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dettu
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« Reply #15 on: September 14, 2005, 09:30:04 pm » |
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I would like to be able to walk or bike everywhere. I read yesterday that most car trips are under 6 miles--"within easy walking or biking distance." Well, yes, if you have all the time in the world, but a six-mile walk isn't a quick thing, and if it's six miles EACH WAY? A 12-mile RT bicycle trip, yes, but carrying three bags of groceries? How practical is it?
I have a supermarket within a 20-minute walk. It's overpriced and has bad produce, but I do walk down there if I run out of something during the week. There's a drugstore in the same complex, and I walk there. Our nearest library branch is 20 minutes the other way; I walk there once a week, often with my son. But if I need to go to the drugstore and the library in the same evening? That's 80 minutes of walking, not counting the time spent inside each place--I don't know about everyone else here, but I just don't have 80 extra minutes most days. I'd love to live somewhere less inconvenient!
Five miles to work, five miles the other direction to my son's school--no way could any of us walk or even ride a bike through the busy, dangerous traffic on multi-lane highways to get to those destinations. And think of it--we rejected moving to the San Diego area because our commutes would have been too long!
I live in the northern US, and between November and March, any kind of walking is iffy. People don't shovel their sidewalks, or they do but melting and refreezing makes walking a heck of a hazard.
This bothers me. I want to do better, but I can't...
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