I am a first-year student at UCR this fall. UCR is a great school, but I am not in love with the location. I was wondering how far it really is from Orange or LA county. I know first-year students are not allowed cars, which sounds like hell. I wanted to know if there’re things to do out in Riverside and if the commute out to LA or Orange county is a downside to attending the school.
LA is around 2 hours and OC is around 1 hour.
FWIW my wife commuted from OC (Irvine) when she went to school there. Nowadays with the toll roads it’s only about a 40 minute drive from say Irvine to UCR without traffic, though it’s closer to an hour if you commute in the mornings. It’s about 1.5 to 2 hours from downtown LA to UCR. Note that there is a train that goes from downtown Riverside to Union Station in downtown LA that takes about 90 minutes.
The no car option is really weighing on my student. We decided to drive the area while he was in the Math placement test a couple weeks ago just to see what there is for him to do on his “down time” without the need of a car. There are 2 malls close by … one in each direction- the Tyler Mall (decent) and the Moreno Valley Mall (didn’t visit). There is a Regency movie theatre at University Village (1st bus stop out of UCR - if you pick up the bus near the residence halls). There are also quite a few restaurants in that center - several were under construction and were due to open within a few months. We hear there are concerts on campus that are great. There was also a pocket of shops (i think called Canyon Crest) that was also a very short bus ride. We zipped through pretty quickly, but there were several restaurants, banks and a grocery store there. I’m curious to see what others post as well so I can share with him.