[discussion] This is what walkability means for me
[discussion] This is what walkability means for me
Living in a walkable city means my weekly shop is a few hours of walking or biking instead of being stuck in traffic, and I'm only mildly tired afterwards since I use a bike with pretty large pannier bags. Since I have no car related costs I can afford more fresh food, a healthier diet, and I can afford to be more choosy about the ethics of what I buy. There's a twice weekly farmers market about a ten minute walk away, and quiet walks through parks to get to the shops. Living somewhere with car centric infrastructure, as I used to, this lifestyle was far less feasible.
Have your experiences been different with moving to walkable/bikeable cities? Any questions or points to be made? I'm not very up on the theory side of city planning, but my experiences line up with the whole "fuck cars" thing.
One of the best things about living in a walkable place is that the concept of a weekly shop is basically dead - access to grocery shopping is available enough that I can go as many or as few times to shop as is warranted.
Granted, this usually adds up to once a week or less, but yeah. Big benefit.
This is an important concept to be imparted on those who do not understand the benefits of walkable places - a frequent question is how they can manage to complete their weekly shop without a car, since the car is in their mind needed to transport enough groceries to last the entire week. This is of course necessitated by the fact that their ideal location to shop for groceries is a significant distance away that can only be completed in a practical manner by car.
With where I live, this is unwarranted because I have access to convenient grocery shopping about 200 meters away by foot, and for ideal pricing I go 1 km away on a bike with storage on the rack. I do not want for variety either, I've got multiple speciality shops and 5 different grocery chains within a 1 km radius.
I'd love to break up the shop into more frequent, smaller trips and I could, but for my work and parenting duties during the week it's just easier to do it all in one go.
is a few hours of walking
Hmmm, I dont think people want to walk for hours to complete a grocery shopping trip? Walkable means you’re done in 20mins max, that’s a reasonable standard given what some urban areas already have.
I double checked the stats. It was more like 1.5 hours total walking over 2 miles, though I was out and about four 3 hours. I wanted to go to a bigger shop outside the city centre and the farmer's market in town, had to stop at home to empty the cart. If I was less choosy I could do it in 20, but the shop near me is a little depressing.
Fucking hell… I’ll walk all day for fun but I HATE grocery shopping, I’m not walking an hour each way and carrying shit… I’m so lucky to have a little bodega about three minutes away from me, where I can pick up a bunch of dope stuff. But actual grocery shopping? I noticed the community I’m commenting it (I only browse /all/) but I’m driving a few minutes, not hauling all that back over a 30+ minute walk.
I can walk endlessly in dirt trails, even mid to advanced hiking trails while hauling shit in a huge backpack, but the moment I touch pavement I can only manage a couple minutes.
I assumed they meant the travel walk was probably within that time then they spent the other hours walking around the shops/market stalls etc. Which is pretty standard where I live! We're not a "walkable city" but we get the bus into town and then spend a few hours walking about buying stuff before getting the bus back. Like OP its doable by bike too, both methods work depending how lazy you're feeling and how many shops you want to go in.
I'm most interested in the Dinosaur Quiz.
I got you fam
Glad you post here using ASCII and not handwriting - but keep up the practice!! 🦖✍️
Damn I got like maybe 1 or 2 :(
The answer no8 isn't dragons. Just inject some light racism quiz.
why are cucumbers wrapped in plastic? WHY ARE THEY WRAPPED IN PLASTIC?
Cucumbers stay much longer fresh when tightly wrapped in plastics.
Edit: No need to downvote. I don't like that either.
I dunno man, they literally aren't sold any other way in this whole country AFAIK. It was the same in the states, the only ones they sell out of plastic are the gross ones with thick skin
The cukes in Canada are individually shrink wrapped like this and then 3 off them are bundled together in even more plastic to be sold as a set for $5+
I also don't get why people try to force rubber on my cuke
A grocery store I frequent has 4 cobs of corn, lightly trimmed as to see the kernals. And they're packaged like a steak. 🤦♂️
Not that you posted to be judged on your weekly shop, but given you're on this sub and interested in social issues, thought you might want to know that brewdog are kinda arseholes to their staff:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/jun/10/brewdog-staff-craft-beer-firm-letter
Also, their beer is terrible.
I'm discovering this. And yeah, I was out of the loop. I think I'd better just go back to making my own. At least then when I drink bad beer I'm technically learning something.
Immediately the first thing I noticed too. I also work at a brewery and the fallout from brew dog sent shockwaves through many breweries.
A few hours!? I live in a walkable city and the nearest store is 3-4 minutes and 3 others within 20 minutes.
A few… hours?
I assume it's cumulative, not a few hours every time. But I'm not sure.
Today was closer to 2.5 because I went to a slightly out of the way shop. Pretty comparable to how long I'd spend on a trip to Costco, once upon a time. I could go faster if I was more organized/wasn't being lazy.
So counting the shopping time? Not bad
Did you drink half of the hot sauce on the way home?
Got thirsty on the trip home and drank a third of the Sriracha and most of the soy sauce? We've all been there
I live in NYC. It's pretty great.
I can walk a couple minutes to some bodegas. A couple more minutes to some small groceries. Looking at the map, there's a couple supermarkets I forgot existed within 15 minutes of walking, in addition to the two I usually go to. There's also other useful stuff like pharmacies, hardware stores, libraries, and so on. This isn't a fancy or especially expensive neighborhood.
I have a hand cart for when I want to buy something heavy.
I haven't had a car for like 15 years. I have no regrets. None of the "But what if it rains??" fears have ever been a problem. I can only remember twice in 15 years I needed to borrow someone's car to move stuff.
I feel like NYC is playing this game in easy mode. There are definitely many other places in the US where being carless is possible, but nowhere else with as many options
Ever since I first lived in the city center during nursing school I always make it a priority to live somewhere walkable with public transport. But I do sacrifice apartment space for it.
Right now I have several supermarkets (including Aldi) and a tram stop in my immediate walking distance. I do all my shopping by foot and I guess I would have to go twice for that amount OP carried home on their bike.
But I have to say, that I mostly drink tap water (+Tea/Koffee) which is very good quality at my location. If I had to carry crates of water and other beverages it would be much harder. Not everyone has that choice unfortunately.
@norimee @Gradually_Adjusting Another problem of the politics of austerity and obsession with low taxes at any cost. We’ve defunded water infrastructure almost as much as we’ve defunded public transit. There’s no excuse for a wealthy society to create an environment where many of its residents don’t feel safe drinking tap water and access to any tap water in major cities is periodically cut off by 100 year old pipes predictably breaking.
That’s one thing I missed when I lived within easy walk of a grocery. I’d generally drive, just for carrying the drinks. I noticed people taking taxis, but that didn’t seem useful ….. until many years later when I got hit by the obvious that I could have walked one way and taken a taxi back. This was before cargo bikes
I can’t even imagine. Where I grew up, the closest gas station was a 10 minute drive. No way were you walking anywhere to buy some thing.
Look at Richie Rich over here, able to afford groceries and a city apartment.
Groceries are very affordable in the UK if you're buying simple ingredients like this. Those Italian hard cheeses and the 2 kg of chicken are the most expensive things, probably 3£ and change each, the rest of those items are like 1-2£ each. This is most of a week's food for like 40£.
Your grocery store sells just loose Pokémon cards? The ones around here have people fist fighting for them.
A few hours for your weekly shopping??? Bruh, you are throwing your life away
I'm blessed with a recently priced grocery store within 1-2 minutes walking (less than 200m/ 0.1mile). I have some nice large reusable bags, so no car needed for daily stuff.
However, due to this, I also shop there every single day instead of making weekly trips. In weekly totals I still spend 10-20 minutes transport and probably a lot more spontaneous purchases than I would from just one weekly trip.
Whenever we do plan weekly shopping, we usually use the car to go elsewhere because one shop doesn't have all the things.
However, I recently found an app that can plan the cooking recipes based on this one store, so I could potentially use a handcart and get everything in one walk. I haven't done this yet though.
There's a balance to be struck between freshness and structure for sure.
Are there cities that aren't walkable? I assume that you can do this in any city because there's shops everywhere.
Loads of American cities are designed around car dependency. I've been lucky enough to have dual citizenship in the UK, and even a commuter town here has incredibly higher walkability standards.
Walkable as is in "enjoyably" walkable. Walking across a Walmart parking lot across a 6 lane road, and then to across another large carpark of nothingness to maybe a bus stop, all the while trying to not get hit by a car is not a classification of a walkable city.
Worth a watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REni8Oi1QJQ
I’d argue very few cities in the US are really walkable. Maybe there’s a small area that can be walked but doesn’t provide all your needs. Most cities in the US lack the mix use urban areas that allow for comfortable high density urban living found in other countries.
The quickie answer is most cities developed under increasingly strict zoning regulation that boils down to "housing goes over HERE, business goes over THERE, and don't you DARE let them touch!"
EDIT: Also "don't you even think about putting a bus stop near my new homes that's for poor people!"
It's subjective.
If you live within 10 minutes walk of a supermarket then this is achievable for you.
OP seems to be somewhere where trips are more enjoyable and there's more variety close by.
I'm coming over for dinner!
How'd you carry all that home?
I use a bike with pretty large pannier bags
Begs to question why it takes hours.
I've been doing all my transportation by cycling for years. Grocery shopping is a fairly quick trip.
I missed that! Thanks
I have two baskets and saddlebags on my bike and this shit would easily fit.
This looks like it can be easily handled by one of those cloth grocery carts, or a couple of reuseable bags and a backpack for the beer/some of the dried goods.
I lived in NYC for a while and I never got a cart, but I would go to the store pretty much every day and get smaller loads, like one or two bags. But watermelons always harshed my mellow.
Y'all really eat like this?
I’m 5’10”, 200 lbs with 15% body fat and so not a particularly thin guy. I’m primarily a vegetarian/occasional pescatarian. My cholesterol/blood pressure numbers were terrible until I started eating this diet. You don’t need to eat meat (especially sausage) in 2024. Take a supplement for B6 if you’re concerned about it.
People eat different things. It’s fine and probably better for you than what you seem to think is good.
