<p>anywhere near campus?</p>
<p>also, i won't have a car to drive around, so which method of transportation would you recommend, and how far are these places??</p>
<p>Almost no one has a car at CMU. Fret not. You will take the bus with your fellow students.</p>
<p>Taking any bus east which title has a B in it (like 62B, 54B) will get you to Giant Eagle and Rite Aid. You can also take the 500, which leaves from Morewood (the stop behind Mudge house) to get to Trader Joe’s, Walgreens, and Whole Foods.</p>
<p>w00t GEAGLE!</p>
<p>Wait is that really true that barely anyone has a car? If I were to go there, my parents would probably make me get a car (or give me their’s).</p>
<p>^^There isn’t much parking in Oakland.</p>
<p>There are two Rite-Aids down Forbes by Pitt and there is a small grocery store down that way as well.</p>
<p>You’d probably be doing more walking to/from your car than you actually would if you had just walked places if you own a car as a freshman. CMU is very adamant that as a freshman you are NOT supposed to have a car, and they will bar you from getting a parking space in any way possible. </p>
<p>If you befriend someone living on Beeler or something, then you might be able to have them lend you some curb space for parking, but that’s more of a second semester thing. It’s really hard to own a car as a first semester freshman and I definitely don’t advise it, as taking the bus is kind of a communal activity. (Everyone collectively hated on the 59U when it ran this year. It was cool.)</p>
<p>You definitely don’t need a car freshman year. You’re going to be on a meal plan, so you’ll only need to do minimal food shopping. If you need to hit up a Target or something similar you can take a bus down to the Waterfront, but I usually found ordering online to be much easier and to take less time unless I really needed something that afternoon.</p>
<p>Once you move off campus or to the Oakland Apartments owned by CMU you’ll be able to get a street parking permit, but even then you might not need a car. I found it much easier to either walk (most of my apartments) or take the bus (when I was up in Squirrel Hill) than to drive in. Also, getting an on-campus parking permit is pretty difficult as an undergrad.</p>