Getting Around Troy and Cohoes Without a Rental Car

Troy on foot: where the grid does the work for you

Downtown Troy is one of the few upstate cores where skipping a car costs you almost nothing. From the Riverfront parking area near Monument Square, River Street runs north past the Atrium and Brown's Brewing, then climbs into the blocks between Second and Fourth streets where most of the restaurants sit. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is a 15-minute uphill walk east along Broadway, and Washington Park, the Russell Sage campus and the approach to Prospect Park all fall inside a comfortable 25-minute radius. If your hotel is anywhere between Federal Street and Hoosick Street, you can leave the car keys in the room.

The one gap is the train station. Albany-Rensselaer, across the river in Rensselaer, is the Amtrak stop for the whole capital region, and it is roughly 2.5 miles from downtown Troy — too far to drag luggage comfortably, close enough that a taxi or rideshare is short and cheap rather than a splurge. Check whether your hotel runs a shuttle before you book; several along the waterfront do, and that single detail can decide your choice. For everything else in Troy, walking beats parking, especially on Saturdays when the farmers market around Monument Square fills the streets.

Buses that actually connect Troy, Cohoes and Albany

Capital District Transportation Authority buses cover this corridor better than visitors expect. The Route 22 runs along Broadway and up through North Troy toward Cohoes, and the Route 1 and Route 182 connect downtown Troy with Albany across the river. Fares are modest and day passes exist, but the practical constraint is frequency: on weekends headways stretch, and a trip that takes 20 minutes on a Tuesday can eat 45 on a Sunday. Plan your day around the timetable rather than the reverse, and download the CDTA app before you arrive — real-time tracking saves a lot of standing at stops on River Street.

Cohoes is the awkward piece. The city sits about 8 miles north of Albany and 5 from Troy, strung along Remsen Street and the Mohawk River, with the Cohoes Falls overlook at School Street as its main draw. Buses get you there, but the walk from the nearest stops to the falls involves a climb and a stretch without sidewalks. My recommendation: give Cohoes a half-day by bus in good weather, ideally May through early October when the falls run strong, and save it for a weekday when service is denser.

When a car for one day beats a rental for the week

The honest arithmetic favours a hybrid approach. Base yourself in Albany or downtown Troy without a rental, use buses and your feet for the city days, then hire a car for a single day if you want Cohoes Falls plus Peebles Island State Park and the Saratoga battlefield in one loop. A one-day rental picked up in downtown Albany or at the airport costs a fraction of a week-long booking, and you avoid paying nightly hotel parking, which in downtown Albany runs high enough to notice. Peak foliage in early-to-mid October is the one window where I would book that day car well ahead.

If you are arriving by train, the Albany-Rensselaer station is the natural anchor — it puts you one stop from Troy by taxi and a short ride from downtown Albany hotels. Staying near the river rather than out by the malls keeps bus options open and makes evening walks possible. For most travellers reading this, my pick is a downtown Troy hotel for two or three nights, a day car for Cohoes, and no rental beyond that.

What to skip, and where to sleep

Skip trying to reach Cohoes Falls on a Sunday afternoon by bus — the connections thin out and you will spend more time waiting than looking. Skip the Crossgates and Colonie big-box corridor entirely if you have no car; it is built for drivers and the bus rides are long. Also skip the assumption that everything in Troy is walkable: Hoosick Street retail and the Oakwood Avenue area are genuinely car-oriented, and there is no shame in a five-minute rideshare to reach them.

For hotels, the strongest bases are downtown Troy near Monument Square and River Street, and the Albany core around State Street and the Empire State Plaza, both of which sit on frequent bus lines. Book the Troy side if you want walkable dinners; book Albany if museums and the train matter more. And if you are coming from the New York City area — which is where most of our current search traffic originates — the train plus a car-free plan here is genuinely simpler than driving up and hunting for parking.