Do you have kids?

Are you affluent and lucky enough to live near their school?

https://www.greencarcongress.com/2019/07/20190730-school.htm...

Yes, kids. Not affluent. Lucky enough to live in a place where they assign you a nearby school. There are 5 within walking distance. Maybe 20 within cycling distance (and I mean a 20-minute ride, not a 1-hour backbreaker).

By that link, half the kids that live a mile from school are driven in a private car.

That’s bonkers to me. That’s a completely walkable distance if road/sidewalk design allows it. That it frequently doesn’t is a failure on the part of our governments and urban planners.

Not only is it doable, with the obesity & depression rates in most of the United States it could be massively beneficial from a number of fronts.

You're probably dealing with the kind of citizen that waits 2 minutes to park in front of the store... when there's several free spots just 10 metres away. Can't park close enough!

Also, wonder what 'other' is in that chart.

We live 20 minutes' walk from our kids' two schools. They walk. The majority of our neighbours do not. I agree, bonkers.

Walking a mile is totally doable, but it takes some time planning.

Throwing the kid in the car 2 minutes before the bell works.

The sidewalks are often there to be used, but the car is faster and easier.

I normally walk to school but it was raining today so I drove for pickup.

> it was raining today so I drove for pickup.

Ever heard of umbrellas? :)

> Throwing the kid in the car 2 minutes before the bell works.

It the school is a mile away, unless you live right next to a large road with 60 mph limit and no stops or traffic lights, I doubt you can make it 1 mile in 2 minutes without driving recklessly fast (and in proximity of a school).

I normally will do the umbrella thing, but this time I had to transport a "school project of utmost importance" so the vehicle's siren song of ecological disaster won me over.

2 minutes, 5 minutes, the concept is the same. People are bad at planning and fall back on crutches.

(Part of it is stupid media-fueled disaster porn about how if a kid walks to school without an entire armed battalion of bodyguards they're going to get raped and murdered because something that happened once back in 1989.)

I live a mile from all three schools (they sit on the same piece of property). It's a mile away. There's a trail through the neighborhood to get there and there are zero road crossings (one short tunnel that's 2-lanes long).

The kids are bussed. So, they walk the length of the neighborhood and wait 10-15 minutes for the bus. They could quite literally walk to the school in the same amount of time.

Even worse, many of the parents drive the kids to the end of the neighborhood (all of 2 city blocks, though we're in the 'burbs). And then wait in their cars, engines often idling, watching the kids stand around.

The parents could walk the kids to school and most of the way home again in that time. Assuing they leave from work the second the kids get on the bus, they might save 5 minutes.

It's ridiculous.

Meanwhile, I walk a mile the other direction to the office. I have to cross a 6 lane highway (signaled intersection, but still a mess). One side is housing and golf course, the other side is offices and retail. There is no sane way to get from one to the other without a car. It's some of the laziest urban planning I've seen. And this area (Reston VA) is better than average by orders of magnitude.

Have you ever been grocery shopping? It's not like it's an edge case to need to transport stuff.

When you live within walking distance of a grocery store, there's rarely any need for a big shopping trip with many bags; it's easier to just stop by every other day, perhaps on your way home from work, and bring home a single bag you can easily carry.

In many European cities, you can just walk to a grocery store a few blocks away, and just go every day or two, picking up a few items each time.

You only need one bag, so it’s not a burden at all. Worst case, it’s incredibly easy to add a basket to a bike (or mobility scooter), so you can put your day’s groceries in there.

And as an added benefit of density, grocery stores are more efficient. There is a “general” one with all of the basics — fruit and veggies, cereal, meat, pasta, basic sauces, breads, convenience foods. Those are everywhere. Then if you go a little further, you’ll find specialty stores with “asian foods” or others, which you may not use as often but can get some rarer things there.

That sounds a lot more time consuming than going to Costco (a five mile drive) every week or two.

In my experience, having done both, it is a bit more time efficient at the Costco, but it also changes what you buy (lots of fresh food doesn't actually do well for two weeks). This is assuming you have the places you need in easy walking distance of course. At one time I had a grocer/butcher/wine shop/etc. all literally on the way I would walk home from subway anyhow, so my overall time was probably even shorter than a big grocery run every 2 weeks. I paid a bit more, but then I got better produce and bread, and could change meal planning on a dime if I saw something good. All tradeoffs I guess.

Yep. I either do it by bike for the big weekly purchase or go to the nearby store (5 minute walk - doable even in the dead of Canadian winter) for smaller everyday stuff.

I guess it depends on how much bulk you are buying at once, but most bikes are compatible with a basket of some kind. A bike trailer could also be an option.

In the Netherlands you'll see Bakfiets/cargo bikes. https://www.bakfiets.com/

There are these things called bags. They are often equipped with straps to carry them on your back or even can be mounted to bikes. Quite handy to transport groceries.

This is sort of an interesting one. The combination of home refrigeration and suburbs created the "weekend shop", but it's not a given that this is optimal or even really desirable.

> Have you ever been grocery shopping?

Please make your substantive points without snark or swipes: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: you've unfortunately been breaking the site guidelines so frequently that I've banned the account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email [email protected] and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future.

I live in a neighborhood that has a couple of "upscale" supermarkets nearby. So we get our perishables there, and any last-minute need, by bike.

Every few weeks, we load up the car with all of the non-perishables, at a huge discount supermarket that's a few miles away.

Seems like an OK compromise.

The YouTube channel Not Just Bikes has a 4 minute video on grocery shopping in Amsterdam, compared to when he lived in London, Ontario:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYHTzqHIngk

(In response to now flagged comment below about grocery shopping 'requiring' moving big stuff)

And the key part of Amsterdam is that in the 60s it was packed with cars and not the bike and walk haven it is today. Many people make he mistake thinking Amsterdam has great public transit and bike infrastructure since it’s an old European city and was never car dependant, but they made the same mistakes 50 years ago and reversed course. It’s possible to reverse the damage of car dependency.