What can you get to within a 15-minute walk of your house?
A recent YouGov survey asked Americans what they think they should be able to get to within a 15-minute walk of their house.
Of these choices, I can currently walk to all of them from my apartment, aside from a university (no biggie, I’m not currently studying, although there is a Tafe within walking distance), a hospital, and a sports arena.
How many can you get to with a 15 minute walk from your house?
#fuckcars #walkability #urbanism #UrbanPlanning @fuck_cars #walking
@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars Everything except a university. We don’t have one in my town. And the sports stadium is either a football (AFL) field, or a horse trots course. And there really aren’t any busses except for the school busses. I do like country town living <3
@Jakra @fuck_cars Very good point.
I took “sports arena” to mean a stadium where professional sports are played. (So the MCG/SCG/Adelaide Oval/Optus Stadium/Gabba/Olympic Park/etc.)
If you mean local community cricket/Aussie rules/soccer/rugby ground then there’s one within walking distance of my house.
@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars can reach all of them, although depends on what is considered a “sport arena”. I’m shocked not to see a “church” as list option, though 🇻🇦
I live in a city of 1/2 million and have not even one of these within a 15-minute walk. Some, I could not care less such as bars, but a grocery store, gym, and park would be nice.
@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars All except a Uni.
Shopping Mall? Well, not really, but yes to local shopping strip (5 minutes), Fitzroy St, St Kilda and Clarendon St, South Melbourne (10 Minutes) both covering all shopping needs.
Brisk 20 minutes would get me to the closest CBD campus of a Uni.
And three minutes walk to two tram lines.
Kids walked or public transported to school.
I rode or public transported to work (or taxi and flew because it was in another state or country).
One car family - have never been really able to give up a car, entirely, but never needed two.
Everything where I live (Austrian city), except for the hospital. That would be 20min.
Replace the walking with bicycling and that would be everything (the Netherlands, so cycling is the default mode of transportation), except the mall, we don’t do malls.
Replace walking with bicycling and you get the entire Oslo within 30 minutes distance. Just don’t stop anywhere or your bike will probably get sabotaged.
I do not understand why you would want to walk to a gas station.
Snacks
Tbf, 24/7 kiosks are even better than that
Wouldn’t a grocery store cover that use case?
Grocery stores typically have normal working hours. Petrol stations could be thought of to work 24 hours. Also ducking into a small kiosk for a snack is less of a hassle than a grocery store.
Who doesn’t run out of gas in your own home, every now and again?
Most gas stations here have convenience stores attached and they’re typically 24 hr. It’s a common gathering place for night owls and degens lol. I’ve spent a lot of time at gas stations just hanging out with friends or the cashier after getting off work at 3am. Drink a couple tall boys, chain smoke, shoot the shit and unwind a bit before heading home. It’s nice
Makes you wonder how many people actually understood the question.
Also, you have to realize the obesity problem isn’t just a function of our diet, many people can’t imagine walking fifteen minutes no matter what.
Everyone answering that they understand it to mean “convenience store” is missing out on standalone convenience stores….
But what about a “garage”, that traditionally used to be at gas stations as well. I find it very convenient that when my car needs servicing, I can drop it off and walk home. Yes, I also need a car and that shouldn’t contradict walkability
@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars No cinema @ 15 minutes and only a couple of medical centres (no full hospital), but everything else is right here.
@muiiio @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars no university, no sports arena but everything else less than 15 minutes,
oh and international airport in 1 h train ride
@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars One thing you can get within a 15 minute walk of some US homes is arrested!
(My grandma went for a walk in a Miami suburb. The locals thought that someone walking (rather than driving) was obviously suspicious so they called the cops. Because my grandma was white and female and elderly, rather than black and male and young, they stopped to talk to her rather than just shooting her. They then spent several minutes trying to get her to admit that she was walking because her car had broken down - they just couldn’t get it through their heads that she was walking because she wanted to walk.)
@TimWardCam @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars curious you say that, a group of friends went on a business trip to Texas and decided to go for a walk on the neighborhood just to be followed by police soon afterwards.
@Zugumba @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars On my one trip to Texas my host said we were going out to dinner. So at the hotel we got into a car, were driven out of the hotel car park, up the ramp onto the motorway, along for one junction, down the ramp, and into the restaurant car park.
And when I looked around I could see that the hotel was in fact next door. Each was surrounded by a vast nearly empty car par. We could have walked from one to the other … except of course there was an impenetrable fence between the two car parks. 'cos nobody would want to walk, would they, when they could drive, so why leave a gap in the fence?
And then … there were all sorts of weird hoops to jump through before we were allowed to buy alcohol to go with our dinner. Of course if we’d been able to walk from the hotel we could have drunk as much as we liked without worrying about being sober enough to drive back.
They saw an elderly woman walking on the street, and they didn’t shoot her on sight?
I hope those officers were fired on the spot for not following standard protocol!
I used to live in South Carolina and recently moved to Chicago. Despite there being many more police in Chicago, I’ve actually had less of a feeling of police anxiety because I don’t drive here. The cops are on the roads pulling cars over. They aren’t in alleys and side streets following pedestrians (at the same rates, anyways). If walking and cycling are normal and built for, police are less of a problem, imo.
@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars
Why should I *walk* to a *gas station*?As someone else said: snacks.
If you have a 24/7 kiosk in your area, that’s even better though.
@flying_sheep A gas station is selling petrol, diesel and oil, sometimes hydrogen, LPG or electricity charging. For all these, you need a vehicle.
If one means snacks oder drinks, one should write down “kiosk”, “grocery shop” or “elementary store”.Almost every gas station is attached to some type of store, mostly convenience stores, which usually have a modest selection of quick snacks, drinks, beer, sometimes basic groceries and hot meals too. When I hear “Kiosk” I think one of those touch screens that fast food restaurants use for ordering in place of human cashiers. I guess it’s also the name of the small booths in malls (and could conceivably exist stand-alone) but I couldn’t imagine them selling anything more than e.g. magazines and hot dogs. Aka far less variety than a gas station convenience store.
Oh and “grocery shop” sounds too much like “grocery store” (aka larger and less convenient), and I’ve never heard the term “elementary store” before (sounds too much like “elementary school” — is it a place for 5th graders to shop?)
@knexcar I know the reality, but I think it is the other way round: The stores are attached to the gas station, otherwise they wouldn’t exist.
When have you walked to a gas station for buying petrol products the last time?
The discussion about the type of name of additional businesses of gas stations is not the point. It is about what you *need* and what type of business depending on your needs you would walk to.
It’s generally called a “convenience store” whether or not it’s on a gas station.
It’s a dying type of business in Europe, but they still thrive in big cities. I wish we had Japanese style convenience stores here.
Mid-sized village (around 10k inhabitants) in Germany:
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4 grocery stores
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2 pharmacies
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Bus stop (and train station)
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5 or so restaurants
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Post office
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Bank
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Gas station
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Elementary school
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2 Kindergartens
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2 barber shops
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Bar
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Sports field (calling it an arena would be a bit much)
Alas, no university or hospital, but I think for a village it’s pretty good.
I moved to a tiny village (1.2k inhabitants) at the outskirts of the Paris metro. We got:
- 1 supermarket that also doubles as a post office
- 1 bakery
- 1 pastry chef
- 1 pizzeria
- 1 fancier restaurant
- 1 pharmacy
- 1 kindergarten (mandatory school for 3-6yo) and 1 primary school (for 6-10yo)
- about 20 child-minders for the 0-3yo with working parents
- 1 tennis, basket, football field
- 1 gym for indoor tennis
- 1 public library
- 1 train station next town with direct trains to Paris in 40min
- 6 bus stops along the Main Street with one line going to the train station
- a church that only opens once a year for a concert of Christmas carols
- 1 castle
- we are next to a river so we got a ton of public paths along it where we jog, bike or just walk as well as a water reserve thing for animals where we go hiking
Considering the size of the village and how many people live there, I’d say we’re pretty good on the 15 minutes thing.
I have a lot of these here in the US, even an interesting house called a “castle”, but have no idea to where there might be a bakery or pastries, depending. Grocery has a lot of baked goods, and places like Starbucks has pastries. Do those count?
My experience with Starbucks here in Europe is that it’s industrialized processed shit. Tastes good every once in a while but isn’t really healthy nor are the ingredients ok. On the other hand, in France, even the smallest supermarket has its own baker and pastry chefs who do daily fresh loafs of bread and baguettes / tradition and pastry. I like American bread that you get in your stores but consider it more of a cake as it’s quite sugary. Like slap some salted butter and jam on top of it, an espresso shot on the side and you’re set for a nice breakfast unless you’re diabetic.
This feels like the type of thing open street maps could provide a service for where you put in your postcode and it returns the services within a 15 mins walk.
Osmand does that, search or tap a PoI and it lists similiar in the area, nearest first.
I assume you mean point of interest?
I don’t see this option in the web based version, also, “similar in the area” != within 15 mins walk.
From where I live in my small Swedish town (about 8k inhabitants), so pretty much the whole town
2 grocery stores
2 convenience stores
2 bus stops (5 lines)
At least 10 resturants including a burger joint, a thai and a chinese. Most pizza places though
1 hardware/home appliance store
1 hardware/gardening store
2 home appliance stores
3 clothing stores, of which one for babies and one for sports
4 (?) Hairdresser
2 pharmacies
3 second hand stores
3 gyms, one of which at the sport centre
A sport centre with swimming hall, general sport hall, bowling alleys, gym and fields for outdoor sports
Two large schools and a couple of daycares
Church
2 graveyards
Police station
Municipal services
2 Opticians
1 library
Think that may be it
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I have all except the hospital and university are about 10 mins drive. My bank is about the same, but I haven’t walked into a bank for about a decade. I live in a city that’s had a focus on modern design, though. The result is everything is a walk away. Super boring. I get in the car and head to the mountains every chance I can get so I can feel like I’m not in a retirement village and still have some sort of constitution. Ya know, in case of the zombies.
I have all of this in a 15 minute walk of my apartment. The key thing, if people would like all of this very close by is they will need many fold more apartment buildings.
That’s the thing people aren’t willing to accept in the US.
Also who tf really needs the post office that close by, these days? Makes me think this was an older crowd that was polled.
I’ve had packages that went to the post office instead of my apartment, and I had to go pick them up. Having it nearby worked out better.
Same for all of these except a movie theater and that post office.
I work irregular hours so I have any online orders delivered to pickup points I can go grab them from at my convenience.
Post offices in my area have been closing down, and having to walk further and further to my “local” office when picking up parcels has been infuriating over the last few years.
Yes, the automated ones are showing up in local grocers and it has helped, but having to go pick up several kilos of cat litter from the other side of town instead of next door when the delivery gets re-routed due to the pickup machine being full, is not nice.
It doesn’t have to be high rise apartments though. Duplexes, quadplexes, small apartment buildings, row houses, and so on can increase density without huge buildings (although I don’t mind them personally).
@vividspecter @wolfpack86 Even three or four stories of apartments above the shops, instead of… Just a roof.
Disappointingly I only have the grocery store within that distance, and it’s a Walmart with no sidewalk for a stretch of that walk… But back to that list… Why would you need a gas station within walking distance? Am I walking with my car Flintstones style?
Most gas stations come with convenience stores, and I’d imagine people would want to walk there to get quick snacks, munchies, and beer. Some (like Wawa and Kwik Trip) can be surprisingly nice, even featuring hot meals, free ATMs, and basic groceries.
I know they could have specified “convenience store” but most people’s experience with convenience stores is at gas stations, and it seems like a lot of the ones without gas stations are sketchy/alcohol-focused, or are ethnic stores with weird groceries.
Prices too. In my (limited) experience in the US, petrol stations charge a bit more for groceries than supermarkets, but convenience stores are significantly more.
Why are bars so low? Do Americans like having to use a car when drinking?
The website has a British version that doesn’t include bar/pub as a choice at all. Does include liquor store, though. Thought that was odd
Some things go without saying.
Why would you need to ask if a pub should be in a 15 minute city. Its like asking should a house be in a 15 minute city? Should electricity be in a 15 minute city?
I’d wager not a single example of a 15-minute city exists or has ever existed throughout all history without a bar in range.
Maybe they want to drink at home
If you ever drive through rural America, you’ll usually at least see one or two crosses, often on telephone poles, on rural roads. People, often teenagers, die pretty regularly in rural America because of drunk driving.
Some people like it. Some people are just numb to it. It’s just insane to expect people not to when bars are the only social space in a lot of these towns, and those bars are not accessible by anything but car. There is no such thing as a taxi for most of the US (space wise, not population wise).
This stuck out to me too. This is one of my top items for a 15 min. city, not because I visit bars frequently, but because when I do visit, or when my neighbors visit, I’d like it to be a car-free trip.
Probably don’t want to live near drunks, or the piss and vomit that exists after a weekend.
Living near one, I don’t have these issues
That and the noise, bars can be pretty loud
Tbf we’re talking about within a 15 minute walk, not inside your building. There’s a bar 5 minutes away from me and I can’t hear the noise there unless I’m literally standing next to it.
Same, I have a bar a few lots from mine, and it only gets bad a few weekends a year.
I have neighbors that blast music while having super smoky fires and getting piss drunk, though. They are much much worse than the bar. Hands down. Because I can’t have windows open about half the time without my house smelling like smoke (a smell that gives me migraines).
That was the one that stood out to me, too (especially the dichotomy between “bars” and “restaurants”). It maybe explains a lot if NIMBYs are actually just moralizing puritans being dishonest about their motives.
Apparently it’s important that they can walk to a petrol station though.
I live maybe 10 minutes walk from a gas station, it’s the size of a small grocery store, it has lot of staple groceries and a mini restaurant in it that makes pizzas, sub sandwiches, coffees, ice cream, and a full breakfast menu. Plus donuts every morning. Our gas stations often take the place of 2/3 businesses rolled into one.
I live by a QT for those Americans familiar with STL’s favorite gas station
American here, the gas station is our version of the local corner store. Most places you have to drive to get to it but where I live there is one right at the entrance to the neighborhood and lots of adults/kids do walk there. I would sorely miss it if it was gone.
I agree with this, but also want to point out that gas stations are a poor substitute for a corner grocer or bodega. They are simply too large and require too much land for the function they are serving. Zoning rightfully mandates that they can’t be on the bottom floor of a larger building due to the dangers posed by gasoline and they require lots of space for cars to park.
Essentially, we have forfeited a lot of valuable space to dispensing gasoline and significantly diminished the best features of corner stores by making them serve both functions. I would be curious to see what would happen if gas stations were forbidden from serving anything other than gas in high density areas. I would assume there would be much fewer of them, and each one would be optimized for efficiency to take up as little space as possible. We would also likely see the reemergence of neighborhood bodegas and corner grocers to fill the gap.
Gas station is a somewhat colloquial form of bodega/corner store in the US. Often corner stores without gas stations will still be referred to as gas stations. Sometimes they’re also called convenience stores.
Yeah I know of a few 7-elevens that are just the store, no gas, but would still be thought of as a “gas station”.
Wait really? I’m from a big city and I’ve never heard “gas station” refer to a place that didn’t sell gas at all. Huh, TIL
@Vash63 @ajsadauskas they drink piss-weak beer and if you have more than two somebody will accuse you of being an alcoholic
Lol, local breweries have completely saturated the American market. I barely know anyone that drinks traditional retail beers anymore outside of sports and/or music venues where outside drinks aren’t allowed.
@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars I’m in Toronto’s Danforth area, so basically everything except a professional sports arena is within 5-20 mins walk.
The framing of that poll has such a sinister American conspiracy theorist edge: “if your local government decided…” — like having these things nearby can only be forced upon you and you must fight back.
@c_9 @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars a lot of these polls have a conservative subtext to the question.
Interesting poll. Did you notice ‘gas station’ hiding in there?
That’s irrelevant if you’re walking, and also irrelevant if you’re driving - so, a red herring. The only time you go to a gas station is when you’re driving and your need gas.
@c_9 @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars The nots are puzzling. Folk don’t want a grocery store within walking distance?
@CStamp @c_9 @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars many people envision grocery shopping as too big to manage without a car. They are buying large quantities to take advantage of sales or bulk discounts.
@ocursedspite @CStamp @c_9 @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars and then throwing out 40% of the food when it rots before they can eat it
@itsshevee @ocursedspite @c_9 @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars Who throws out 40% of their food? It’s way too expensive these days. The food folk buy in bulk isn’t perishables, it’s stuff for freezers and pantries.
@CStamp @ocursedspite @c_9 @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars it’s not a hard and fast rule and maybe it doesn’t apply to you personally (I don’t think I throw out that much food either and I try really hard not to), but yes, Americans waste a ton of our food supply by just throwing it in the garbage. https://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-why-americans-throw-out-165-billion-in-food-every-year-2016-07-22
@itsshevee @ocursedspite @c_9 @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars No mention of how they are collecting their data. Stores throw out too much, which is a huge problem, but I’d have a hard time believing that 80% of people are throwing out 40% of their food. “Over 80% of Americans may be prematurely tossing food because they misinterpret expiration dates”: MAY is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.
@CStamp @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars Most charitably, they don’t think food security without a car should be legislated. Less charitably, they want to ensure the car-less never live near them.
@c_9 @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars It would be interesting to see a poll like that broken down by income. I don’t think that average folk think that much about it, but remembering that folk in Marin County opposed a Bart train expansion out their way because they didn’t want the riffraff moving in, you are probably onto something with your latter point.
@CStamp @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars Also very important to remember that “riffraff” is almost exclusively a racist definition for these situations. It adds more depth to all these situations and the solutions. Every story of bad planning is about keeping Black folk, Indigenous folk, or basically anyone not sufficiently white, out of [insert neighbourhood name here]. Class and income come into play too, but always subservient to race.
@CStamp @c_9 @fuck_cars It would also be interesting to see a regional and a rural/inner urban/suburban breakdown as well.
I suspect the numbers might be very different between, say, someone who lives in the heart of Brooklyn vs a rural town in Idaho (where everything in town is or could be a 15-minute walk) vs a suburb of Dallas or Atlanta.
@ajsadauskas @CStamp @c_9 @fuck_cars I live next door to a single woman who is solidly middle class, lives within 5 walking-minutes of a grocery store and restaurants. She never EVER walks, preferring instead to fire up her oversized, gas guzzling, Cadillac Escalade (to drive 60 seconds).
Why?
Because America. 🤦🏼🤦🏼🤦🏼
@CStamp @c_9 @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars Bus stop is weirder. Do they want to drive to one?
@seanddotmedotuk @CStamp @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars Easy: “the people who use bus stops are not welcome in my neighbourhood.”
@c_9 @CStamp @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars Thankfully, I don’t think people here have reached that state of mind. Lots of people would never get on a bus themselves, but I think there’s a general feeling that they are a good thing, just not good enough to actually use.
@seanddotmedotuk A big thing with buses: how long does it take with a bus vs how long by car? If it’s a 2-3Xs diff, well, if you have a car, you’ll use the car. @c_9 @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars
@CStamp @c_9 @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars Yes, I know, for my commute, it is quicker to walk than to take the bus!
However adding bus lanes, banning cars from city centres etc could make the times closer.
@seanddotmedotuk Depends. Some cities are big and sprawling and not everyone works in city centres. @c_9 @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars
@CStamp @seanddotmedotuk @c_9 @ajsadauskas @fuck_cars measuring travel time should include parking at both ends of the trip when driving. And the level of concentration required to drive is more stressful – I would rather be able to read or knit or something (if the distance is not walkable) than have to pay attention to the road.
