<p>Can any present/past students shed some light on whether or not it would be useful to have a car at UT?</p>
<p>I plan on exploring the area some.. Is everything basically within biking/walking distance?</p>
<p>Just from what I learned at an open house was that the parking fee is really high for a car. Plus if you have been in austin you know other parking is limited. Be sure to check into that. If I remember correctly it was something like $500 for parking pass.</p>
<p>$500 for a parking pass? Jesus Christ, that’s a real rip off right there. I cannot afford on campus housing so I plan to live off campus, which mean I would need a car and my parent bought me a car already. But like you say if it’s really $500 for a parking pass I may as well leave it at home and take the bus. Not sure how the metro at Austin work but here in Houston it take almost 2 hours for me to ride the bus to the nearest community college that only 20 minutes driving.</p>
<p>UT has a reliable shuttle bus service, so if you get an apartment on a shuttle route, you’ve got a free ride to campus and back every day. Some of the shuttle routes cover areas with heavy student populations. The one I’m most familiar with is Far West, which is nice because in addition to a lot of student apartments, there is a shopping center with a CVS and a grocery story at Far West and Wood Hollow and a lot of other commerce nearby (fast food, pizza, etc).</p>
<p>Parking on campus is not only overpriced, it’s also underspaced and overpoliced. They sell more parking permits than they have spaces, so if you’re not there early you end up parking somewhere east of the interstate – some of the student parking is so far from campus they have shuttle routes to bring you from your car to the campus.</p>
<p>You can find shuttle bus information here: <a href=“Shuttles | Parking & Transportation | The University of Texas at Austin”>Shuttles | Parking & Transportation | The University of Texas at Austin;
<p>You really want to live on or near a shuttle route. Some students live near a shuttle route and drive there then ride the bus in, but don’t bring their car to campus. Austin’s Capital Metro bus service is horrible.</p>