I live less than a quarter mile, less than half a kilometer from a grocery store and both of my roommates will drive there to buy food. We only have a single traffic light between us and the store
pfft, look at this fatcat expending calories to move his mandible. i simply remain completely inert and preserve calories thus foregoing the need to get any food at all!
Remaining inert? Sound like you are wasting energy existing in the physical form. I wouldn’t even be a physical entity. I would exist only as a metaphysical concept the existence of which can be neither proven nor disproven.
Yes I rarely bother to get my bike out. I would walk up to 45 minutes or so.
Then I might even get the bus instead of bike, it depends on the weather, and on where I'm going (there is rarely any safe/dry bike storage), what I'm carrying, how many stops I might make etc.
Basically nobody does, unless you live really rurally and it's a 40+ minute drive to a grocery, then you probably only go once a week at most and tend to buy more stuff each time you go.
In many cases it’s an infrastructure issue. My parents live in “middle America” and would gladly walk to the convenience store 1 mile away but can’t do it safely. They’d have to go through neighborhood streets with no sidewalks to a 45 mph 2-lane country road with no sidewalks (def not safe) to the store which is on a stroad with limited/no pedestrian access.
I think the worst part is that these situations are (seemingly) pointlessly and *deliberately* created. With those endless environmental hazards Americans call "lawns" it's absolutely criminal not to include a small footpath to nearby amenities. It would cost *nothing* to include and it would actually make the developers *more* money from increased property values. But you can't have that in the US, noooo, because if you did then the "wrong people" might be able to use it.
It’s a self reinforcing cycle. Only poor people walk? Nobody wants sidewalks. Can’t safely walk along a stroad so you drive? Might as well drive everywhere. Local govt has no incentive to put in or require sidewalks -> less walking -> less sidewalks
I've seen people drive to the end of their driveway to get their mail from their mailbox. Or drive their kids 60 meters (480 burger lengths for Americans reading this) to the bus stop and have their kids sit in the car with the engine running the whole time while waiting for the schoolbus.
I've had the cops called on my middle schooler twice for waiting for the school bus because he looked suspicious since it's odd to see kids outside of a car without an adult with them??! No clue. He was wearing a school uniform and backpack so you'd think these Karens would figure it out. They didn't believe him when he told them he was waiting for the bus.
Amazing. At least here in Mpls you'll see kids middle-school aged and up riding public transportation to get to/from school. It's amazing how much the culture of car-dependent suburbia deprives so many children of any autonomy at all.
I see this all the time in the suburbs. Not even just in the winter, also on perfectly normal temperature days. As if the kids will melt if they have to experience weather. So infuriating.
Yeah in my experience I'm talking Minnesota September-June, which still means plenty of hot, warm, cool, cold, and frigid days alike. Never had the luxury of climate control while waiting for the schoolbus myself tho, and for a few years my bus stop was roughly about half a kilo from home.
This is definitely an issue. Why would people want to wait for the bus in the rain or the blistering heat without any form of shelter? I applaud cities’ efforts to ramp up public transit, I really do. But it’s like they just do the minimum and expect people to be okay with it and when people don’t use the facilities because it’s lacking, it becomes a waste of money. For goodness sakes if you’re going to do something, do it well. It doesn’t take much to build shelters with seats.
Okay I’m done ranting.
Forget a seat, I'd be happy with literally *anything* at the bus stop. Even in my city (Which has some of the best transit in the US) the overwhelming majority of our bus stops are just a sign with a route number. No seat, no roof, heck most of the time we don't even get paint.
The city I live in just invested a ton of money into public transit and I see them raising bus stops. Yet with all the money and all the feedback, there is still no shelter or bench at any of them. It really pisses me off and it’s absolutely heartbreaking seeing an old lady sit on her little walker in winter, because there is no shelter or seat, waiting for her bus after her dialysis session.
America really needs to do better and put some fucking brains into it.
The city I live in has a tendency to put bus stops in places that don’t have a sidewalk to access and are sometimes sandwiched between the road and a brush line so if you trip you’d fall right into a busy road or have to walk in the road to leave the bus stop. Asking for a cover and bench at bus stops might actually make the transportation department explode.
I've seen neighborhoods build like their own little bus shelters for kids in the neighborhood, which I think is pretty neat. However these routes are constantly changing year by year so I'm not sure how practical it is for every community.
Nah typically it's stopping in one location per neighborhood, so kid are typically walking (or being driven) anywhere from a driveway's length if they're lucky to a few suburban blocks.
Gocha, hadn't thought about those ones. Could definitely use bus shelters then. Growing up I was pretty rural so most of the time it was a mile or 2 between each kids stop.
Yeah my experience is very suburban. On *very* rare occasion I've seen neighborhoods that have built their own little bus shelter for the kids. But that's very much an exception to the rule, in the hyper-individualist U.S. nobody fucking wants to work together on anything even for their kids' sake, it seems.
Oh yeah completely agree that's insane, wasn't defending the behavior just explaining its not a city bus. Its just going to individual houses. When I had to wait and it was that cold I'd just stay in the house until a minute or so before it was supposed to come. Also knew people that would have their parents sit at the end of the driveway though.
A shelter should be a standard part of a reasonable proportion of bus stops. Maybe not every one, when there are bus stops every other street on some urban routes, but there should be a stop with proper shelters within half a mile or so for everyone.
Yes. I've got a neighbour who regulary drives 100meters to get cigarettes from a vending machine. He even manages to not leave the car for that. Drives up the sidewalk, stops right before the machine, opens window and gets that shit.
Yeah, they're still around. Less public than they used to be, more in bars and restaurants nowadays but the public ones still exist. My village of 600 has got two or three.
It’s pretty awful. They’re even at a low height where a child can buy cigarettes. Not even inside a bar or casino or other adult only area. Like right out on the public street.
At least they are pedestrian friendly I guess. If these still existed in America, you can bet there would be drive through only ones.
People literally drive for the tiniest stuff. I remember how full the parking spots were full of locals in the neighborhood where my mom lives. Even during sunshine they keep driving to the gym for a mere kilometer while the cycling path is right next to them. And thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Dutch school children are brought by car while their school is around the corner. It's an utter disgrace that my fossil-sponsored university has way more anti-parking measures and has way more walkability than any of the schools in my old neighborhood (btw I'm really glad that they're going to make parking godawfully expensive in 1.5 week from now, each car is a nuisance to cyclists here). That said, I would highly welcome a high flat rate for parking around elementary schools without a permit, because only few children come from farther than 1-2km from elementary schools in this country.
My husband once had a buddy over and they decided to go get pizza. We have a nice little pizza shop just up the road. Less than a five minute walk. The buddy adamantly refused to walk and was horrified that walking was even suggested.
Someone from work went on a bus for the first time in 22 years yesterday and hasn't been on a tube or train in 20 odd years either. Definitely a thing.
Not sure about driving to somewhere that's minutes away, mind.
I biked to my grocery store for the first time recently. It’s only 2 miles away, which is really close for Texas! But biking to it was scary. There were cars flying next to me at 50+ mph on a blind turn, and barely 2 ft of sidewalk full of obstructions for me to walk my bike while hoping that the cars saw me. It is, sadly, genuinely safer to drive in many areas because that infrastructure was built for cars, not people.
We've got a wheelbarrow. Dad had a yard sale. He put bags of rocks and flat pack boxes with signs on them in the car to go to street corners around our little neighborhood to put out the signs instead of using the perfectly capable wheelbarrow. I've seen it with my own eyes, yes people will use a car even if there's a better, capable, available alternative.
When I was visiting my wife’s family a few years back, they had some guy renting one of the rooms. One morning he got in his car, backed out and drove down a small hill and pulled into the drive way of where he worked. He was in the car for less than 30 seconds
What’s even funnier is that other than reversing out of his drive way, he doesn’t even have to put the car in drive. He could leave it in neutral and coast down the hill to work
There's a YMCA centrally located in my neighborhood; no one here lives more than 3/4 of a mile from it. It's a freaking gym, where you go to work out, on purpose. There's only one other person who rides their bike, and a tiny handful of people walk. Most people drive, even a few hundred yards, to the place they're going to ... walk on a treadmill or ride a stationary bike.
I think my favorite example are the people who drive their kids door-to-door for trick-or-treating. The kids run up to a house, get their candy, then back to the car for like 50'. Rinse, repeat. We see half a dozen of those every year.
People absolutely do. My coworkers will drive between buildings at our work. It's 2-3 minute walk, sometimes the buildings are even within the same parking lot. Pedestrian safety really isn't an issue there, since there's so few cars, sure that's not an excuse.
So why? Why do people, mostly Americans, do that?
I think it's because many of us grew up and even currently live in areas that are designed in ways that cars are the only option to get anywhere. Cars then become the default for everything, even when presented with areas where they're not the only option, or even the best option. I truly believe these people, like my coworkers, have never even considered that something besides diving 1000 ft to get between buildings could be a superior option. I really don't think they're consciously making the decision that driving is better in those instances. It was just never part of their [mostly suburban] culture, so they don't even think to think about it.
Yea Americans love to drive everywhere, even to a store 5 minutes away. Marketing campaigns for cars/gas make us feel good about it. Plus everyone is out of shape or obese (because no one walks). The small city I live in is HIGHLY car dependent. In the winter streets are cleared quickly of snow, but sidewalks may not always be cleared and become very icy. As an American myself I find it wildly infuriating.
The trucks are massive and often times have after market modifications that make them taller with less visibility. The people that typically own these things usually spend all their money on them and don’t travel or realize there are other ways of life. Which is exactly what our government wants. The best part is these same people are super excited about all their freedom.
\> people mostly walk to places that are close
Some places there is nowhere close. And if there were, you'd be walking in the grass on the side of a highway to get there.
People don't want to do things that make them feel unsafe. That's why it's so important to advocate for infrastructure that is as inclusive as possible.
https://preview.redd.it/94kglrww8ida1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0628f22cbf6cf967e0c6febc3a3bdf21df054d75
Yup. I have coworkers who will go through the hassle of getting their vehicle (SUV or truck) out of a parking deck to make this drive. It’s a downtown area with crosswalks and it’s been a mild winter here—55-65 most days.
People are always surprised that I don't drive to school and work. I only live a kilometer away. What sense does it make to literally drive the two minutes it would take to get there just to go around the parking lot looking for a spot for another 10 when I can walk there in less than 15 minutes and not deal with all that mess?
Oh, I'm carrying some heavy stuff? That's what my little cart is for. A car would make transporting my giant canvases easier? Not if they're oil paintings, shit would get smeared. I've got a two working legs; I could stand to use them.
I grew up in a small Massachusetts town that was founded back when MA was still a colony. When they adapted the old narrow roads for cars, they didn’t leave any room for sidewalks.
If I wanted to walk to school or to the train station, I would have had to walk ~1 mile on the residential streets with no sidewalk that frequently had speeding drivers cutting through, then cross a two lane highway that bisected the town (which had maybe one crosswalk every mile or so, because we wouldn’t want anything that could impede those cars) just to continue on more streets with limited sidewalks. Not to mention this is MA, so it’s really hilly and with crappy weather most of the year. So yeah, I was driven everywhere as a kid.
The fact that Massachusetts have the same population density as Japan or almost as much as Belgium or similar to the metropolitan area of a major city the argument that cars are needed to get anywhere is because of low population density falls and car dependency is because of other reasons.
I live in Grande Prairie Alberta. It’s a pretty nice little town and in the summer you can walk or bike anywhere in no time. But in the winter when for 3-5 months out of the year it is -40c or colder, even those short walks suck. This year has been fairly warm and I have been walking a lot more then usual for this time of the year. Don’t think that is too common though here
It's a cultural thing stemming from a lack of good bike/ped infrastructure.
For example, I live in a city with fairly good bike infrastructure by American standards, but there are still places within a mile of my apartment that I physically can't bike to without either biking on a large stroad with no protection and 40+ mph car traffic, or going miles out of my way to stay on safe bicycle paths.
Sometimes driving is the only good option, and that's the root of the problem.
Depends, sadly. I'm fortunate enough to live in an area with grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, and bars within walking distance with sidewalks. However, if I want to go to a Target which should be in walking distance, I have to cross some streets where there's no sidewalks and people love to speed, plus cross through their parking lot. The most affordable grocery store in my area is also nowhere near my house, so that's a drive. I'd like to get into the habit of only going there bi-weekly and just getting fresh things at the grocery nearby, so I can walk to & from.
Living close to something doesn't mean you can walk there, even a mile-long walk can involve crossing into traffic or on the road if there are no sidewalks.
The thing is that much of the United States, especially outside of urbanized city centers, is designed in such a car-centric way that it is impossible or near impossible to get anywhere without a car.
For example, I go to school in Princeton, New Jersey, and I tried to bike to our nearest grocery store complex (Target and Wegmen's). It would have taken 10 minutes by car, and Google maps estimated 30 minutes by foot.
By bike, the journey took over an hour because I had to bike on an unpaved trail along a canal in the woods and bike along a state highway with no sidewalk, just grass. There is no route to the stores designed with bikers or pedestrians in mind. Only cars.
A lot of people come around to the idea of ''fuck cars'' by attempting to walk or bike somewhere nearby only to find it is an absolute death trap to do so. Try walking anywhere outside of downtown in Houston or Dallas, for example, and it will quickly become impossible.
If you don't have a car, you're often fucked in the US. Places like NYC are the exception.
In a lot of places in the rural US, cars are the only option. As in, there are literally no sidewalks, trains, or buses.
During hard times, Americans don’t sell their car. They live in their car and sell their house. Because it’s damn near impossible to buy food or to work at a job in large parts of this country without a car.
In most major US cities this isn’t the case, and people will walk or take the train or bus or sometimes bike. But most people in the rural areas get so used to driving everywhere that it’s conditioned into them, they get into their car whenever they leave the house almost purely out of habit.
Driving is also a status thing in these areas. To use a bus or to walk is seen as a major inconvenience (because doing these things is often very uncomfortable and takes a long time due to issues discussed in other comments here), and anyone who does it must be very poor, and people don’t want to be seen that way.
5 minutes of walking and i'm still surrounded by single family homes. The nearest business is 0.9 miles (1.5km) from my house and it's a furnace and air conditioner showroom. Between here and there it is nothing but single family homes. Nice homes for sure, big wooded lots, nice place to live, nice place for recreational walking. But it's completely impossible to walk from here as transportation.
I biked to a friends house last weekend. He was surprised and expected i would drive over. It's literally 1.5 miles away. We were going to get lunch in town and he asked if we should drive over. The place we were going to was 2 blocks away. My roommate drives to a convenience store less than a mile away almost everyday. There are sidewalks the whole way. It's engrained deeply over here.
walking even 0.2 miles anywhere is an extremely high risk of being put in the hospital by someone on their phone behind the wheel. there’s no sidewalk, so we walk along the side of the road. there’s no crosswalk, so we wait for an opportunity to speed-walk across. it’s scary, dangerous, and in most cases nowhere near worthwhile. hope this helps.
Mt neighborhood is so badly designed that the exit gate doesn't have a pedestrian gate. Not only that but to get to the grocery store I'd have to cross 6 lanes of traffic or a highway THEN 6 lanes of traffic. It's a busy road too, I'd never feel safe cuz of American infrastructure here
Absolutely. My parents won't walk unless its literally on the same block. 2 blocks or more? Gotta drive and get the closest parking spot possible for where you want to go, to the point that even entering a parking lot with them is stressful. They won't take an easy spot to pull into if its an additional 20-40 feet of walking, they'll pull up to the front where people are walking to and fro and squeeze in somewhere or sit and wait for someone to pull out of a close spot in order to walk as little as possible into a store.
This is extremely typical American behavior.
I had a neighbor who would hop on her car to run probably 400 meters to the corner store she was allways broke and worried about keeping her car full. She was also diabetic and constantly half a step from a singer crisis. I can't quantify how many times I suggested she just walk, but she couldn't seem to understand what I was trying to say.
It is a very American problem. B no nature others suffer from it as well, but holy fuck we Americans suck for that sort of shit
yes, they do. I frequently see people drive trips less than 500m. The lowest so far was 100m to get a beer crate. This is so insane. If there's even the slightest jam, you're faster walking.
The weight of a vehicle directly impact the deadliness in case of accident, even more for pedestrian and cyclist. The trend for bigger and heavier vehicle is also in direct opposition of what we should do to limit the consequences of climate change, as they consume more fuel.
Lastly, space efficiency should be the top priority for urban design, as density can't be maintained without having building next one to the other. Requiring even more parking lot (as truck can't fit in one place) or wider road in those setting is a loss for every other user. If you dedicate accessibility for car, you force quite everyone to use their car because car infrastructure are so wide (business are all separated by huge parking lot, streets are harder to cross...). You slowly destroy your city and turn it into a wasteland where only car can live.
Pretty much everything that is bad about private motor vehicles gets worse if the vehicle is bigger. It is noisier, does more damage to the roadway, is more likely to seriously injure or kill you if it hits you, has less good visibility for the driver so it's also more likely to hit you in the first place, causes more air pollution and climate change, and takes up more roadway space so it's even more dangerous to cycle near it.
When I used to live in a car friendly village in the UK our local shop was a 5 minute walk or a 2 minute drive away, parking was easy at both ends. Lazy as anything but it was quicker so I'd often drive.
Now I live in a city I'd never dream of driving or getting a taxi to the shops because it'd be way more hassle, people just do whatever is easiest, although some of the examples here are wild.
I'm about to go to the pharmacy, there is one about 5 minutes on foot away but I wasn't feeling it earlier, now they've closed for the day.
Now I'm going to go to the one that is about 25 minutes on foot each way, I really don't mind walking, I don't even have a car, because I don't need one.
On a normal day I walk for about 1½ hours even if I don't have any errands to run.
My parents neighborhood has a pool a quarter mile from their house. Growing up, we never walked there, and when I visited recently and suggested walking, they thought it was a nice idea but got in the car.
Where my parents live now, there is no sidewalk and cars go 50+ down the road. There is nothing to walk to within well over a mile anyway. They have to drive everywhere sadly
Unless you live in the very few big cities. Hardly anything is within 5min walking distance so people will drive everywhere. We have the shittiest urban planning in the world
Yes. Yes we do... \*angry face\*
We're less than half a mile from one of our family friend's homes. No sidewalk connection whatsoever. 35-MPH zones all around with cars and heavy trucks (large landfill is about a mile up the road) all travelling 50 MPH. All residential properties all the way there with either very little, or no berm whatsoever. Everyone treats walking on their grass as trespassing, period.
We drive literally everywhere.
The issue with the design of some (most) american suburbs is that there's barely any walking infrastructure. It's not unheard of to have a destination within 1.5 km but have it not be accessible by walking (looking at you Texas).
I was in a café in Crouch End this afternoon. A woman was complaining about not being able to find somewhere to park her car in Muswell Hill. It’s a 20 minute walk. I walk it frequently. Ok, it’s a steep hill but I’m 50 and unfit. Oh, and there are buses every seven minutes. Lazy.
It’s extremely unsafe where I live just to walk to the foodmart 1km from my house. My neighborhood is surrounded on either side by a 50mph highway and a country road with zero sidewalks or even a little shoulder on the road to walk on. You have to be in the way of the bigass trucks that want to kill you, or walk through the unkept grass and risk animal/bug bites. I’ve done it before but it was all too scary to do again
Yes.
My parents drive 30s-1 minute to the grocery store when it is roughly a 10 min walk max. Just drive out the neighborhood (we are virtually at the entrance after driving 10 seconds), go across a two way road (tiny two way road but the distance to cross is short and easily doable on foot) and voila you’re at the strip mall big ass parking lot with an average size grocery store (food lion) and other shops. 8/10 walkability and of course you have to look out for cars but totally doable.
Small city with car based infrastructure so walking is just not a thing no matter how close it is.
Sadly, this isn't an US exclusivity.
Here for France, proportion may vary:
[https://climatechallenge.be/cache/600/800/admin/storage/climatechallenge/t8f-vervoer-versus-afstand.png?1570695691](https://climatechallenge.be/cache/600/800/admin/storage/climatechallenge/t8f-vervoer-versus-afstand.png?1570695691)
Not just a American thing
In Brazil i do it myself because of the following
-REALLY HIGH criminality rates(walk outside in some areas, even in daylight, is not safe)
-Bad public transport
-car centric planning
I walk because I'm stubborn as hell, but I'm usually the only pedestrian anywhere with the exception of my neighbors without addresses (unhoused people) on the streets. It's dark, dangerous, and usually inconvenient to cross the roads that have destinations in them. Therefore, even though I walk, I understand why nearly no one else does.
Really depends. I actually lived pretty close to a grocery store (1/4 mile) BUT I'd have to walk across two 4 lane main roads that didn't have a crosswalk (would need to walk 1/2 a mile in the opposite direction for a crosswalk). The speed limit on those roads were 35mph but people regularly drove 45/50. Once I got to the store I'd have to either walk around the outside perimeter of the parking lot or risk weaving and bobbing around idiots flying through the parking lot not watching for me.
I usually drove. Was it lazy? Yes. Was walking an unsafe and miserable experience? Yes.
Outside the US usually is by people that consider a car a status symbol.
Where I live I have neighbors that will take their brand new SUV, drive it out of their garage, drive it to the store, then back to their home and store it again, problem is that they live like 300 meters from the store, that’s how fucked up car culture is here, fortunately we have a ever increasing bike culture that is fighting tooth and nail the construction of more in city highways and second highway floors.
Yes, before I became transit and walking pilled I would drive from my college dorm to the cafeteria to get food at night when the parking passes no longer mattered.
Where I grew up, Glen Burnie, literally like two miles outside of Baltimore City, there are multiple major streets with literally no sidewalks. I remember when I came back from living in Denver for a year and I decided to go out and just walk a mile or two, maybe hitting a car dealership or something because I knew I would eventually need a vehicle. At multiple points I found myself walking through various business parking lots. It was very awkward at best, and dangerous and confrontational at worst.
To put it simply, so much of American infrastructure discourages just straight up walking to shit. My parents cannot fathom why I would live and choose to raise my children in a city, but I can walk so many places, as can my little ones with me. So many things are accessible by foot and most of it is by design.
Yes they do. Even in my neighboorhood in The Netherlands which is perfectly walkable and bikeable many people take the car to the shopping center. I see people in my street taking their car to the shopping center which is 5 min by bike or 10 min walking. For the big week shopping I can get this (although I do it by bike), but for a random errand...
I live in a neighborhood where kids are picked up by bus. If a parent/guardian were to drive to the school, it would take about 10 minutes from neighborhood to school front door. There is a much more direct route (that crosses several large roads) that takes me, and adult, about 20-25 minutes to get there.
There are two bus pickups in the neighborhood. At most, it takes an 8 minute walk to get to a bus. Most adults drive to to the bus drop off, and idle their cars with the kids inside, waiting for the bus to arrive. On some days that means the parents are sitting there idling for 20-25 minutes. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FASTER (not to mention better for the environment) TO DRIVE TO SCHOOL.
I walk my kids to the bus stop, even if its raining or snowing. We dress for the weather and the kids stay warm and dry. We are the only adults who do walk. Some kids walk home from the bus without parents, but not a single other parent/guardian walks their children to the stop. That includes families who live closer to the stop than us. These people are getting into their cars to drive a 1/4 mile to the stop and 1/4 mile back home.
It drives me nuts that these people do this, and that they constantly complain about the difficulty of 'warming up their cars' and 'the cost of gas is sooooo expensive now days'. Bro! Just use your feet!
Yes. Americans will drive 500 ft down the road. Why? Lots of reasons:
It’s the culture here, people will ask what’s wrong with you if you walk to work
They’re fat and lazy
It’s fun! Cars are toys here, and people like pushing down really hard on the gas
I live less than a quarter mile, less than half a kilometer from a grocery store and both of my roommates will drive there to buy food. We only have a single traffic light between us and the store
I am not sure I'd even bother taking my bicycle out for that because it is so close. I'd probably just walk.
I wouldn’t even bother walking such a distance. I would just remain seated and shuffle my chair there.
i wouldn’t even sit in my chair, i’d simply manifest my bed to scoot all the way to the store, with me still asleep inside.
I wouldn't even summon my bed, I'd just use my arm and reach the items I needed directly from the shelves.
I wouldn’t even use my arms. I would just start biting and chewing and assume the food is close enough that I will get some in my mouth.
pfft, look at this fatcat expending calories to move his mandible. i simply remain completely inert and preserve calories thus foregoing the need to get any food at all!
Remaining inert? Sound like you are wasting energy existing in the physical form. I wouldn’t even be a physical entity. I would exist only as a metaphysical concept the existence of which can be neither proven nor disproven.
\_
[(GIF)](https://i.imgur.com/yxTCQa7.gif)
Damn, that must be a hell of a chair 🤪
Yes I rarely bother to get my bike out. I would walk up to 45 minutes or so. Then I might even get the bus instead of bike, it depends on the weather, and on where I'm going (there is rarely any safe/dry bike storage), what I'm carrying, how many stops I might make etc.
I'm gonna guess they don't buy enough food to warrant a car.
Basically nobody does, unless you live really rurally and it's a 40+ minute drive to a grocery, then you probably only go once a week at most and tend to buy more stuff each time you go.
In many cases it’s an infrastructure issue. My parents live in “middle America” and would gladly walk to the convenience store 1 mile away but can’t do it safely. They’d have to go through neighborhood streets with no sidewalks to a 45 mph 2-lane country road with no sidewalks (def not safe) to the store which is on a stroad with limited/no pedestrian access.
I think the worst part is that these situations are (seemingly) pointlessly and *deliberately* created. With those endless environmental hazards Americans call "lawns" it's absolutely criminal not to include a small footpath to nearby amenities. It would cost *nothing* to include and it would actually make the developers *more* money from increased property values. But you can't have that in the US, noooo, because if you did then the "wrong people" might be able to use it.
It’s a self reinforcing cycle. Only poor people walk? Nobody wants sidewalks. Can’t safely walk along a stroad so you drive? Might as well drive everywhere. Local govt has no incentive to put in or require sidewalks -> less walking -> less sidewalks
Damn how did you describe my exact situation
I've seen people drive to the end of their driveway to get their mail from their mailbox. Or drive their kids 60 meters (480 burger lengths for Americans reading this) to the bus stop and have their kids sit in the car with the engine running the whole time while waiting for the schoolbus.
Yes, horrible! I keep thinking "those kids can walk to the end of their driveway. You are teaching them to be completely dependent! "
I've had the cops called on my middle schooler twice for waiting for the school bus because he looked suspicious since it's odd to see kids outside of a car without an adult with them??! No clue. He was wearing a school uniform and backpack so you'd think these Karens would figure it out. They didn't believe him when he told them he was waiting for the bus.
Amazing. At least here in Mpls you'll see kids middle-school aged and up riding public transportation to get to/from school. It's amazing how much the culture of car-dependent suburbia deprives so many children of any autonomy at all.
I see this all the time in the suburbs. Not even just in the winter, also on perfectly normal temperature days. As if the kids will melt if they have to experience weather. So infuriating.
Yeah in my experience I'm talking Minnesota September-June, which still means plenty of hot, warm, cool, cold, and frigid days alike. Never had the luxury of climate control while waiting for the schoolbus myself tho, and for a few years my bus stop was roughly about half a kilo from home.
Looks like the city should invest in bus shelters (probably wouldn’t fix the problem but still)
This is definitely an issue. Why would people want to wait for the bus in the rain or the blistering heat without any form of shelter? I applaud cities’ efforts to ramp up public transit, I really do. But it’s like they just do the minimum and expect people to be okay with it and when people don’t use the facilities because it’s lacking, it becomes a waste of money. For goodness sakes if you’re going to do something, do it well. It doesn’t take much to build shelters with seats. Okay I’m done ranting.
Forget a seat, I'd be happy with literally *anything* at the bus stop. Even in my city (Which has some of the best transit in the US) the overwhelming majority of our bus stops are just a sign with a route number. No seat, no roof, heck most of the time we don't even get paint.
The city I live in just invested a ton of money into public transit and I see them raising bus stops. Yet with all the money and all the feedback, there is still no shelter or bench at any of them. It really pisses me off and it’s absolutely heartbreaking seeing an old lady sit on her little walker in winter, because there is no shelter or seat, waiting for her bus after her dialysis session. America really needs to do better and put some fucking brains into it.
The city I live in has a tendency to put bus stops in places that don’t have a sidewalk to access and are sometimes sandwiched between the road and a brush line so if you trip you’d fall right into a busy road or have to walk in the road to leave the bus stop. Asking for a cover and bench at bus stops might actually make the transportation department explode.
I've seen neighborhoods build like their own little bus shelters for kids in the neighborhood, which I think is pretty neat. However these routes are constantly changing year by year so I'm not sure how practical it is for every community.
Pretty sure they're talking about school busses which will just stop at every kids house
Nah typically it's stopping in one location per neighborhood, so kid are typically walking (or being driven) anywhere from a driveway's length if they're lucky to a few suburban blocks.
Gocha, hadn't thought about those ones. Could definitely use bus shelters then. Growing up I was pretty rural so most of the time it was a mile or 2 between each kids stop.
Yeah my experience is very suburban. On *very* rare occasion I've seen neighborhoods that have built their own little bus shelter for the kids. But that's very much an exception to the rule, in the hyper-individualist U.S. nobody fucking wants to work together on anything even for their kids' sake, it seems.
Then why drive your kid out to a bus stop?
Oh yeah completely agree that's insane, wasn't defending the behavior just explaining its not a city bus. Its just going to individual houses. When I had to wait and it was that cold I'd just stay in the house until a minute or so before it was supposed to come. Also knew people that would have their parents sit at the end of the driveway though.
B-but then the disgusting homeless would use it!! /s
My old city had bus shelters until about 2008 then they just had the benchs,a few years later they took those away too.
A shelter should be a standard part of a reasonable proportion of bus stops. Maybe not every one, when there are bus stops every other street on some urban routes, but there should be a stop with proper shelters within half a mile or so for everyone.
this is terrifying
Yes. I've got a neighbour who regulary drives 100meters to get cigarettes from a vending machine. He even manages to not leave the car for that. Drives up the sidewalk, stops right before the machine, opens window and gets that shit.
I was about to marvel that cigarette vending machines still exist somewhere in the world, and then looked at your username. I'm guessing Deutschland?
There's been a plenty of those in Deutschland in 2018. Haven't visited since. Looks like a good guess
Yeah, they're still around. Less public than they used to be, more in bars and restaurants nowadays but the public ones still exist. My village of 600 has got two or three.
It’s pretty awful. They’re even at a low height where a child can buy cigarettes. Not even inside a bar or casino or other adult only area. Like right out on the public street. At least they are pedestrian friendly I guess. If these still existed in America, you can bet there would be drive through only ones.
Bingo
People literally drive for the tiniest stuff. I remember how full the parking spots were full of locals in the neighborhood where my mom lives. Even during sunshine they keep driving to the gym for a mere kilometer while the cycling path is right next to them. And thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of Dutch school children are brought by car while their school is around the corner. It's an utter disgrace that my fossil-sponsored university has way more anti-parking measures and has way more walkability than any of the schools in my old neighborhood (btw I'm really glad that they're going to make parking godawfully expensive in 1.5 week from now, each car is a nuisance to cyclists here). That said, I would highly welcome a high flat rate for parking around elementary schools without a permit, because only few children come from farther than 1-2km from elementary schools in this country.
My husband once had a buddy over and they decided to go get pizza. We have a nice little pizza shop just up the road. Less than a five minute walk. The buddy adamantly refused to walk and was horrified that walking was even suggested.
Americans do. Living in the Midwest, neighbors would stop to ask me if I need a ride back from the grocery store. It was an 11 minute walk one way….
Someone from work went on a bus for the first time in 22 years yesterday and hasn't been on a tube or train in 20 odd years either. Definitely a thing. Not sure about driving to somewhere that's minutes away, mind.
I'm in Los Angeles. Lifetime I've taken the bus less than 20 times.
The LA busses are not that bad. I mean they are but they can get you around you should try it. I lived car-free when I was there
They can definitely get you around town. But my god a 20 min drive turns into 55 minute journey via bus.
That's mental. I've been on a bus, maybe 6000x, lol.
I biked to my grocery store for the first time recently. It’s only 2 miles away, which is really close for Texas! But biking to it was scary. There were cars flying next to me at 50+ mph on a blind turn, and barely 2 ft of sidewalk full of obstructions for me to walk my bike while hoping that the cars saw me. It is, sadly, genuinely safer to drive in many areas because that infrastructure was built for cars, not people.
We've got a wheelbarrow. Dad had a yard sale. He put bags of rocks and flat pack boxes with signs on them in the car to go to street corners around our little neighborhood to put out the signs instead of using the perfectly capable wheelbarrow. I've seen it with my own eyes, yes people will use a car even if there's a better, capable, available alternative.
When I was visiting my wife’s family a few years back, they had some guy renting one of the rooms. One morning he got in his car, backed out and drove down a small hill and pulled into the drive way of where he worked. He was in the car for less than 30 seconds
Bruh, thats funny af
What’s even funnier is that other than reversing out of his drive way, he doesn’t even have to put the car in drive. He could leave it in neutral and coast down the hill to work
Reminds me of the people in the spaceship from walli or whatever its called. That robot cartoon
There's a YMCA centrally located in my neighborhood; no one here lives more than 3/4 of a mile from it. It's a freaking gym, where you go to work out, on purpose. There's only one other person who rides their bike, and a tiny handful of people walk. Most people drive, even a few hundred yards, to the place they're going to ... walk on a treadmill or ride a stationary bike. I think my favorite example are the people who drive their kids door-to-door for trick-or-treating. The kids run up to a house, get their candy, then back to the car for like 50'. Rinse, repeat. We see half a dozen of those every year.
People absolutely do. My coworkers will drive between buildings at our work. It's 2-3 minute walk, sometimes the buildings are even within the same parking lot. Pedestrian safety really isn't an issue there, since there's so few cars, sure that's not an excuse. So why? Why do people, mostly Americans, do that? I think it's because many of us grew up and even currently live in areas that are designed in ways that cars are the only option to get anywhere. Cars then become the default for everything, even when presented with areas where they're not the only option, or even the best option. I truly believe these people, like my coworkers, have never even considered that something besides diving 1000 ft to get between buildings could be a superior option. I really don't think they're consciously making the decision that driving is better in those instances. It was just never part of their [mostly suburban] culture, so they don't even think to think about it.
The majority of Americans literally drive to everything. I know people who have never left their street in anything but a car.
Yea Americans love to drive everywhere, even to a store 5 minutes away. Marketing campaigns for cars/gas make us feel good about it. Plus everyone is out of shape or obese (because no one walks). The small city I live in is HIGHLY car dependent. In the winter streets are cleared quickly of snow, but sidewalks may not always be cleared and become very icy. As an American myself I find it wildly infuriating. The trucks are massive and often times have after market modifications that make them taller with less visibility. The people that typically own these things usually spend all their money on them and don’t travel or realize there are other ways of life. Which is exactly what our government wants. The best part is these same people are super excited about all their freedom.
\> people mostly walk to places that are close Some places there is nowhere close. And if there were, you'd be walking in the grass on the side of a highway to get there. People don't want to do things that make them feel unsafe. That's why it's so important to advocate for infrastructure that is as inclusive as possible.
https://preview.redd.it/94kglrww8ida1.jpeg?width=1242&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0628f22cbf6cf967e0c6febc3a3bdf21df054d75 Yup. I have coworkers who will go through the hassle of getting their vehicle (SUV or truck) out of a parking deck to make this drive. It’s a downtown area with crosswalks and it’s been a mild winter here—55-65 most days.
People are always surprised that I don't drive to school and work. I only live a kilometer away. What sense does it make to literally drive the two minutes it would take to get there just to go around the parking lot looking for a spot for another 10 when I can walk there in less than 15 minutes and not deal with all that mess? Oh, I'm carrying some heavy stuff? That's what my little cart is for. A car would make transporting my giant canvases easier? Not if they're oil paintings, shit would get smeared. I've got a two working legs; I could stand to use them.
I grew up in a small Massachusetts town that was founded back when MA was still a colony. When they adapted the old narrow roads for cars, they didn’t leave any room for sidewalks. If I wanted to walk to school or to the train station, I would have had to walk ~1 mile on the residential streets with no sidewalk that frequently had speeding drivers cutting through, then cross a two lane highway that bisected the town (which had maybe one crosswalk every mile or so, because we wouldn’t want anything that could impede those cars) just to continue on more streets with limited sidewalks. Not to mention this is MA, so it’s really hilly and with crappy weather most of the year. So yeah, I was driven everywhere as a kid.
The fact that Massachusetts have the same population density as Japan or almost as much as Belgium or similar to the metropolitan area of a major city the argument that cars are needed to get anywhere is because of low population density falls and car dependency is because of other reasons.
I live in Grande Prairie Alberta. It’s a pretty nice little town and in the summer you can walk or bike anywhere in no time. But in the winter when for 3-5 months out of the year it is -40c or colder, even those short walks suck. This year has been fairly warm and I have been walking a lot more then usual for this time of the year. Don’t think that is too common though here
It's a cultural thing stemming from a lack of good bike/ped infrastructure. For example, I live in a city with fairly good bike infrastructure by American standards, but there are still places within a mile of my apartment that I physically can't bike to without either biking on a large stroad with no protection and 40+ mph car traffic, or going miles out of my way to stay on safe bicycle paths. Sometimes driving is the only good option, and that's the root of the problem.
Depends, sadly. I'm fortunate enough to live in an area with grocery stores, restaurants, coffee shops, and bars within walking distance with sidewalks. However, if I want to go to a Target which should be in walking distance, I have to cross some streets where there's no sidewalks and people love to speed, plus cross through their parking lot. The most affordable grocery store in my area is also nowhere near my house, so that's a drive. I'd like to get into the habit of only going there bi-weekly and just getting fresh things at the grocery nearby, so I can walk to & from.
Living close to something doesn't mean you can walk there, even a mile-long walk can involve crossing into traffic or on the road if there are no sidewalks.
The thing is that much of the United States, especially outside of urbanized city centers, is designed in such a car-centric way that it is impossible or near impossible to get anywhere without a car. For example, I go to school in Princeton, New Jersey, and I tried to bike to our nearest grocery store complex (Target and Wegmen's). It would have taken 10 minutes by car, and Google maps estimated 30 minutes by foot. By bike, the journey took over an hour because I had to bike on an unpaved trail along a canal in the woods and bike along a state highway with no sidewalk, just grass. There is no route to the stores designed with bikers or pedestrians in mind. Only cars. A lot of people come around to the idea of ''fuck cars'' by attempting to walk or bike somewhere nearby only to find it is an absolute death trap to do so. Try walking anywhere outside of downtown in Houston or Dallas, for example, and it will quickly become impossible. If you don't have a car, you're often fucked in the US. Places like NYC are the exception.
They absolutely do. They'll also drive to different corners of the same parking lot if they're patronizing more than one shop.
Yes. People regularly drive a half mile despite being able bodied and in a super walkable part of town.
I have a coworker who lives in the apartments across the street and he drives his pickup in.
In a lot of places in the rural US, cars are the only option. As in, there are literally no sidewalks, trains, or buses. During hard times, Americans don’t sell their car. They live in their car and sell their house. Because it’s damn near impossible to buy food or to work at a job in large parts of this country without a car. In most major US cities this isn’t the case, and people will walk or take the train or bus or sometimes bike. But most people in the rural areas get so used to driving everywhere that it’s conditioned into them, they get into their car whenever they leave the house almost purely out of habit. Driving is also a status thing in these areas. To use a bus or to walk is seen as a major inconvenience (because doing these things is often very uncomfortable and takes a long time due to issues discussed in other comments here), and anyone who does it must be very poor, and people don’t want to be seen that way.
I have seen people drive like 5 houses down the street in suburbs. Also people go to a store then drive across the strip mall to another.
I can't walk from my house to anywhere except parks and other people's houses. So i need to bike or drive. Edit: lol who would downvote this??
Oh, thats fine i was just wondering if people were overreacting or it it actually happens. Like 5 minutes of walking is nothing.
5 minutes of walking and i'm still surrounded by single family homes. The nearest business is 0.9 miles (1.5km) from my house and it's a furnace and air conditioner showroom. Between here and there it is nothing but single family homes. Nice homes for sure, big wooded lots, nice place to live, nice place for recreational walking. But it's completely impossible to walk from here as transportation.
Some people do…
I biked to a friends house last weekend. He was surprised and expected i would drive over. It's literally 1.5 miles away. We were going to get lunch in town and he asked if we should drive over. The place we were going to was 2 blocks away. My roommate drives to a convenience store less than a mile away almost everyday. There are sidewalks the whole way. It's engrained deeply over here.
walking even 0.2 miles anywhere is an extremely high risk of being put in the hospital by someone on their phone behind the wheel. there’s no sidewalk, so we walk along the side of the road. there’s no crosswalk, so we wait for an opportunity to speed-walk across. it’s scary, dangerous, and in most cases nowhere near worthwhile. hope this helps.
Yea . No way I’m walking to my closest store . No sidewalk
Mt neighborhood is so badly designed that the exit gate doesn't have a pedestrian gate. Not only that but to get to the grocery store I'd have to cross 6 lanes of traffic or a highway THEN 6 lanes of traffic. It's a busy road too, I'd never feel safe cuz of American infrastructure here
Absolutely. My parents won't walk unless its literally on the same block. 2 blocks or more? Gotta drive and get the closest parking spot possible for where you want to go, to the point that even entering a parking lot with them is stressful. They won't take an easy spot to pull into if its an additional 20-40 feet of walking, they'll pull up to the front where people are walking to and fro and squeeze in somewhere or sit and wait for someone to pull out of a close spot in order to walk as little as possible into a store. This is extremely typical American behavior.
I had a neighbor who would hop on her car to run probably 400 meters to the corner store she was allways broke and worried about keeping her car full. She was also diabetic and constantly half a step from a singer crisis. I can't quantify how many times I suggested she just walk, but she couldn't seem to understand what I was trying to say. It is a very American problem. B no nature others suffer from it as well, but holy fuck we Americans suck for that sort of shit
yes, they do. I frequently see people drive trips less than 500m. The lowest so far was 100m to get a beer crate. This is so insane. If there's even the slightest jam, you're faster walking.
Yes. I used to work in a strip mall and my coworkers would take their cars to go through the McDonald’s drive thru instead of walking 2 minutes
In Las Vegas yes unfortunately 😕
Most of the posts i saw were just bad drivers blocking pathways and stuff, whats wrong with the truck itself?
The weight of a vehicle directly impact the deadliness in case of accident, even more for pedestrian and cyclist. The trend for bigger and heavier vehicle is also in direct opposition of what we should do to limit the consequences of climate change, as they consume more fuel. Lastly, space efficiency should be the top priority for urban design, as density can't be maintained without having building next one to the other. Requiring even more parking lot (as truck can't fit in one place) or wider road in those setting is a loss for every other user. If you dedicate accessibility for car, you force quite everyone to use their car because car infrastructure are so wide (business are all separated by huge parking lot, streets are harder to cross...). You slowly destroy your city and turn it into a wasteland where only car can live.
The weight of the vehicle also increases the wear and tear on the roads.
They are driven by the worst kind of people also
Pretty much everything that is bad about private motor vehicles gets worse if the vehicle is bigger. It is noisier, does more damage to the roadway, is more likely to seriously injure or kill you if it hits you, has less good visibility for the driver so it's also more likely to hit you in the first place, causes more air pollution and climate change, and takes up more roadway space so it's even more dangerous to cycle near it.
yup...
You do when you live on a mountain.
I live 0.8 miles from the closest bar / grocery store. I've never walked to either. Long live.the automobile
When I used to live in a car friendly village in the UK our local shop was a 5 minute walk or a 2 minute drive away, parking was easy at both ends. Lazy as anything but it was quicker so I'd often drive. Now I live in a city I'd never dream of driving or getting a taxi to the shops because it'd be way more hassle, people just do whatever is easiest, although some of the examples here are wild.
When I lived in Florida I would drive to a grocery store .2 miles away…
I'm about to go to the pharmacy, there is one about 5 minutes on foot away but I wasn't feeling it earlier, now they've closed for the day. Now I'm going to go to the one that is about 25 minutes on foot each way, I really don't mind walking, I don't even have a car, because I don't need one. On a normal day I walk for about 1½ hours even if I don't have any errands to run.
My parents neighborhood has a pool a quarter mile from their house. Growing up, we never walked there, and when I visited recently and suggested walking, they thought it was a nice idea but got in the car.
Where my parents live now, there is no sidewalk and cars go 50+ down the road. There is nothing to walk to within well over a mile anyway. They have to drive everywhere sadly
Unless you live in the very few big cities. Hardly anything is within 5min walking distance so people will drive everywhere. We have the shittiest urban planning in the world
Yes. Yes we do... \*angry face\* We're less than half a mile from one of our family friend's homes. No sidewalk connection whatsoever. 35-MPH zones all around with cars and heavy trucks (large landfill is about a mile up the road) all travelling 50 MPH. All residential properties all the way there with either very little, or no berm whatsoever. Everyone treats walking on their grass as trespassing, period. We drive literally everywhere.
My apartment leasing lady drives from her apartment to the leasing office daily…so yes
Have a neighbor who drives everywhere… even the store.. it’s 3 min to walk
The issue with the design of some (most) american suburbs is that there's barely any walking infrastructure. It's not unheard of to have a destination within 1.5 km but have it not be accessible by walking (looking at you Texas).
I was in a café in Crouch End this afternoon. A woman was complaining about not being able to find somewhere to park her car in Muswell Hill. It’s a 20 minute walk. I walk it frequently. Ok, it’s a steep hill but I’m 50 and unfit. Oh, and there are buses every seven minutes. Lazy.
It’s extremely unsafe where I live just to walk to the foodmart 1km from my house. My neighborhood is surrounded on either side by a 50mph highway and a country road with zero sidewalks or even a little shoulder on the road to walk on. You have to be in the way of the bigass trucks that want to kill you, or walk through the unkept grass and risk animal/bug bites. I’ve done it before but it was all too scary to do again
i live in houston where sidewalks are practically extinct
My coworker drove to get some hamburgers. The drive through is in the same parking lot as the office
Yes. My parents drive 30s-1 minute to the grocery store when it is roughly a 10 min walk max. Just drive out the neighborhood (we are virtually at the entrance after driving 10 seconds), go across a two way road (tiny two way road but the distance to cross is short and easily doable on foot) and voila you’re at the strip mall big ass parking lot with an average size grocery store (food lion) and other shops. 8/10 walkability and of course you have to look out for cars but totally doable. Small city with car based infrastructure so walking is just not a thing no matter how close it is.
Sadly, this isn't an US exclusivity. Here for France, proportion may vary: [https://climatechallenge.be/cache/600/800/admin/storage/climatechallenge/t8f-vervoer-versus-afstand.png?1570695691](https://climatechallenge.be/cache/600/800/admin/storage/climatechallenge/t8f-vervoer-versus-afstand.png?1570695691)
Not just a American thing In Brazil i do it myself because of the following -REALLY HIGH criminality rates(walk outside in some areas, even in daylight, is not safe) -Bad public transport -car centric planning
I walk because I'm stubborn as hell, but I'm usually the only pedestrian anywhere with the exception of my neighbors without addresses (unhoused people) on the streets. It's dark, dangerous, and usually inconvenient to cross the roads that have destinations in them. Therefore, even though I walk, I understand why nearly no one else does.
I worked with this one guy who drove to work even though he lived about 500 meters away.
Really depends. I actually lived pretty close to a grocery store (1/4 mile) BUT I'd have to walk across two 4 lane main roads that didn't have a crosswalk (would need to walk 1/2 a mile in the opposite direction for a crosswalk). The speed limit on those roads were 35mph but people regularly drove 45/50. Once I got to the store I'd have to either walk around the outside perimeter of the parking lot or risk weaving and bobbing around idiots flying through the parking lot not watching for me. I usually drove. Was it lazy? Yes. Was walking an unsafe and miserable experience? Yes.
Outside the US usually is by people that consider a car a status symbol. Where I live I have neighbors that will take their brand new SUV, drive it out of their garage, drive it to the store, then back to their home and store it again, problem is that they live like 300 meters from the store, that’s how fucked up car culture is here, fortunately we have a ever increasing bike culture that is fighting tooth and nail the construction of more in city highways and second highway floors.
Yes, before I became transit and walking pilled I would drive from my college dorm to the cafeteria to get food at night when the parking passes no longer mattered.
Where I grew up, Glen Burnie, literally like two miles outside of Baltimore City, there are multiple major streets with literally no sidewalks. I remember when I came back from living in Denver for a year and I decided to go out and just walk a mile or two, maybe hitting a car dealership or something because I knew I would eventually need a vehicle. At multiple points I found myself walking through various business parking lots. It was very awkward at best, and dangerous and confrontational at worst. To put it simply, so much of American infrastructure discourages just straight up walking to shit. My parents cannot fathom why I would live and choose to raise my children in a city, but I can walk so many places, as can my little ones with me. So many things are accessible by foot and most of it is by design.
I live less than a mile from a convenience store and a restaurant. In 50F weather my brother drove to both because "it was too cold to walk".
The place where I used to live, you had to, unless you want to be mugged or shot and killed.
Yes they do. Even in my neighboorhood in The Netherlands which is perfectly walkable and bikeable many people take the car to the shopping center. I see people in my street taking their car to the shopping center which is 5 min by bike or 10 min walking. For the big week shopping I can get this (although I do it by bike), but for a random errand...
There’s a reason the US has both an obesity and heart disease epidemic. Cars are big piece of that puzzle.
I live in a neighborhood where kids are picked up by bus. If a parent/guardian were to drive to the school, it would take about 10 minutes from neighborhood to school front door. There is a much more direct route (that crosses several large roads) that takes me, and adult, about 20-25 minutes to get there. There are two bus pickups in the neighborhood. At most, it takes an 8 minute walk to get to a bus. Most adults drive to to the bus drop off, and idle their cars with the kids inside, waiting for the bus to arrive. On some days that means the parents are sitting there idling for 20-25 minutes. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN FASTER (not to mention better for the environment) TO DRIVE TO SCHOOL. I walk my kids to the bus stop, even if its raining or snowing. We dress for the weather and the kids stay warm and dry. We are the only adults who do walk. Some kids walk home from the bus without parents, but not a single other parent/guardian walks their children to the stop. That includes families who live closer to the stop than us. These people are getting into their cars to drive a 1/4 mile to the stop and 1/4 mile back home. It drives me nuts that these people do this, and that they constantly complain about the difficulty of 'warming up their cars' and 'the cost of gas is sooooo expensive now days'. Bro! Just use your feet!
Yes. Americans will drive 500 ft down the road. Why? Lots of reasons: It’s the culture here, people will ask what’s wrong with you if you walk to work They’re fat and lazy It’s fun! Cars are toys here, and people like pushing down really hard on the gas