# Living in a Porto or Lisbon suburb without a car



## dancebert (Jun 4, 2015)

I planning on arriving in Portugal next year with a residence visa. I won't have a drivers license. Probably won't acquire a license and vehicle until I have a Residence Permit. Obviously that means living in an area where a combination of metro, bus, Uber (or similar), walking, and bicycle will be sufficient for typical daily needs. Ideally, the necessary walks would be no more than 1.5 km one way.

I'll coming to Portugal in a few weeks for a combination travel and suburb scouting trip. Now, I've some questions from never having been in a suburb of Porto or Lisbon.

How common are such areas with a non-trivial amount of mid-market priced apartments? I'm not interested in a single family / detached home. This question has nothing to do about the process or ease of renting apartments.

Where are such areas? The more specific, the better. For example, I've seen recommendations such as 'Matosinos'. That's a start. Better would be to say which of the 5 metro stations (or any other landmark that shows on google maps) best fits my requirements. Such specificity would be most useful and show your familiarity with an area.

How sane or foolish is riding a bicycle on quiet residential streets in a Porto or Lisbon suburb? I've lived in places in the US where you couldn't pay me to ride outside of residential areas. Bicycle safety in Europe is directly related to the proportion of the population who uses them. Portugal is almost at the bottom. They're also almost at the top for moped and motorcycle accidents.


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## dancebert (Jun 4, 2015)

I discovered the metro blue line in Porto runs at street level from Senhora da Hora west to the end of the line. That's useful for getting a first impression. What, if any, sections of the other Porto metro lines run at street level?


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