On the Road

Austin drives to top of list of most car-dependent cities in Texas

Austin is the No. 2 most car-dependent big city in Texas.

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You might be able to tell by our frequent traffic, but Austin is one of the most car-dependent large Texas cities. While Fort Worth claims the top spot, the Capital City is tailgating on that ranking.

In another lane are Dallas, San Antonio, and Houston, which boast a surprising number of car-free citizens.

A CultureMap review of estimates for 2011-15 from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey shows only 6.6 percent of households in Austin didn't have vehicles during that period. Here are the 2011-15 figures for all five major cities in Texas:

10.1 percent of households in Dallas didn't have vehicles
9 percent of households in San Antonio didn't have vehicles
9.3 percent of households in Houston didn't have vehicles
6.6 percent of households in Austin didn't have vehicles
6.5 percent of households in Fort Worth didn't have vehicles

One explanation for Dallas’ standing as the top car-free big city in Texas is its AllTransit score from the Center for Neighborhood Technology. The score measures a city’s public transit connectivity, access, and frequency.

Dallas has the highest AllTransit score — 6.8 — among the state's five major cities. Next is Houston, with a score of 6.2, followed by San Antonio at 5.7, Austin at 5.5, and Fort Worth at 3.1.

Interestingly, Austin is the only Texas city that appears on the Money Crashers personal finance blog's ranking of the 10 best U.S. cities to live without a car. In naming Austin to the list, the blog cited Austin's bike-friendly culture, bus system, commuter rail system, and presence of pedicabs.

Going even further, the U.S. PIRG Education Fund and the Frontier Group think tank in 2015 declared Austin was the No. 1 city for leading "full and engaged lives without owning a car." The groups took into account the availability of car-sharing, rail-hailing, bike-sharing, and other tech-oriented transportation services.

"Expanding the availability of shared-use transportation modes and other technology-enabled tools can give more Americans the freedom to live 'car-free' or 'car-light' lifestyles — avoiding the cost of owning, insuring, maintaining, and garaging a private vehicle," the groups wrote in a report.

"Even when these services provide access to a car, they still make it easier for Americans to reduce their auto dependence by enabling easy access to a vehicle without the constant use associated with ownership."

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Top of the class

UT Austin ranks among best U.S. schools for entrepreneurship in 2025

UT Austin, University of Texas at Austin, top Texas schools, best public universities, best colleges

Photo by Alexander Williams on Unsplash

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The University of Texas at Austin has earned two top-10 spots on The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur’s lists of the best graduate and undergraduate schools for entrepreneurship studies for 2025.

UT Austin's McCombs School of Business ranks seventh in the graduate category, and UT ranks second in the undergraduate category.

The school is no stranger to the prestigious national lists. In the 2024 rankings, UT also appeared as No. 2 among undergraduate programs, and No. 6 in the ranking for the best graduate programs.

This year marks the fourth time that the school has landed in the top 5 on the undergraduate side, and the 12th time in 15 years that McCombs has made the top 10 among graduate programs in the annual ranking, UT notes in a news release.

The only other schools in Texas to make either top-10 list for 2025 were Rice University (No. 1 graduate school) and the University of Houston (No. 1 undergraduate program).

Rankings for The Princeton Review and Entrepreneur’s 2025 lists were based on a survey of administrators at nearly 300 schools in the U.S., Canada, and Europe that offer entrepreneurship studies. Among the more than 40 factors used for the rankings were academic programs, faculty credentials, mentorship opportunities, and alumni entrepreneurship ventures.

"If the focus of the MBA program at McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin were to be summed up in one word, it would be 'collaboration,'" reads the 2025 graduate schools report. "Students in more than 20 concentrations uniformly crow over its 'incredibly collaborative culture,' citing the 'supportive culture' as a top reason they ultimately picked the program. As a 'top 20 school,' the 'rigorous academic[s]' and 'focus on clean energy,' 'technology,' and 'entrepreneurship,' are other stand-out elements of the program."

The top 10 schools on the list of 50 best graduate schools for entrepreneurship studies in 2025 are:

1. Rice University
2. University of California-Los Angeles
3. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
4. Washington University in St. Louis
5. Babson College
6. University of Washington
7. University of Texas at Austin
8. University of Virginia
9. Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands
10. University of South Florida

The top 10 schools on the list of 50 best undergraduate schools for entrepreneurship studies in 2025 are:

1. University of Houston
2. University of Texas at Austin
3. Babson College
4. University of Washington
5. Washington University in St. Louis
6. University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
7. University of Maryland-College Park
8. Miami University of Ohio
9. Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico
10. Northeastern University

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The story originally was published on our sister site, InnovationMap.

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