Do you actually walk just as much, if not more, in a sprawling suburb than in a transit-oriented big city? (market, subway)
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As someone that has spent most of my life in NYC but also has lived a few years in the burbs: Not a chance.
You have to understand 2 main things:
1. 99% of the time the distance between your destination and the subway station will be greater than the distance than from the car in a suburban parking lot. Sure, there are times in NYC for example where a store, mall, or even residential building will have a direct entrance to the subway and you won’t have to go outside at all, but this is not the norm.
2. People in urban cities don’t use a subway/metro in the same exact way that American suburbanites use their cars. Let me try to explain — We don’t use the subway every single time we need to go anywhere. Walking is the primary mode of transport. The subway is used to travel generally large distances from one general area to another. Not necessarily one specific place to another.
So for example if I’m at work and I’m going to get something to eat for my lunch break, I’m not going to take the subway and go somewhere far away for lunch. That would be unnecessary. I’m simply just going to walk somewhere.
Same deal if I’m home and I want to go food shopping or to get something for the house. I don’t take the subway to go to the bodega, grocery store, or drug store — I just walk!
Let’s say I decide to go shopping. I’m most likely going to be walking from store to store not getting on the subway each time I want to check out a new place. Which brings me to another point:
As ILoveLondon said, we typically don’t go to single-stop stores like Walmart and Costco where you have everything under one roof (actually Walmart is banned from NYC — thank God, lol). Specialist stores are more common (and usually much higher quality too).
Another thing is that often times people will make the decision to walk instead of using the subway. Let’s say my destination is only 2 subway stops away from my start point. More than likely I’d rather just walk that distance since sometimes I don’t even think it’s worth it to get on the train for 1-2 stops. And depending on the area, the walk can be very enjoyable and interesting.
Another example of this are transfers. Using a real life personal example: I live one stop away from a major transfer point on 2 different subway lines — by the G train, one stop away from where the L train meets with it and offers a free transfer. If I’m heading home on the L train I have the option of transferring at this station to the G train to take it 1 stop, or I can just walk straight from the L. Unless I’m carrying a lot of stuff and/or the weather is really nasty, I usually just choose to walk the distance.
Generally speaking, a subway isn’t often used to travel within a single neighborhood or even between close by neighborhoods, but more for traveling to completely different areas of the city.
I could go on and on. Bottom line is, with the American suburban penchant for huge parking lots--from strip malls to schools to hospitals to stadiums--you're going to have to walk across these huge parking lots before you get to your destination, unlike the average European or Asian, who takes the subway, rides the escalator/elevator, and plops right into his destination with minimal walking, because everything's just so close to a subway stop over in his city.
Not so.
In Sprawlsville, you drive around the parking lot. There are plenty of people who circle a parking lot until a spot opens up right near the building entrance. There are plenty of people who also will drive from one store in a mall to another, rather than walk through the mall.
In Dense City, there may be a ton of subway stations, but there's still a lot of walking. Either the subway line you need to get to isn't nearby or the one nearby doesn't go where you want to go. Try getting from the Upper East Side of NYC to the Upper West Side: there's no subway that does that. Try getting from the far east of Manhattan to a subway; it's some long blocks (from York Avenue to Lexington is at least half a mile).
And you think that all of the fat people in the Sunbelt walk a lot?
What will you do when you become a geezer and walking is a hardship?
Driving becomes a hardship when you get older too, not to mention a potentially huge safety hazard as well. Getting older sucks no matter where you live.
I lived in Paris for two years and now live in Texas. Just confirming what others have said - You walk a lot more in a city. You have everything you need within a half-mile or so of your metro station, so you walk to run errands, go shopping, meet friends, etc. I lived within a block of a metro station, but my commute involved several transfers. Often I would get off halfway through the trip and walk a mile or two home just because it was beautiful and I could explore a neighborhood or stop somewhere for dinner. Now I'm a prisoner to my car and I trudge across sweltering asphalt parking lots. Sad.
What will you do when you become a geezer and walking is a hardship?
Quote:
Originally Posted by llowllevellowll
What will you do when you become a geezer and driving is a hardship?
Father Time is undefeated and no matter what you're doing when you're young, you'll have to make adjustments when you're old but I don't think that means I'm going to stop living now just because I'll have to slow down later.
^^Bingo^^
You do the same thing Geezers everywhere do, adapt one way or another.
I've never lived anywhere like Tokyo or London. But compared to denser US Cities, my sunbelt Suburb (Raleigh) isn't walkable because it isn't designed to be walkable. I could gladly walk to a handful of restaurants but no sidewalks, busy streets, etc, make it less attractive.
I moved from a suburban car-centric community to a more walkable urban one and have lost about 12 pounds in two months from all the walking. Even a trip to the restaurant is now a walking event. My DW now walks to the bus stop for a short bus ride to work versus nearly an hour in the car each way in bumper to bumper traffic before we moved. Sometimes the cars don't move all week. I wish I made the move sooner!
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