Though a bit behind schedule, it looks like New Buffalo's new Amtrak station is finally slated to open on Oct. 26. This makes another great Michigan beach town even more accessible to carfree Chicagoans.

A friend forwarded me this email newsletter message from Chicago Northside Toyota promoting one of the great advantages of transit. What does it mean when car dealerships start catering to the growing "car-lite" population?

Why Fight for Parking?

There's so much going on in our wonderful city right now - like the Taste of Chicago. But oh, the nightmare of the parking meters!

Why fight for parking when you visit the events, when you could drop your Prius off for service or repair at Chicago Northside Toyota - and take public transportation?

Chicago Northside Toyota is right on the Red Line's Bryn Mawr stop.
How much more convenient can you get?

I recently stumbled upon Estately.com through the Walk Score blog, and I was really excited by how they use both Walk Score and transit in their real estate search. Estately.com Founder and CEO Galen Ward dropped me an email explaining what the site can do to help with a carfree home search, and I have to applaud him for promoting this lifestyle through his site and making life a little easier for the pedestrians, bikers and transit-riders of Chicago with such an easy-to-use and powerful search tool. Last week I profiled Jill Press, a realtor who understands carfree living. This week I'm sharing Estately.com as another tool in the carfree real estate arsenal and further evidence of the mainstreaming of carfree living.

If you've ever wished there were an easier way to figure out which areas of the city are friendliest to those on foot, then you'll be excited about Walk Score's new walkability maps and neighborhood rankings. Walk Score today published rankings for the most walkable cities (Chicago is ranked fourth), as well as the most walkable neighborhoods in each city -- in Chicago: the Loop, Near North Side, Lincoln Park, Lakeview and Uptown. They also have wonderful color-coded walkability maps for each city illustrating which areas are most walkable.