<p>I don't know if I'm a bit misguided, but I feel like that Caltech is in a very safe location. How far away does one need to travel to find trouble? Is going to Mt. Wilson on foot/bike/skates a safe adventure? How often do students go hiking/biking in the area and more specifically, go to Mt. Wilson?</p>
<p>Is it feasible to travel to Oxy by foot/bike/skates? Safe?</p>
<p>Thanks.</p>
<p>I’ve got friends that run all the way out to the Santa Monica pier. That said, it’s not always the smartest thing to do.</p>
<p>Pasadena is a relatively safe city in the greater LA area, though it does have a few troubled spots. Going to Mt Wilson and Occidental are both pretty big trips to do on foot, and the hilly terrain can make them difficult on a bike. There’s halfway decent pubic transit via busses in Pasadena, so that might be the preferred way for a student to get around the area. Another option is renting a zip car, which is are rental cars that are parked on campus where you pay hourly for access to the car (insurance and gas are included). It’s not terribly expensive if you get a few friends to go along with you and chip in.</p>
<p>^ LOL, S would need to know how to drive :-)</p>
<p>How far is the pier? </p>
<p>Thanks for the feedback.</p>
<p>[California</a> Institute of Technology to Santa Monica Pier Carousel - Google Maps](<a href=“http://g.co/maps/9uxxq]California”>http://g.co/maps/9uxxq)</p>
<p>These are friends that are into running marathons. ;)</p>
<p>Caltech’s area is pretty safe, and it’s certainly better than what you’d be facing at a school like USC. The biggest problem on campus is typically theft. It’s not hard for people from outside the Caltech community to come on campus, as it’s only about two blocks by four blocks large. There’s actually a lot of non-tech people that come here with their dogs/kids because it’s a nice area to walk in.</p>
<p>[ quote ] Pasadena is a relatively safe city in the greater LA area, though it does have a few troubled spots. Going to Mt Wilson and Occidental are both pretty big trips to do on foot, and the hilly terrain can make them difficult on a bike. There’s halfway decent pubic transit via busses in Pasadena, so that might be the preferred way for a student to get around the area. Another option is renting a zip car, which is are rental cars that are parked on campus where you pay hourly for access to the car (insurance and gas are included). It’s not terribly expensive if you get a few friends to go along with you and chip in. [ / quote ]</p>
<p>How frequent are the buses in Pasadena?</p>
<p>PS: I was trying to get a box around the quoteed message. But why it didn’t work?</p>
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<p>Take out all the spaces in your
[quote]
commands.</p>
<p>Try this link for a variety of buses/etc. There’s no bus to Mt. Wilson though!</p>
<p>[City</a> of Pasadena](<a href=“http://www.ci.pasadena.ca.us/Transportation/Public_Transit/]City”>http://www.ci.pasadena.ca.us/Transportation/Public_Transit/)</p>
<p>The public transit is alright. If they want to get to downtown LA they might be better off walking about a mile to the nearest Gold Line station and taking light rail to downtown. Chinatown is actually one stop right before Union Station, and I think Little Tokyo is a few stops after. Makes it easy to get a little bit of variety when eating out on weekends. I wouldn’t say the public transit is nearly as useful as when I was an undergrad in Pittsburgh, but that’s a very different style of city.</p>
<p>Most undergrads either live on campus or a very short commute away from campus for all four years (the house culture is pretty strong), so the real need for public transit is diminished compared to other schools.</p>
<p>^ are meals available on campus on the weekends? what about during breaks? that wasn’t a question i had thought of before until you mentioned eating out on the weekends… this might explain the school’s extra budget for additional meals.</p>
<p>I believe the undergrad houses have their own food available during weekends, though I can’t say for sure. All I know is the “General campus” dining areas (Chandler and Broad Cafe) are both closed on weekends and at nights, mostly to the frustration of the grad student population.</p>
<p>The undergrad houses do not have food available on weekends. The only place open on campus is the convenience store, which has snacks and frozen dinners but not much else. People walk to Lake Ave (about 8 minutes away) to get food (there are a large number of casual/take-out restaurants there), or drive to restaurants, or cook in the houses (each house has several kitchens for students to use).</p>