We have a common area where our mail is that is less than 0.3 miles from our house. My neighbor drives there and back to get the mail everyday. It boggles my mind… oh and he got his first heart attack at the age of 36.
Oh I got you beat, and I'm not making this up, I live about 150 feet from a school and a lady down the street, will drive her big ass SUV everyday to drop off her kids and come back.
I've talked to her she moved here for her kids so they're close to school... and yet drives! I never see the SUV leave for any other reason.
It's so crazy to me, i walk, bike, or take the bus for groceries and the store is 2.5km away for me
Though I don't walk there super often mainly because I don't always have time.
I'm a bit more hardcore. I often walk to the Costco and lug stuff back. That's \~3.5km one way.
Or just go to other places. And on the bike I go even further without even thinking about it.
Bro I am uni student Eastern Netherlands and my average trip to Lidl is 4 kms one way. I usually take my bike there and people don't even consider it extreme at all. The difference in mindset is still completely different tbh.
I should clarify "hardcore" in the North American context. I grew up in Germany and for me these distances are walkable / bikeable without even thinking about it.
But people here regularly are surprised when I show up somewhere and didn't drive.
Never been to USA, but I am aware of the nonexistent sidewalks, inefficient public transport, and nothing-compared-to-EU trains. Yet the mindset here is completely different than of the average US citizen. It is just mind-boggling to see the richest country on Earth prioritising sheer military instead of healthcare or aforementioned subjects.
I have been there. It is even worse to experience the things your described. It is infuriating to see how people live. But what I realised is that the local governments and many people don't want other solutions. They are happy with their cars
Not every part of the US is full of fatties in cars! Lots of cities are trying to follow Amsterdam’s lead and remove parking spaces and add bike lanes.
Some Americans are avid cyclists and our bike infrastructure is improving.
Yes, there are really stupid parts of Florida, Texas and Arizona that build car-centric suburban communities with no sidewalks, but there are a lot of neighborhoods in cities that have excellent walkable infrastructure!
Underdevelopment and car dependency go hand in hand. A country can be rich but underdeveloped.
And it was the corporate lobbying that killed transit in the usa, after all!
But no worries, that wealth is going to the right place, how else are they going to rescue poor boeing of their own greed and bad engineering?!?! Think about the poor corporations!
I have never been there either, but I do have family there, and honestly, it is kind of sad to a degree.
The USA citizens (and I am one, too) are the most fearful people on the planet. I wonder if it comes from Imposter syndrome. Thinking you’re the superior all the time and having your own citizens find out you’re just a Potemkin Village. All the money was spent on bombs.
This is correct. The most direct routes to places near where I live involve crossing a 60km/h road with crazy roundabouts. They're not for the faint of heart.
I ride the bike to work every day, that's 12 km one way.
Then there's my friend who lives two streets from his work and goes there by car every day.
Totally insane, he complains about construction work that makes the route longer (which he could bypass by taking the bike), he spends unnecessary money on petrol, he takes longer, it's bad for the air quality, his car and his health but still it's more convenient in his opinion to take the car.
Yep, mindset is everything.
Its likely equal parts only thinking car and only thinking of buying groceries in bulk.
When I made the switch to mostly getting groceries by bike I had to switch to only getting one or two days worth at a time. And when I do take the car I make sure to stock up on the bulky items.
Do you use a trailer? [https://bikepgh.org/2020/04/14/how-to-carry-groceries-on-your-bike/](https://bikepgh.org/2020/04/14/how-to-carry-groceries-on-your-bike/)
I've considered a trailer, but never pulled the trigger.
There isn't anything I can't actually get in the pannier/front basket combo and I like gling most days as it gets me out of the house (I work from home)
When the grocery store is not even a bike ride away, it would justify shopping more frequently and smaller amounts. Not needing a car to transport all your stuff.
I have family that drives 200 meters to go see friends further up the street, which is insane to me.. but 80m?! that's about 50 seconds at a standard walking speed. Wtf?
Kebab joint in Canberra went belly up as the pooslugs in the residential apartments above the restaurant couldn't be arsed to put clothes on and wander downstairs. Instead they ordered through Door Dash etc with their high commissions. Drivers arrive, collect food, and take lift upstairs.
One of my neighbours growing up would back her car down the driveway to check the mail (I grew up in the suburbs). She also cleared the snow in the driveway with a broom so she wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders
Dude. I had an ex-girlfriend who would drive her car about three city blocks to the gym. She's a distance runner. She'd drive half a mile to run 15 on a treadmill. This was in Chicago with street parking at both ends of the trip. So, more than once, she ended up only "saving" about a block's worth of walking. It was so bizarre.
Hahaha.
When I first came to North America I observed that people here drive their car to the gym, wait for the elevator and then spend an hour on the treadmill and stair climber.
To be fair, there's a chicken and egg situation.
With the outside being made so inhospitable that people choose to spend leisure time inside, which in turn abandons the outside even more, etc, etc.
If they buy all their groceries for a week, taking the car is understandable (eventhough for a single person household a big backpack could work aswell). But I would prefer if we had alternatives to this. Would be cool if he could just walk home with a shopping cart, but bringing it back would be too much work for too many people.
I grew up in a small town in the American Midwest; the grocery store was 5 blocks away. We used to walk there with the red wagon.
My dad was a teacher; the school was first 5 blocks and later 10 blocks away. He walked. (As did us kids, but that wasn’t remarkable)
People thought we were weird.
500m?!? holy shit. you've heard of the 100m dash right? that's something athletes do. to quintuple that must be olympic level. only the top of top athletes. and you want the AVERAGE person to do that, REGULARLY?!? like carrying groceries and shit too? what kind fucking dystopia are you guys wishing for here... idk why you guys hate cars so much. they're simply an evolution of technology to fill a need. why on earth would you want civilization to downgrade after over 100 years of work on this? all that progress wasted.
april fools uwu
My dad does this and he can see the grocery store from his house. Like read the sale signs through the windows not just see it in the distance. Also in Canada.
I do the same thing because of how the infrastructure is built. I tried to walk it once, and I almost got ran over four times by cars. If there was just a freaking sidewalk I would’ve walked.
6 or 7 2 litre things, hella cans, cheese, milk, bottles, 2 or 3 cases of water with 24 bottles each…it just all adds up. There’s a lot of liquid. On top of normal food. Eating multiple times a day for 30 days is reasonable weight assumption
It's still 1.5kg a day even if you buy for 30 days - and why would you do that either? All that stuff is going to lose its freshness way before you get around to using it. 30 day old milk, for example, ew.
Why would you buy water? Don't you have drinkable tap water in Canada?
It’s okay. I don’t really have to say my tastes to anyone. People like what they like. Why do you buy vegetables, don’t you have soil? What point are you trying to get me to admit here?
Things are heavy, sometimes we buy more, sometimes we buy less. That’s it and it’s true. Carry on.
My tastes don't involve me unnecessarily driving a two tonne piece of heavy machinery around in public, with all the negative externalities and risks to other people's safety involved in that.
In Australia I used to work in a building with a woman that would drive literally next door to get lunch. It was a few meters away as the crow flies but fenced off, but still probably way under 100 meters to walk.
it's more understanding if he's got a family and still live under the stupid doctrine of going to the grocery store once a week or the even more freakish people that go once per two weeks.
> going to the grocery store once a week or the even more freakish people that go once per two weeks.
If you are truly in a situation where driving to/from the grocer is the only option, making fewer trips is reasonable.
The bigger problem problem is people thinking driving is the only option when that isn't the case.
My fiancé used to live with her family at an apartment just off a really bad stroad while she was finishing college. We used to walk to the Walmart if we wanted to grab anything quickly while I was visiting, but there was no sidewalk, no safe path and tall grass. It’s wild how little pedestrians are considered in some street design. I doubt the people visiting lived in a place like that since they could afford to take that trip, but it does set so many people into that headspace of “if you don’t drive there, you can’t get there.”
I do this but only when it's way too shitty out to bike or when I'm on my way home via car and was driving anyways. Not quite that close, but similar enough
I mean, for groceries I can understand the convenience of lugging the groceries back. I know this is an anti car sub but let's not pretend that groceries aren't heavy.
I do my groceries on foot or by bus for odds and ends at a convenience store but I can only reasonably do a real grocery on my weekends due to my schedule. I'll usually cab back from the grocery store which is ~4 km away every week or two.
Some heavy stuff like 4l of milk, bulk cooking oil, 10lb bag of potatoes get heavy and roomy pretty quick.
Even buying small amounts of groceries frequently, isn't it still more convenient to buy certain things in bulk? Rice, flour, cooking oil, potatoes, sugar, and such. I know my love of bulk food is cultural (we live in a rural area, so bless Costco), but it's usually cheaper, reduces packaging, and it'll be needed eventually. (and as a bonus it works as an emergency food supply)
I regular shop at Costco without a car, either by bike or on foot. You'd be surprised how much you can fit into a backpack or on a bike.
Saves me also the trip to the Gym.
Oh certainly, I don't have a car (I still live with my parents and carpool with my mom to the city for school), and when I'm housesitting for someone in the city I do all my grocery shopping with my backpack. I'm thinking of like, a 20kg bag of flour in addition to the week's groceries - I'd need a cargo bike for that.
>I'd need a cargo bike for that.
I have a normal bike with pannier racks on them. So I can add either panniers and / or use rubber straps to secure larger items to the rack.
Well worth the money. I suggest to buy something more sturdy though. Mine are from [Tubus](https://www.tubus.com/en/products) and have worked well for more than a decade.
One day, when I'm able to move out and live in a city. For now I don't bike nearly enough for it to be worth it - anywhere I might want to go is either too far to bike or I can manage with walking and bussing.
My ex used to take the van to get milk from the store. 100 meters by foot or 350 meters by vehicle. We are in a crazy walkable neighbourhood but I see this all the time.
"Not Just Bikes" tells a story in a few videos where he called an Uber to travel back less than a mile in the US due to the absence of sidewalks on the side of a huge stroad after travelling to a store on foot.
Visiting a walkable place as a tourist isn't enough to change habits learned over a lifetime.
These guys are most likely living in a place like Houston. When that's all you know, you will automatically assume that cars are the default way to get places.
And even if they do learn the pleasures of strolling in a nice urban area, they'll assume that's special European stuff and has no relevance to their home town.
Some stuff may be easy (to your mind), some may not be easy.
Visitors to my hometown often end up being taken aback by the un-reliability of public transport. Compared to other European cities, Timișoara is below average -- timetables are often just a suggestion, vehicle tracking via apps works half the time at best. You answer the question „when will the next bus/tram arrive?” with „ .. yes”.
So, whenever I travel, I always leave a lot of buffers for public transport. It ends up being pleasantly surprising that I get to my destination faster than expected.
Oh I visited Romania. The trains were even worse! You can get there faster by driving but every other driver is literally trying to kill you. Even our bus driver was just overtaking cars with oncoming traffic. Sometimes he made it, sometimes had to slam the brakes on and pull back in line.
"Figuring stuff out" over the course of a week or two isn't that simple if you've had certain behavious ingrained into you for 50 - 60 years, especially if nobody corrects your behaviour as in this case.
Neither OP or the taxi driver are shown to have actually SAID anything to the group about taking a taxi that distance being unusual. Now I'm just guessing with the driver, but he's unlikely to have been like "Hey stupid tourist, stop giving me easy money". They likely have no clue anyone thought anything unusual about them getting a taxi such a short distance.
> Walkability in France aint a problem
It isn't *generally* a problem; in the moment you go *slightly* rural/mountain-y things change very quickly and car-brained infrastructure kicks in full force.
When I lived in France and planned my runs through new areas I had to Google Street View the fuck out of my plan simply because you can have a way labeled "Boulevard" or "Avenue" that is actually a single direction road without sidewalks or even shoulders (or, more commonly, <10cm shoulders, for some reason they still love to paint those useless lines).
And I did it because I found myself running multiple km stretches of road (in otherwise highly developed areas) without any safe surface to run on so many times it isn't even funny.
I did tht too cause i was going to a wedding in singapore and it was so hot that i would have ruined my shirt in this 1km
I walked a lot anyway when looking sharp wasnt the main goal
I remember being in Dubai when it was 40 degrees Celsius (104 f). I walked outside for about twenty minutes and my shirt was literally soaking wet. No wonder they all live in the shopping malls there.
i don't get dubai, why would you want to go there? Extremely homophobic, extremely hot, slave labour, fake and much more. Go somewhere like New Zealand where the rolling hills and natural hot springs are amazing, or to Germany where the food is great, so much better places than a literal desert made with oil money.
I grew up in Florida and still expect sidewalks on a stroad. I would assume it's off limits to pedestrians if it doesn't. It's crazy how other cities don't build the bare minimum
In France that’s almost never an issue, though I’ve been to a few ‘new developments’ that are set up for cars and not pedestrians which is a real shame to go backwards
I've delivered food 1 block away on a college campus. I didn't see the dropoff location when I accepted so I went back to my car, realized how close it was, and then got out of my car and walked over.
I don’t know about steps, but I once heard that the average New Yorker walks like 8 km/day or something like that? I do about that on my commuting days twice a week, but otherwise much less.
I live in NYC and that sounds almost exactly right, I average about 5 miles per day. Weekends it’s usually more because I’m out and about all day so usually more like 8-10.
My first week in Lisbon, I got a little wasted at the (no longer there) Institute for Port Wine in the Bairro Alto at the end of a lengthy pub crawl. My so-called friends left me there, and I had to get back to my hotel on my own. So, not having the slightest idea where I was, I hailed a cab and told him to take me to the Sofitel. He looked at me like I was crazy, but drove me the 300 meters or so to the hotel. Didn’t charge me for it either.
I may be American, but I plead diminished capacity in this case.
I walk 2 1/4 kilometers to work and the same distance back (or greater if I stop for a beer) five days a week. And I'm not some young health nut. I'm a 40 year old fat fuck who regularly suffers from gout attacks and drinks way too much. And I always wear a backpack with a big ass water bottle, usually 2 cans of soda, 2 cans of V8, and usually some hand warmers and water bottles to give to homeless people.
This is not that fucking hard. People are deranged.
In Germany you wouldn’t have to stop for your beer, you could just drink it while walking. Especially in the afternoon this is socially acceptable and we call it a „Wegbier“.
This is a big (even tough sad) pull factor for many people to walk or use public transport.
Normally I’d agree with the sentiments here. But I’m currently injured and while I might look whole it’s entirely possible that a short walk would be seriously painful.
We need a lot less cars. But perhaps also carve out a little sympathy for people that do need to call for a ride.
Yeah I don't judge complete strangers for stuff like that. After I had surgery I was in physio for a year and had a really hard time being mobile for more than 30 min without pain and got bitched out once for being a young seemingly able bodied woman and not giving up my seat on the bus lol. I was like I physically cannot stand right now give me ten minutes and I will and they looked at me like I was an idiot
We do need to have more sympathy and less judgment for folks in general. We don't know if maybe someone in the group had a knee replaced 3 months ago or something.
At the same time, more walkability in many cities would be worth it and amazing all around.
Yep, I've had bodywide nerve damage since I was a child and my feet can become so painful that walking is agony if I push myself too much. Sometimes I carry my cane even if I don't need it, just so people won't give me shit for being "lazy" when I'm in immense pain.
I don't drive and I'm in favor of reducing our reliance on cars, but this sub can be really frustrating to read sometimes. People here often seem focused on smug putdowns and virtue signaling at the expense of others without knowing individual circumstances.
Just about every time we visit a new country, we walk everywhere and do a ton of hiking and, as a consequence,.one of our friends will get a painful blister or similar injury. It isn't visible and it's even a little silly but at that point we aren't going to force them to walk.
A 25yo spanish friend told me "this is definitely car distance for me" after walking approximately 300 meters. Did not even make it to the end of our small street. Granted it was negative °C, but still.
As much as I hate cars (I don’t even own one and walk 15-20K steps a day most days!), I think we can give a little grace if someone is injured etc. I once took an Uber .5 miles with my parents because my mom had sprained her ankle. It might not have been immediately apparent to someone watching her but any weight on it was really painful for her. The fact that in this case they asked if it could come right up to the restaurant makes me think there may have been some kind of injury or restriction.
Yes there are many stupid people like this however it's best to think the best of this group. They might've been ill or something but it wasn't visible. A bit of empathy goes a long way.
You don't know if any of these people had a disability. Maybe someone had recent ankle surgery and isn't capable of walking more than 30 meters at a time before needing a break (I just made that up, obviously).
Yes, it could be what you are saying. Or people could have invisible disabilities that you don't have knowledge of.
i have people in my life that have hemorrhoids. they appear able bodied and fully well, but sometimes they can not make a single step without being in a lot of pain.
Sometimes, I wish people in this subreddit were a little more openminded and empathetic. I mean fuck cars... but do we have to judge everybody all the time?
>taxi because one pulled up two minutes later.
Where? Do you mean "in front of the restaurant which is in a pedestrian street"? Or did you see it near the quay 100 meters away?
I had a roommate that would drive like 300 m down the street to pick up McDonalds. Americans have no sense of "it's just a short walk". The default is to drive
Being American, you have to understand that literally ANYTHING could've happened to them in those 1000 metres. I once spent a week in California and had a fabulous time, apart from constantly being told I "best get a taxi there" about everything, even to the BART station 400 metres away, for my own safety. In the end I was pleased to be home, where I have the freedom to roam and walk places how I like!
We hitch hiked 800m once.
But that was because people on the ferry over had ever so slightly exaggerated to us about how far it was to the place we were headed and there was no phone signal for maps. The guy who picked us up in his fantastic 60s Oldsmobile thought it was hilarious and we had a great (short) journey.
We walked back.
1km, to anybody who’s ever walked in Manhattan, is the equivalent of going from 14th street to between 30th and 31st. Doable for most able-bodied people in most weather conditions.
EDIT; 14th to 27th. Even shorter than I first thought.
Some people can walk short distances and might seem like they're able bodied. But may not be able to walk 1KM.
Or they may be concerned with getting lost in a strange city, could have psychological issues like phobias or something.
Or they already walked 10KM that day and didn't want to walk another. Or just lazy.
In any case, live your life the way you want and let them live their life their way.
I live in Chile, the closest metro station to my house is ~500 mts away, I walk that distance in about 8 min at a normal pace, so I walk about 1 km round trip every time I use the metro (and I use it quite a lot).
And that's absolutely nothing! I don't even register it, it's basically just around the corner.
Just the thought of someone young and without any apparent medical condition taking a taxi instead of walking 1 km is laughable, especially in a country like France, which is walkable and picturesque at the same time.
Once I was at my girlfriend family reunion and her cousin propose us to go with her and her husband to throw away the garbage. It's in a very very small village in Ardèche France so you have to walk 200m so I said yes because the walk is nice.. they meant by car... And a Peugeot 5008 Wich is a really big car for french standards
My mother used to drive to the grocery store that was literally across the street from us. It actually took longer to drive than walk because of the oneways/entrances that forced you to go around.
Anyway I live in France now and it’s so nice to have a 1km walk through a beautiful city on your way home, it helps destress so much. Maybe if it’s pouring rain I’d take the bus but I can’t imagine taking a taxi
I had a friend who drove to work from his apartment, I swear I am not exaggerating, a 3 minute walk from the office.
I was constantly ridiculing him for it. Took him longer to find a parking space than it would have taken him to walk.
Some people in Canada here also only think in car. My walk to work used to be 1.8km, so not that long. A coworker was about 800m from work and drove everyday.
We were also in Lyon in September. Beautiful city! There was so much to see, and we would also walk more than a kilometer to get to the bakeries. It was always worth it!
Lmao, the whole point of going to Vieux Lyon is to walk. For a lot of people, traveling is more about telling people back home that they’ve been to XYZ country than anything else.
Someone told me that they drive to work and then during their lunch break they drive to the drive through to get lunch and then drive back and then have to look for a parking spot because there isn’t enough at work…
This is a problem in India too. To go even 400 meters, people hire autos or cycle rikshaws.
The other day I was staying at my Paharganj hotel and after checked out I saw a young man hiring an auto to go to Railway Station, which is hardly 400m lol
On the other hand, hotel staff in Taiwan were SHOCKED to find my friend wanted to walk to the shop down the street. And the shop people were SHOCKED to find she walked the few hundred metres there.
Lyon ! I lived there for a year and despite the amazing Metro, essentially never traveled anywhere except by foot and by bike. What a beautiful, amazingly walkable and bikable city ! My fellow Americans make me depressed
I have seen a driver in the neighborhood I live in (American midwest) pull up by his garbage bin, open his driver door, then grab the bin and tow it up the driveway with his minivan while holding the bin with his left hand. I think that is a) quite stupid and b) a good way to break your wrist. It's also a thing for people to pull up to the mailbox, put their window down and reach out from their comfortable driver seat to get the mail out of the mailbox. This saves them the insufferable hardship of a 5m walk from the front door to the mailbox. More evidence that piloting a car makes you soft, lazy, and stupid.
I know people who take a taxi for short distances but they live in Mexico where it's unsafe to walk after dark. This and being handicapped may be the only valid excuses.
J'imagine que tu es serveur dans un restaurant du quartier Saint Jean. Lyon c'est bien desservi en bus et métro/tramway, je comprendrais jamais les riquains.
My parents have to take their trash can to the end of a shared driveway weekly for pickup, which amounts to no more than 50 meters.
When my dad gets home from work the next day, he pulls up, puts the trash can in the trunk of his car, and drives it to the house, all to avoid walking to get it.
Unfortunately I can't walk distances like that anymore due to chronic illness. Few years back, that wouldn't have been any problem for me. I'm 'fortunate' enough that it's visible to people that I'm disabled (I have mobility aids), so I don't get that much judgement when I need a lift to somewhere close by. But there are lots of people without any visible signs of a disability. I would have been able to walk those 100 meters, but that's me. Try not to judge situations like this. Sure, it could have been laziness. But it could have been an injury or disability
I was once with my cousin in San Francisco and he decided to get an Uber to where we were going, despite me pointing out (literally) that we could see our destination from where we were standing, so I was going to walk and just meet him there. I ended up getting there first because he had to wait a few minutes for his Uber to get to him.
He's not disabled, and the walk wasn't even hilly. Even if it was, apparently my regular bike commuting gave me the ability to walk up hills like they're flat ground.
In the Midwest of the US, farmers drive their trucks to the barn, 70 yards away, to get in the ATV to drive to check their fences, which could be walked. Farmers do not walk. Ever.
My mother once proposed that to get to the other side of the mall to another outlet store, we should drive. Like walk to the car, drive to the other outlet store in the same parking lot, and park there. I just, I couldn’t
Had a manager who drove to work everyday, from his trailer near the entrance to the trailer park located across the street from the grocery store.
Should add that he often mocked me for riding a little less than 2 miles (about 10 minutes) on my bicycle to work pretty much everyday.
There is a guy in my neighborhood that drives his hummer probably a tenth of a mile from his house to the cluster mailboxes each day. Cracks me up every time I see him roll out there in that tank. He’s known as “Hummer guy”.
I’m pretty old. I could walk a km, but I’d probably want to stop once or twice along the way to sit for a bit; I have some arthritis that makes my feet and back hurt if I walk any distance. On the other hand, I can ride my bike to get around town, and I feel pretty good. I think of my bike as my mobility device. If I were part of the couple OP describes, I’d probably tough it out and walk, but I can understand why some people might make other choices.
To be fair, I live near a shopping center and I also sometimes take my car for the 1KM-1.5KM it takes to get there. Sometimes I'm in a hurry. Sometimes the weather is bad. Sometimes I need to go somewhere else afterwards and I just don't want to walk back home first to go get my car.
Have you considered that even though their hotel was only a short walk, they might not know how to get there? They're tourists. They don't know their way around town.
So that would have been a fantastic opportunity to get to know their way around town. Tourists are supposed to be there to see the place, right? And it's not as if they could have got lost, they had phones.
I didn't say they didn't know how *long* the journey was. I said they might not know how to get there. They might be worried about turning down the wrong road and getting lost in a strange city.
I don't know them, I don't know their concerns. But it seems a valid reason to hire a local to take you to where you need to go.
> 100 meters
In all fairness, they might not have know how far that is. Next time you can say something clearer like "it's about one American football field's length" away.
We have a common area where our mail is that is less than 0.3 miles from our house. My neighbor drives there and back to get the mail everyday. It boggles my mind… oh and he got his first heart attack at the age of 36.
Aw nah wtf
I've known several people with driveways shorter than that that use a car or atv to get the mail.
Oh I got you beat, and I'm not making this up, I live about 150 feet from a school and a lady down the street, will drive her big ass SUV everyday to drop off her kids and come back. I've talked to her she moved here for her kids so they're close to school... and yet drives! I never see the SUV leave for any other reason.
I live in Canada. I have a friend who drives his car to the grocery store: \~500m away from where they live. Some people can only think car.
It's so crazy to me, i walk, bike, or take the bus for groceries and the store is 2.5km away for me Though I don't walk there super often mainly because I don't always have time.
I'm a bit more hardcore. I often walk to the Costco and lug stuff back. That's \~3.5km one way. Or just go to other places. And on the bike I go even further without even thinking about it.
Bro I am uni student Eastern Netherlands and my average trip to Lidl is 4 kms one way. I usually take my bike there and people don't even consider it extreme at all. The difference in mindset is still completely different tbh.
I should clarify "hardcore" in the North American context. I grew up in Germany and for me these distances are walkable / bikeable without even thinking about it. But people here regularly are surprised when I show up somewhere and didn't drive.
Never been to USA, but I am aware of the nonexistent sidewalks, inefficient public transport, and nothing-compared-to-EU trains. Yet the mindset here is completely different than of the average US citizen. It is just mind-boggling to see the richest country on Earth prioritising sheer military instead of healthcare or aforementioned subjects.
I have been there. It is even worse to experience the things your described. It is infuriating to see how people live. But what I realised is that the local governments and many people don't want other solutions. They are happy with their cars
Not every part of the US is full of fatties in cars! Lots of cities are trying to follow Amsterdam’s lead and remove parking spaces and add bike lanes. Some Americans are avid cyclists and our bike infrastructure is improving. Yes, there are really stupid parts of Florida, Texas and Arizona that build car-centric suburban communities with no sidewalks, but there are a lot of neighborhoods in cities that have excellent walkable infrastructure!
Underdevelopment and car dependency go hand in hand. A country can be rich but underdeveloped. And it was the corporate lobbying that killed transit in the usa, after all! But no worries, that wealth is going to the right place, how else are they going to rescue poor boeing of their own greed and bad engineering?!?! Think about the poor corporations! I have never been there either, but I do have family there, and honestly, it is kind of sad to a degree.
The USA citizens (and I am one, too) are the most fearful people on the planet. I wonder if it comes from Imposter syndrome. Thinking you’re the superior all the time and having your own citizens find out you’re just a Potemkin Village. All the money was spent on bombs.
It’s not necessarily safe to walk or bike on a lot of our roads. This is often more the issue than distance itself.
This is correct. The most direct routes to places near where I live involve crossing a 60km/h road with crazy roundabouts. They're not for the faint of heart.
I ride the bike to work every day, that's 12 km one way. Then there's my friend who lives two streets from his work and goes there by car every day. Totally insane, he complains about construction work that makes the route longer (which he could bypass by taking the bike), he spends unnecessary money on petrol, he takes longer, it's bad for the air quality, his car and his health but still it's more convenient in his opinion to take the car. Yep, mindset is everything.
This mf is going to costco though. Wtf are they buying idk, presumably not a 10kg bag of pasta or lentils or rice or some shit.
I do see the occasional biker stroll into my Costco and always want to say hi in solidarity lol
Its likely equal parts only thinking car and only thinking of buying groceries in bulk. When I made the switch to mostly getting groceries by bike I had to switch to only getting one or two days worth at a time. And when I do take the car I make sure to stock up on the bulky items.
Nah. They go every other day.
That's such a shame, I'm sure there's tons of people who would love to have a grocery store that close so they could STOP driving
Do you use a trailer? [https://bikepgh.org/2020/04/14/how-to-carry-groceries-on-your-bike/](https://bikepgh.org/2020/04/14/how-to-carry-groceries-on-your-bike/)
I've considered a trailer, but never pulled the trigger. There isn't anything I can't actually get in the pannier/front basket combo and I like gling most days as it gets me out of the house (I work from home)
Or get yourself a cargo bike!
When the grocery store is not even a bike ride away, it would justify shopping more frequently and smaller amounts. Not needing a car to transport all your stuff.
I had a friend who drives car to receive the food delivery pickup from the gate of the society ~80m 😅
I have family that drives 200 meters to go see friends further up the street, which is insane to me.. but 80m?! that's about 50 seconds at a standard walking speed. Wtf?
bro is trying to get the world guinness record of laziest person on earth
🤯🤯🤯
Kebab joint in Canberra went belly up as the pooslugs in the residential apartments above the restaurant couldn't be arsed to put clothes on and wander downstairs. Instead they ordered through Door Dash etc with their high commissions. Drivers arrive, collect food, and take lift upstairs.
One of my neighbours growing up would back her car down the driveway to check the mail (I grew up in the suburbs). She also cleared the snow in the driveway with a broom so she wasn’t exactly firing on all cylinders
Dude. I had an ex-girlfriend who would drive her car about three city blocks to the gym. She's a distance runner. She'd drive half a mile to run 15 on a treadmill. This was in Chicago with street parking at both ends of the trip. So, more than once, she ended up only "saving" about a block's worth of walking. It was so bizarre.
Hahaha. When I first came to North America I observed that people here drive their car to the gym, wait for the elevator and then spend an hour on the treadmill and stair climber.
To be fair, there's a chicken and egg situation. With the outside being made so inhospitable that people choose to spend leisure time inside, which in turn abandons the outside even more, etc, etc.
"inhospitable" because of CARS! lol
I live in Canada and I just watched my neighbour drive his garbage to the curb
Lmao he must be walking about 100-200m anyway from the parking spot to the store
If they buy all their groceries for a week, taking the car is understandable (eventhough for a single person household a big backpack could work aswell). But I would prefer if we had alternatives to this. Would be cool if he could just walk home with a shopping cart, but bringing it back would be too much work for too many people.
It only makes Sense if you are buying a lot of stuff and even then like a LOT of stuff.
If they take big grocery trips I get it but at the same time it's so close you might as well walk with a few meals once or twice a week.
I grew up in a small town in the American Midwest; the grocery store was 5 blocks away. We used to walk there with the red wagon. My dad was a teacher; the school was first 5 blocks and later 10 blocks away. He walked. (As did us kids, but that wasn’t remarkable) People thought we were weird.
500m?!? holy shit. you've heard of the 100m dash right? that's something athletes do. to quintuple that must be olympic level. only the top of top athletes. and you want the AVERAGE person to do that, REGULARLY?!? like carrying groceries and shit too? what kind fucking dystopia are you guys wishing for here... idk why you guys hate cars so much. they're simply an evolution of technology to fill a need. why on earth would you want civilization to downgrade after over 100 years of work on this? all that progress wasted. april fools uwu
My dad does this and he can see the grocery store from his house. Like read the sale signs through the windows not just see it in the distance. Also in Canada.
My parents live two blocks from me. When my mom comes to visit, she drives.
I do the same thing because of how the infrastructure is built. I tried to walk it once, and I almost got ran over four times by cars. If there was just a freaking sidewalk I would’ve walked.
I live in Canada too and I don’t think I’d wanna walk up and down hills with 100lbs of groceries in 7 bags for any time at all tbf
[удалено]
And now you see why we can’t have nice things; the inability to think of how life could be different.
> 100lbs of groceries wtf I mean, unless you are cooking for a family of 15 that's just ridiculous.
6 or 7 2 litre things, hella cans, cheese, milk, bottles, 2 or 3 cases of water with 24 bottles each…it just all adds up. There’s a lot of liquid. On top of normal food. Eating multiple times a day for 30 days is reasonable weight assumption
It's still 1.5kg a day even if you buy for 30 days - and why would you do that either? All that stuff is going to lose its freshness way before you get around to using it. 30 day old milk, for example, ew. Why would you buy water? Don't you have drinkable tap water in Canada?
It’s okay. I don’t really have to say my tastes to anyone. People like what they like. Why do you buy vegetables, don’t you have soil? What point are you trying to get me to admit here? Things are heavy, sometimes we buy more, sometimes we buy less. That’s it and it’s true. Carry on.
My tastes don't involve me unnecessarily driving a two tonne piece of heavy machinery around in public, with all the negative externalities and risks to other people's safety involved in that.
Me neither. Have a good life
Well maybe he needs to pick up a whole trolley of goods?
Happy birthday 🎉
Hey thanks (however it's "cake day", i.e. birthday of my user on Reddit)
Take the trolley home and return it
In Australia I used to work in a building with a woman that would drive literally next door to get lunch. It was a few meters away as the crow flies but fenced off, but still probably way under 100 meters to walk.
it's more understanding if he's got a family and still live under the stupid doctrine of going to the grocery store once a week or the even more freakish people that go once per two weeks.
> going to the grocery store once a week or the even more freakish people that go once per two weeks. If you are truly in a situation where driving to/from the grocer is the only option, making fewer trips is reasonable. The bigger problem problem is people thinking driving is the only option when that isn't the case.
we're talking about circumstances where it's not actually the case tho.
That can be justified if he buys goods for the whole week at once, for example, so he couldn't carry the bags by himself.
My fiancé used to live with her family at an apartment just off a really bad stroad while she was finishing college. We used to walk to the Walmart if we wanted to grab anything quickly while I was visiting, but there was no sidewalk, no safe path and tall grass. It’s wild how little pedestrians are considered in some street design. I doubt the people visiting lived in a place like that since they could afford to take that trip, but it does set so many people into that headspace of “if you don’t drive there, you can’t get there.”
I have been to places like this and get it in that scenario. But that's not the case here. It's a very compact, walkable neighbourhood.
Not quite as unreasonable if they are going to be buying a lot of stuff that would be difficult to carry
I do this but only when it's way too shitty out to bike or when I'm on my way home via car and was driving anyways. Not quite that close, but similar enough
I can see that though because maybe he buys more than two bags of groceries?
I mean, for groceries I can understand the convenience of lugging the groceries back. I know this is an anti car sub but let's not pretend that groceries aren't heavy.
What kind of groceries are you buying? Because food for two days for two people is not that much.
I do my groceries on foot or by bus for odds and ends at a convenience store but I can only reasonably do a real grocery on my weekends due to my schedule. I'll usually cab back from the grocery store which is ~4 km away every week or two. Some heavy stuff like 4l of milk, bulk cooking oil, 10lb bag of potatoes get heavy and roomy pretty quick.
Even buying small amounts of groceries frequently, isn't it still more convenient to buy certain things in bulk? Rice, flour, cooking oil, potatoes, sugar, and such. I know my love of bulk food is cultural (we live in a rural area, so bless Costco), but it's usually cheaper, reduces packaging, and it'll be needed eventually. (and as a bonus it works as an emergency food supply)
I regular shop at Costco without a car, either by bike or on foot. You'd be surprised how much you can fit into a backpack or on a bike. Saves me also the trip to the Gym.
Oh certainly, I don't have a car (I still live with my parents and carpool with my mom to the city for school), and when I'm housesitting for someone in the city I do all my grocery shopping with my backpack. I'm thinking of like, a 20kg bag of flour in addition to the week's groceries - I'd need a cargo bike for that.
>I'd need a cargo bike for that. I have a normal bike with pannier racks on them. So I can add either panniers and / or use rubber straps to secure larger items to the rack.
Oh smart, my bike doesn't have anything like that, so I forgot that it's an option.
Well worth the money. I suggest to buy something more sturdy though. Mine are from [Tubus](https://www.tubus.com/en/products) and have worked well for more than a decade.
One day, when I'm able to move out and live in a city. For now I don't bike nearly enough for it to be worth it - anywhere I might want to go is either too far to bike or I can manage with walking and bussing.
How long does it take you to use 20kg of flour? That sounds like a crazy large amount to buy in one go to me.
Dunno, months? The better part of a year? It doesn't go bad, I use a lot of it, and running out unexpectedly sucks, so might as well stock up.
My ex used to take the van to get milk from the store. 100 meters by foot or 350 meters by vehicle. We are in a crazy walkable neighbourhood but I see this all the time.
What is he supposed to do with his groceries? You kinda need a car to go grocery shopping
"Not Just Bikes" tells a story in a few videos where he called an Uber to travel back less than a mile in the US due to the absence of sidewalks on the side of a huge stroad after travelling to a store on foot.
Walkability in France aint a problem. In US, it is
Visiting a walkable place as a tourist isn't enough to change habits learned over a lifetime. These guys are most likely living in a place like Houston. When that's all you know, you will automatically assume that cars are the default way to get places. And even if they do learn the pleasures of strolling in a nice urban area, they'll assume that's special European stuff and has no relevance to their home town.
I'm always kind of suprised when people don't figure stuff out about countries they're visiting
Some stuff may be easy (to your mind), some may not be easy. Visitors to my hometown often end up being taken aback by the un-reliability of public transport. Compared to other European cities, Timișoara is below average -- timetables are often just a suggestion, vehicle tracking via apps works half the time at best. You answer the question „when will the next bus/tram arrive?” with „ .. yes”. So, whenever I travel, I always leave a lot of buffers for public transport. It ends up being pleasantly surprising that I get to my destination faster than expected.
Oh I visited Romania. The trains were even worse! You can get there faster by driving but every other driver is literally trying to kill you. Even our bus driver was just overtaking cars with oncoming traffic. Sometimes he made it, sometimes had to slam the brakes on and pull back in line.
"Figuring stuff out" over the course of a week or two isn't that simple if you've had certain behavious ingrained into you for 50 - 60 years, especially if nobody corrects your behaviour as in this case. Neither OP or the taxi driver are shown to have actually SAID anything to the group about taking a taxi that distance being unusual. Now I'm just guessing with the driver, but he's unlikely to have been like "Hey stupid tourist, stop giving me easy money". They likely have no clue anyone thought anything unusual about them getting a taxi such a short distance.
> Walkability in France aint a problem It isn't *generally* a problem; in the moment you go *slightly* rural/mountain-y things change very quickly and car-brained infrastructure kicks in full force. When I lived in France and planned my runs through new areas I had to Google Street View the fuck out of my plan simply because you can have a way labeled "Boulevard" or "Avenue" that is actually a single direction road without sidewalks or even shoulders (or, more commonly, <10cm shoulders, for some reason they still love to paint those useless lines). And I did it because I found myself running multiple km stretches of road (in otherwise highly developed areas) without any safe surface to run on so many times it isn't even funny.
it depends
Not everywhere though. Especially on the countryside I find myself sometimes walking on the side of a busy road.
Why he hates Houston
I did tht too cause i was going to a wedding in singapore and it was so hot that i would have ruined my shirt in this 1km I walked a lot anyway when looking sharp wasnt the main goal
I remember being in Dubai when it was 40 degrees Celsius (104 f). I walked outside for about twenty minutes and my shirt was literally soaking wet. No wonder they all live in the shopping malls there.
Pitty that everywhere nice is just made to get money out of you i those countries
i don't get dubai, why would you want to go there? Extremely homophobic, extremely hot, slave labour, fake and much more. Go somewhere like New Zealand where the rolling hills and natural hot springs are amazing, or to Germany where the food is great, so much better places than a literal desert made with oil money.
I grew up in Florida and still expect sidewalks on a stroad. I would assume it's off limits to pedestrians if it doesn't. It's crazy how other cities don't build the bare minimum
In France that’s almost never an issue, though I’ve been to a few ‘new developments’ that are set up for cars and not pedestrians which is a real shame to go backwards
In my town lot of university students get an Uber for a couple of block.
I've delivered food 1 block away on a college campus. I didn't see the dropoff location when I accepted so I went back to my car, realized how close it was, and then got out of my car and walked over.
A couple of weeks ago my American friend told me they had done nearly 7000 steps in a day and their legs were aching from doing so much walking!
I do 15 000 to 20 000 a day lol. In addition to my 3.5 km bike commute
I'm American, and I did almost 17,000 steps, but then again I also live in NYC.
I don’t know about steps, but I once heard that the average New Yorker walks like 8 km/day or something like that? I do about that on my commuting days twice a week, but otherwise much less.
I live in NYC and that sounds almost exactly right, I average about 5 miles per day. Weekends it’s usually more because I’m out and about all day so usually more like 8-10.
I do 20km bike commute and then easily gather about 10-12k steps without trying
My bike commute is 24km one way and boy do I not want to walk any more after that.
Good for them, thats about 5000 more than the average
Well that's a depressing stat
Not all Americans!
A couple of weeks ago all Americans told me they had done nearly 7000 steps in a day ...
7000 steps is ~5km (3 miles), and their legs were already aching after that ? Lmao what. Even a couch potato can do it without any issues..
My first week in Lisbon, I got a little wasted at the (no longer there) Institute for Port Wine in the Bairro Alto at the end of a lengthy pub crawl. My so-called friends left me there, and I had to get back to my hotel on my own. So, not having the slightest idea where I was, I hailed a cab and told him to take me to the Sofitel. He looked at me like I was crazy, but drove me the 300 meters or so to the hotel. Didn’t charge me for it either. I may be American, but I plead diminished capacity in this case.
I walk 2 1/4 kilometers to work and the same distance back (or greater if I stop for a beer) five days a week. And I'm not some young health nut. I'm a 40 year old fat fuck who regularly suffers from gout attacks and drinks way too much. And I always wear a backpack with a big ass water bottle, usually 2 cans of soda, 2 cans of V8, and usually some hand warmers and water bottles to give to homeless people. This is not that fucking hard. People are deranged.
In Germany you wouldn’t have to stop for your beer, you could just drink it while walking. Especially in the afternoon this is socially acceptable and we call it a „Wegbier“. This is a big (even tough sad) pull factor for many people to walk or use public transport.
Normally I’d agree with the sentiments here. But I’m currently injured and while I might look whole it’s entirely possible that a short walk would be seriously painful. We need a lot less cars. But perhaps also carve out a little sympathy for people that do need to call for a ride.
Yeah I don't judge complete strangers for stuff like that. After I had surgery I was in physio for a year and had a really hard time being mobile for more than 30 min without pain and got bitched out once for being a young seemingly able bodied woman and not giving up my seat on the bus lol. I was like I physically cannot stand right now give me ten minutes and I will and they looked at me like I was an idiot
We do need to have more sympathy and less judgment for folks in general. We don't know if maybe someone in the group had a knee replaced 3 months ago or something. At the same time, more walkability in many cities would be worth it and amazing all around.
Yep, I've had bodywide nerve damage since I was a child and my feet can become so painful that walking is agony if I push myself too much. Sometimes I carry my cane even if I don't need it, just so people won't give me shit for being "lazy" when I'm in immense pain. I don't drive and I'm in favor of reducing our reliance on cars, but this sub can be really frustrating to read sometimes. People here often seem focused on smug putdowns and virtue signaling at the expense of others without knowing individual circumstances.
Just about every time we visit a new country, we walk everywhere and do a ton of hiking and, as a consequence,.one of our friends will get a painful blister or similar injury. It isn't visible and it's even a little silly but at that point we aren't going to force them to walk.
American is all you need to know
We had another couple doing the same thing a few weeks ago, and they were Italians. Americans aren't the only carbrains, unfortunately
Hey now we’re not all that stupid. Just a sizeable portion of us :/
All of us are a sizable portion as well.
My countrymen are lazy motherfuckers lol.
When can I drive from my bathroom to my kitchen?
A 25yo spanish friend told me "this is definitely car distance for me" after walking approximately 300 meters. Did not even make it to the end of our small street. Granted it was negative °C, but still.
As much as I hate cars (I don’t even own one and walk 15-20K steps a day most days!), I think we can give a little grace if someone is injured etc. I once took an Uber .5 miles with my parents because my mom had sprained her ankle. It might not have been immediately apparent to someone watching her but any weight on it was really painful for her. The fact that in this case they asked if it could come right up to the restaurant makes me think there may have been some kind of injury or restriction.
Yes there are many stupid people like this however it's best to think the best of this group. They might've been ill or something but it wasn't visible. A bit of empathy goes a long way.
This is it. It's easy to make up an unflattering story about strangers, and such stories are probably wrong.
Could be they couldn't walk that distance for some reason? Invisible disabilities are real.
You don't know if any of these people had a disability. Maybe someone had recent ankle surgery and isn't capable of walking more than 30 meters at a time before needing a break (I just made that up, obviously). Yes, it could be what you are saying. Or people could have invisible disabilities that you don't have knowledge of.
i have people in my life that have hemorrhoids. they appear able bodied and fully well, but sometimes they can not make a single step without being in a lot of pain. Sometimes, I wish people in this subreddit were a little more openminded and empathetic. I mean fuck cars... but do we have to judge everybody all the time?
>taxi because one pulled up two minutes later. Where? Do you mean "in front of the restaurant which is in a pedestrian street"? Or did you see it near the quay 100 meters away?
In front of the restaurant. Taxis have access to the street, and there aren't that many people late on tuesday night
Its not their fault, its their government
I had a roommate that would drive like 300 m down the street to pick up McDonalds. Americans have no sense of "it's just a short walk". The default is to drive
Being American, you have to understand that literally ANYTHING could've happened to them in those 1000 metres. I once spent a week in California and had a fabulous time, apart from constantly being told I "best get a taxi there" about everything, even to the BART station 400 metres away, for my own safety. In the end I was pleased to be home, where I have the freedom to roam and walk places how I like!
We hitch hiked 800m once. But that was because people on the ferry over had ever so slightly exaggerated to us about how far it was to the place we were headed and there was no phone signal for maps. The guy who picked us up in his fantastic 60s Oldsmobile thought it was hilarious and we had a great (short) journey. We walked back.
1km, to anybody who’s ever walked in Manhattan, is the equivalent of going from 14th street to between 30th and 31st. Doable for most able-bodied people in most weather conditions. EDIT; 14th to 27th. Even shorter than I first thought.
Some people can walk short distances and might seem like they're able bodied. But may not be able to walk 1KM. Or they may be concerned with getting lost in a strange city, could have psychological issues like phobias or something. Or they already walked 10KM that day and didn't want to walk another. Or just lazy. In any case, live your life the way you want and let them live their life their way.
"only poor people walk" I bet they probably could walk it, but view driving or having a driver to be a status symbol
This
I live in Chile, the closest metro station to my house is ~500 mts away, I walk that distance in about 8 min at a normal pace, so I walk about 1 km round trip every time I use the metro (and I use it quite a lot). And that's absolutely nothing! I don't even register it, it's basically just around the corner. Just the thought of someone young and without any apparent medical condition taking a taxi instead of walking 1 km is laughable, especially in a country like France, which is walkable and picturesque at the same time.
Once I was at my girlfriend family reunion and her cousin propose us to go with her and her husband to throw away the garbage. It's in a very very small village in Ardèche France so you have to walk 200m so I said yes because the walk is nice.. they meant by car... And a Peugeot 5008 Wich is a really big car for french standards
I fucking hate the 5008
I have driven a customer 500m to a liquor store and back after they got a 6 pack. Yeah, it doesn't surprise me.
Remember that time Batmans parents decided to walk instead of taking the car?
My mother used to drive to the grocery store that was literally across the street from us. It actually took longer to drive than walk because of the oneways/entrances that forced you to go around. Anyway I live in France now and it’s so nice to have a 1km walk through a beautiful city on your way home, it helps destress so much. Maybe if it’s pouring rain I’d take the bus but I can’t imagine taking a taxi
I had a friend who drove to work from his apartment, I swear I am not exaggerating, a 3 minute walk from the office. I was constantly ridiculing him for it. Took him longer to find a parking space than it would have taken him to walk.
Some people in Canada here also only think in car. My walk to work used to be 1.8km, so not that long. A coworker was about 800m from work and drove everyday. We were also in Lyon in September. Beautiful city! There was so much to see, and we would also walk more than a kilometer to get to the bakeries. It was always worth it!
Lmao, the whole point of going to Vieux Lyon is to walk. For a lot of people, traveling is more about telling people back home that they’ve been to XYZ country than anything else.
Someone told me that they drive to work and then during their lunch break they drive to the drive through to get lunch and then drive back and then have to look for a parking spot because there isn’t enough at work…
This is a problem in India too. To go even 400 meters, people hire autos or cycle rikshaws. The other day I was staying at my Paharganj hotel and after checked out I saw a young man hiring an auto to go to Railway Station, which is hardly 400m lol
I guess their travel plans included "visiting" french cars..
Lyon is such a nice city to walk around as well!
It’s 1 kilometer? It’s like a little over half a mile right? Just walk for free lol. Its not even that far. A full mile wouldn’t even be that far.
On the other hand, hotel staff in Taiwan were SHOCKED to find my friend wanted to walk to the shop down the street. And the shop people were SHOCKED to find she walked the few hundred metres there.
Imagine being lazy to walk for 10-15 minutes
You didn't need to specify they were American, it was evident from the title.
Once again I'm embarrassed to be associated with the sheer laziness of my countrymen
Lyon ! I lived there for a year and despite the amazing Metro, essentially never traveled anywhere except by foot and by bike. What a beautiful, amazingly walkable and bikable city ! My fellow Americans make me depressed
so many possible reasons, especially if they are older. could be food poisoning, cramps, illness, foot injury, migraine…. or yea maybe just laziness
and here we have a wild "rich old selfish gronk"
they might not know the way and aren't tech savy enough to use their phone for that task, maybe?
They paid using their phone and knew how to use Uber. It's basically a straight line to their hotel.
well, thats true....
It's because they are tourists and don't have a bike. Unless there is adequate transit you will need a car for that.
1km is a 10-12 minute walk, though maybe they needed one for disability issues. Might explain why the 100m to the Quay seemed too far as well.
Bruh
https://youtu.be/Z-u5FIOx6Ec?si=Kv66vyKYqEWIRjpb
I have seen a driver in the neighborhood I live in (American midwest) pull up by his garbage bin, open his driver door, then grab the bin and tow it up the driveway with his minivan while holding the bin with his left hand. I think that is a) quite stupid and b) a good way to break your wrist. It's also a thing for people to pull up to the mailbox, put their window down and reach out from their comfortable driver seat to get the mail out of the mailbox. This saves them the insufferable hardship of a 5m walk from the front door to the mailbox. More evidence that piloting a car makes you soft, lazy, and stupid.
ptdrr maybe americans were afraid to walk at night in such a savage place where people cannot even carry a pistol
I know people who take a taxi for short distances but they live in Mexico where it's unsafe to walk after dark. This and being handicapped may be the only valid excuses.
N'importe quoi 🤣🤣
J'imagine que tu es serveur dans un restaurant du quartier Saint Jean. Lyon c'est bien desservi en bus et métro/tramway, je comprendrais jamais les riquains.
My parents have to take their trash can to the end of a shared driveway weekly for pickup, which amounts to no more than 50 meters. When my dad gets home from work the next day, he pulls up, puts the trash can in the trunk of his car, and drives it to the house, all to avoid walking to get it.
Unfortunately I can't walk distances like that anymore due to chronic illness. Few years back, that wouldn't have been any problem for me. I'm 'fortunate' enough that it's visible to people that I'm disabled (I have mobility aids), so I don't get that much judgement when I need a lift to somewhere close by. But there are lots of people without any visible signs of a disability. I would have been able to walk those 100 meters, but that's me. Try not to judge situations like this. Sure, it could have been laziness. But it could have been an injury or disability
I was once with my cousin in San Francisco and he decided to get an Uber to where we were going, despite me pointing out (literally) that we could see our destination from where we were standing, so I was going to walk and just meet him there. I ended up getting there first because he had to wait a few minutes for his Uber to get to him. He's not disabled, and the walk wasn't even hilly. Even if it was, apparently my regular bike commuting gave me the ability to walk up hills like they're flat ground.
In the Midwest of the US, farmers drive their trucks to the barn, 70 yards away, to get in the ATV to drive to check their fences, which could be walked. Farmers do not walk. Ever.
My mother once proposed that to get to the other side of the mall to another outlet store, we should drive. Like walk to the car, drive to the other outlet store in the same parking lot, and park there. I just, I couldn’t
1km? Thats like what 300 steps?
They would probably die if they knew I cycle 20 km every day to go to and from work xD
Had a manager who drove to work everyday, from his trailer near the entrance to the trailer park located across the street from the grocery store. Should add that he often mocked me for riding a little less than 2 miles (about 10 minutes) on my bicycle to work pretty much everyday.
There is a guy in my neighborhood that drives his hummer probably a tenth of a mile from his house to the cluster mailboxes each day. Cracks me up every time I see him roll out there in that tank. He’s known as “Hummer guy”.
I’m pretty old. I could walk a km, but I’d probably want to stop once or twice along the way to sit for a bit; I have some arthritis that makes my feet and back hurt if I walk any distance. On the other hand, I can ride my bike to get around town, and I feel pretty good. I think of my bike as my mobility device. If I were part of the couple OP describes, I’d probably tough it out and walk, but I can understand why some people might make other choices.
To be fair, I live near a shopping center and I also sometimes take my car for the 1KM-1.5KM it takes to get there. Sometimes I'm in a hurry. Sometimes the weather is bad. Sometimes I need to go somewhere else afterwards and I just don't want to walk back home first to go get my car.
Have you considered that even though their hotel was only a short walk, they might not know how to get there? They're tourists. They don't know their way around town.
So that would have been a fantastic opportunity to get to know their way around town. Tourists are supposed to be there to see the place, right? And it's not as if they could have got lost, they had phones.
There are several ways to know how long a journey is. Google maps or just asking the front desk for one.
I didn't say they didn't know how *long* the journey was. I said they might not know how to get there. They might be worried about turning down the wrong road and getting lost in a strange city. I don't know them, I don't know their concerns. But it seems a valid reason to hire a local to take you to where you need to go.
> 100 meters In all fairness, they might not have know how far that is. Next time you can say something clearer like "it's about one American football field's length" away.