<p>a car would be nice, but not necessary really. it becomes necessary if you live off-campus. but that's a different scenario really. Rice has all the stuff you need to go places... ppl above have mentioned the options.</p>
<p>my experience is, if one out of every 4-5 ppl has a car, then you've got 100% coverage right there.</p>
<p>How much does it cost to have a car at Rice? How are gas prices around Houston?</p>
<p>Well, the price of regular gas at the station near my house is $2.87 (and I live about 10 minutes from Rice). You can check out prices at <a href="http://www.houstongasprices.com%5B/url%5D">www.houstongasprices.com</a>.</p>
<p>As for parking, I know that the big parking lot west of the football stadium is free for visitors -- I wonder if someone knows whether a student could keep their car there during the school year for free?</p>
<p>yes you can. some do just that.</p>
<p>I know Houston and Rice pretty well. You should definitely bring your car with you, but not right away. i would recommend leaving it in CA until at least your second semester or your second year. If you plan on leaving it in Houston over the summer, the drive from CA to Houston is very nice around Spring Break, it would make a nice vacation if you can rope in a friend or two (Joshua Park, Vegas, New Mexico, Big Bend etc)</p>
<p>Parking is very easy at Rice, it's a pretty big campus for such a small student body, and traffic in Houston is really easy compared to SF (except at rush hour for commuters, when it's actually worse than SF because there are no public transit systems.) Houston is built for cars, but with less than half as many people as LA.</p>
<p>Just finished freshman year, drove my car there and back, and I live in WA state. It was completely worth it. It's very nice knowing you can get around in Houston (public transport isn't grand), and no matter how lovely Rice's campus is, it's just nice to get out of it at times. Available parking depends on what college you get into, they have various amounts of parking (At Lovett, basically only seniors get the college lot spots, rest of us park a little bit away, but the campus shuttle will get you there quick). I'd have to disagree with CalX, if you want to bring a car, bring it now. It's very liberating, as others have said earlier. Also, the parking fees are charged per year, not per semester, so if you bring it 2nd semester, you still have to pay for a full year. And i think they stopped the free parking on the other side of stadium, sadly.</p>
<p>Also see Freshman</a> and cars? on the 2010 Forum.</p>