Rice University
- Transportation

Public Transportation Is the Way to Go!

Rice pays for your metro tickets, which will bring you practically anywhere you need to be. Downtown Houston is compact, so everything is within walking or biking distance. I don't have a car, and I don't need one at all!

Everything but the Parking Is Great

The cheapest parking lots are ages away from the rest of campus, and they're still not that cheap. However, cars aren't really needed on such a small campus, and students get free access to the Houston Metro system, so you can get pretty much anywhere in the city easily. There's a shuttle system to the Hobby airport that's also free at Thanksgiving, so no trouble there.

No Public Transit

Rice runs buses around campus all day, but the campus is not particularly big, so it is often better just to walk. The run buses to the Village area on Friday/Saturday nights (again, usually not worth waiting for the bus), and to Target on Saturdays (necessary, but slow and inconvenient). There is a night escort service, which is fabulous.

The public transit system in Houston itself is really inadequate. They have the light rail, which Rice is right next to and Rice students can ride for free. However, it only runs a few places. You can go to the museum (which is basically walking distance from campus anyway) or to Reliant Stadium, but that is about it.