<p>Is it a good idea to bring a car to Berkeley?</p>
<p>I mean are there parking structures I can leave my car in after paying for a year-long parking permit? Is the security good enough on campus to keep my car from being vandalized?</p>
<p>The only reason I'll be needing a car is because I'll be needing to go outside of the bay area every once in a while.</p>
<p>Additionally, is a car of use on/around campus itself?</p>
<p>Thanks for your help.</p>
<p>I brought my car up ONLY because I had free parking under my apartment building. Unless you have the same, it will be really difficult. On campus parking permits are hundreds of dollars. Street parking is costly everywhere, plus they are parking ticket happy here. They will pick out every car with anything they can ticket for. Finally, if you want to get a city parking permit, you have to register your car in Berkeley, which because of the higher crime rates, will make your insurance go up. Plus the registration costs about 200 bucks.</p>
<p>hey what are the cost for apartments? i looked and most of them are 1.5k. i am looking for a cheap apartment to go to Berkeley City College</p>
<p>Berkeley’s drivers are miserable creatures. I cannot blame them. Our pedestrians and bikers are some of the rudest people to grace the streets. </p>
<p>Bikers do whatever the hell they want, right in the middle of the street. They’ll run a red light if they “have” to; it doesn’t matter to them. I once saw a biker ride straight through a crosswalk, while a group of pedestrians (who had the right of way) were crossing. He zipped straight through them, scaring the hell out of everyone. I’ve seen them hop from the street to the sidewalk, and from the sidewalk back onto the street, scaring the hell out of drivers. </p>
<p>Then there are the pedestrians, who refuse to wait 20 seconds for the picture of the crossing man to appear. No, these pedestrians will cross whenever they think it’s safe to go. Of course, this leads to incredibly dangerous situations. In one instance, a pedestrian looked to his left for oncoming traffic, and seeing none, he began to cross … but he failed to account for cars coming up behind him and turning right. A car did just that – snuck up behind him, turned right, and almost rammed into the pedestrian, who kept walking as if he had the right of way. The driver was dumbfounded by the pedestrian’s complete apathy at having almost been killed. I see that kind of thing every day here. </p>
<p>So, no. If you can help it, don’t bring your car. Parking fees aside, you’ll age 20 years from the road rage alone.</p>
<p>Have you tried walking around the city? Half of cars don’t even bother to yield to pedestrian right of way, and seem to be completely ignorant of the laws pertaining to crosswalks.</p>
<p>Of my friends who have cars, they’re constantly frustrated by parking tickets, expenses, etc. It’s just a hunk of metal that’s useless 95% of the time.</p>
<p>If you need to get a little out of Berkeley, it’s very bicycle-friendly.</p>
<p>If you really need a car, ZipCar is great. Yeah, $10/hr sounds expensive, but if you don’t need a car more than once per week, it’ll be cheaper in the long run.</p>
<p>Renting a place isn’t really that expensive if you have people to split with. A nice place runs from 1.5-2k (like you said), but they have more than one bedroom. There are some superrr cheap places around $6-700(check by dwight, dana, hearst, or farther down…around 5 blocks from UC campus is where they get better).</p>
<p>Yes, it’s a great idea (if you have a girl friend). you’ll get used to driving and parking in Berkeley.</p>