkable.

If you get tired of walking,
just call the limo like Kevin Spacey does. :)

You should be aware that most scenes in House of Cards were filmed in Baltimore, not DC..

I used to live in College Park, MD and would commute into DC every other day on the Metro. You can get pretty much anywhere you need to get to on the Metro, and I would say that it is like being in Manhattan in the sense that often a car is more of a hassle than a help, and public transportation is more convenient than driving and having to park. Plus, i would say the Metro is safer than the NY subway and much, much cleaner.

Thanks for the answers, everyone!

Safer? The metro can be dangerous as any other subway system can be. The metro even warns passengers to be wary of these 10 stations: Here is a heads-up for Will Fly Småland:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...rous-stations/

The NYC system is 24/7. The metro doesn't run trains before 7am on weekends & closes only at midnight on weeknights.

——————

That all said, one does not need a car in DC but if you want to go to Georgetown, the metro goes only as far as Foggy Bottom. Use the bus system. Do DC buses run 24/7?

Of those 10 allegedly dangerous metro stations (and, note that even the worst station is still reporting a rate of only 5 incidents a month), only 2 are ones a tourist would have any reason to go near. Those two are Gallery Place and L'Enfant Plaza, both of which are major transfer stations (as well as being close to tourist attractions). I have seen groups of brawling teenagers at L'Enfant Plaza, but they were easily avoided and the police appeared to come promptly.

I was surprised to see Vienna on the list, as I live across the street from that station and there have been exactly 2 crimes in my neighborhood in the 7 years that I've lived there. Unless all of those crimes are on the Fairfax side of the station (which I doubt, since I lived a few blocks down on that side before I bought my current place), I suspect that a lot of the incidents there are thefts of GPS units from cars in the parking lot.

Also, most of the reported crimes are snatch thefts, almost entirely of electronics. If you actually pay attention to things around you, that is easy to avoid. There is a bit of a campaign now warning people about cell phone thefts, especially from people sitting / standing next to the doors.

At any rate, I generally feel safe walking around parts of the city that a tourist would be go to. It is not unusual for me to walk, say, down 14th street from Logan Circle to McPherson Square after getting out of a theatre at 10 p.m. or to walk from near the verizon Center to Metro Center to avoid having long waits for tran transfers.

On many lines, bus service stops before metro service does. Some of it stops ridiculously early, e.g. the King Street trolley in Alexandria stops running at 10:15 p.m. even on weekends (though it isn't a bad walk along King Street to the metro).

Some of the Circulator routes run to midnight (till 2 a.m. on weeknights), but some stop at 9 p.m., including Georgetown-Union Station.

The other thing to watch out for re: pbulic transit here is weekend and evening track work. There is a rew week respite right now for the Cherry Blossom Festival, but weekends often mean closed stations and lengthy delays most of the year and especially on holiday weekends.

I really question all those people who say the DC Metro is great.

If you're taking the train solely to/from downtown DC during the morning and evening rush hours, it's generally more or less reliable (although crowded.)

However, if you're taking the train at off-peak hours - particularly on weekends - the system becomes a Dantesque hellscape. It's not unusual to find numerous stations shut down for construction, or for trains to use one set of tracks for both directions, adding 30+ minutes to what should be a 15-minute trip.

If you're based in downtown DC, most of the main tourist attractions can be reached easily on foot or by bus, so that shouldn't be too much of a problem. However, if you stay out in a suburban hotel (which are often *much* cheaper than those in the District proper) and expect to commute in on Metro over a weekend, you could find yourself stuck with long waits.

Also, with regard to safety in DC - as a tourist you're unlikely to run into any problems. However, crime is certainly not uncommon even in so-called "nice" areas and downtown, particularly at night. And keep in mind that some of the city's main nightlife areas - such as U Street, Columbia Heights, and H Street NE - were until recently 100% the ghetto, still have lots of public housing, and do with some frequency see muggings, street attacks, and shootings (the latter usually between/among criminals, but still.)

Don't let the fact that you see giant luxury condo buildings and restaurants/bars all around lull you into a false sense of security in DC. I'd say the crime risk is more akin to that in Mexico City (the nicer parts) than in NYC or Chicago or other big US cities where tourists go. Again, you're extremely unlikely to have a problem, but at least recognize that the risks are higher than you might expect them to be, and maintain the appropriate level of vigilance.

Agreed that Metro is worse and more dangerous than the NYC subway these days, and it's certainly more dangerous than NYC in terms of crime overall.

That said if you put up the crime stats side by side Chicago is definitely worse.

I don't think Mexico City is that bad - I've been there - but it's not an accurate comparison, you don't have to worry about taxi express kidnappings for example.

OP, don't worry: D.C. is fine. Better than fine--I know what the city was like 20 and 15 years ago, and its current state of my city represents a phenomenal improvement. It is nowhere near Mexico City.

Metro hours can be iffy on weekends, but it's a manageable risk: check the schedule and the next-train estimates on wmata.com on your phone and at least you won't be surprised. On weekdays, you can still wind up 5 minutes late, but you have a much better chance of showing up on-time if you take the train than if you hop into a car.

Another good option for getting around car-free: Capital Bikeshare. $7 gets you a day pass that's good for free rides of up to 30 minutes between stations.

And don't forget your own two feet. The District is a thoroughly walkable city... although walking faster than 3 mph on a humid afternoon in August isn't recommended.