I’ve heard the legends of having to drive to literally everywhere (e.g. drive thru banks), but I have no clue how far apart things are.
I live in suburban London where you can get to a big supermarket in 10 minutes of walking, a train station in 20 minutes and convenience stores are everywhere. You can get anywhere with bus and train in a few hours.
Can someone help a clueless British lemmyposter know how far things are in the US?
EDIT
Here are my walking distances:
- To the nearest convenience store: 250m
- To the nearest chain supermarket: 350m
- To the bus stop: 310m
- To the nearest park: 400m
- To the nearest big supermarket: 1.3km
- To the nearest library: 1.2km
- To the nearest train station: 1km
Straight-line distance to Big Ben: 16km
I’ll just use the same criteria you gave as an example.
- To the nearest convenience store: 1.5mi (2.6km)
- To the nearest chain supermarket: 1.8mi (2.9km)
- To the bus stop: 0.5mi (800m)
- To the nearest park: 0.3mi (480m) - I’m lucky to have several parks in my neighborhood
- To the nearest big supermarket: 2.1mi (3.4km)
- To the nearest library: 2.2mi (3.5km)
- To the nearest train station: 5.1mi (8.2km)
nearly 3km to convenience store or supermarket… in a city? i get the other comments with similar numbers but they said they’re in the middle of nowhere, in the suburbs and such.
also i live in such a big city that 300k feels like a small neighborhood.
I was going to call it a “small” city but Google told me that 300k is mid-size so I went with that ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The city is ~350 sq km and our tiny downtown area is probably about 1 sq km, so the entire city is kinda like a suburb. Heck, I’m from Houston which is known for its urban sprawl, and yet there’s lower population density where I live now.
I live in a suburb in the U.S.
- To the nearest convenience store: 322m
- To the nearest chain supermarket: 2.4km
- To the bus stop: 2.6km
- To the nearest park: 5.5km
- To the nearest big supermarket: 6.1km
- To the nearest library: 7.7km
- To the nearest train station: N/A
Notes:
- The “convenience store” in my example is a gas station, technically you can buy lottery tickets, candy, cigarettes, beer, and a few things like that - but very limited inventory, it’s mostly for people buying gas. It’s also very unusual to have a gas station like this located basically in a suburban area, most places you would have to go much further to find one.
- no sidewalks or safe passage, you walk on a dangerous road with ditches on either side to get to the convenience store.
- the only public transit is a bus, it is used only by poor people, and it doesn’t cover the west half of the city (for example I was unable to use public transit to go to school)
I have run to the park before despite being far away, but I think most people would (rightfully) think I was suicidal for doing so. A lot of the way to the park requires walking on dangerous streets where people drive fast around blind curves and where there is little to no shoulders to squeeze by if there are cars, most of the way has no sidewalks, and I have to cross busy roads where drivers are going 80+kmh.
Owning a car here is considered a part of being an adult, people without a car are seen as childish or immature, and usually suspected of being drunks who have lost their license due to DUIs or felons who cannot have a driving license and aren’t allowed to leave the state. It is assumed everyone drives everywhere, alternatives are unthinkable to most people here.
Those distances would be perfect for a bicycle if you had save bicycle lanes
Well, those distances use a nearby highway, and there are no bike lanes anywhere (let alone sidewalks). As mentioned earlier, being suicidal means I did use a bicycle anyway, and after a couple years I had a brain injury, was hit by cars twice and ended up with permanent injuries. So… yeah, I don’t recommend cycling (if you feel like being alive and able-bodied, anyway).
What is also not mentioned is that the nearest supermarket is a shitty Walmart, the nearest park is very small and not really worth going to, and the bus is not a practical form of public transit here.
I have to drive 20 - 30 minutes to actually get to stores, parks, or other places I would actually go to. I think that’s pretty good relative to most people, I live in a centralized location and most places are equidistant. I used to live in a nearby more rural town and I had to drive 45 - 60 minutes to get most places, and that was much worse.
(That’s why I said if you had safe bicycle lanes. But are there no local politicians who’d be willing to do anything about that? A gravel road isn’t that expensive and would suffice.)
The county mayor describes himself as a Rothbardian, and the government here sometimes feels openly hostile to people, but especially to bicyclists. I received a lot of harassment for cycling, it is not supported culturally, and is even viewed as though I am a political enemy of the people. Huge, lifted emotional-support trucks are pretty common here.
Damn
Rothbard opposed egalitarianism and the civil rights movement, and blamed women’s voting and activism for the growth of the welfare state.[24][25][10][11] He promoted historical revisionism and befriended the Holocaust denier Harry Elmer Barnes.[26][27][28] Later in his career, Rothbard advocated a libertarian alliance with paleoconservatism (which he called paleolibertarianism), favoring right-wing populism and describing David Duke and Joseph McCarthy as models for political strategy.[29][30][24][31] In the 2010s, he received renewed attention as an influence on the alt-right.[32][10][33][34]
Oh and bicycling also wasn’t popular in Europe when my grandfather was young (50s/60s), when you were cycling people thought you were too poor to buy a motorcycle. But mindsets can change, now bicycling is hugely popular both for moving around (especially in cities) and for sports.
yeah, during COVID the mayor became famous for running attack ads against the health department, and as a result of his leadership the state legislature stripped the health department of their ability to implement any policies or directives
My work commute is minimum 40 minutes one way by car. Probably 2.5 hours by bus, with probably 20 minutes of walking, in Texas heat and humidity.
This is a map of the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) area in Texas. Yes, we know it looks like a penis. I live near the blue dots at the top right. My husband works near the red heart at the bottom left. That’s about 45 miles and takes an hour most days because both are near highways. Public transit says over 4 hours with three bus/train changes and has a 15 minute walk at each end. Not great when it’s 100F outside.
In many other cities, if you drive 10 miles out of downtown, you can be in the countryside. We can drive 50 miles and be in suburban areas with traffic the entire time. Most people here have a grocery store within 3-4 miles. There are less groceries as you go closer to downtown or in older or cheaper/poorer areas. Convenience stores are closer, but they’re usually gas stations and are pretty expensive for food items. We have several decent restaurants within 5 or 10 miles, but it’s not unusual to drive 20+ miles to go to a favorite restaurant or store or to meet a friend who lives in a different area of town.
In Europe, you can drive for five hours and cross through five cities in three countires. In the US, you can drive five hours and still be in LA.
I can count on a 20+min drive to get most places close to me in a large city. Not that everything is that far, but traffic can be slow.
On the west coast, it can take 14-16 hours to drive from the capital of oregon to the capital of california. Likewise, it takes about as long to get from oregon to montana. It can take 4 to 6 hours to get from the southern oregon border to the northern.
Where I live, i can walk to a little convenience store in about 10 minutes, but the nearest supermarket would be an hour walk away (10-15 minutes by car). If i were to move 10 miles in any direction, i may not have a convenience store around.
Salem to Sacramento shouldn’t take that long unless there is gnarly traffic. As a kid, my family regularly did San Jose to Seattle in 16 hours.
Salem’s not at the northern border. You still have the distance of portland to go, or at least driving around it, and even that can take a while.
From border to border, Organic Maps estimates 5 hours and 20 minutes, which does not include traffic.
I did run the calculation from salem to sacramento though, and i was off by about double. Its 16 hours to southern california (ive done the drive), but to sacramento, its only 8.
It’s not necessarily how far things are, it’s that you need a car to get to places in a sensible way.
I’m a fellow Brit, but have stayed in suburban US enough to have experienced how different it is. You might have a supermarket a couple of miles away, but if you want to attempt to walk there, you’ll often be going well out of your way trying to find safe crossing points or even roads with paved sidewalks.
Train stations are mostly used for cargo in most US cities. If you don’t have a car, you’re pretty much screwed.
Some cities are different. NYC being the obvious one. You can get about there by public transport pretty easily in most places there. San Francisco is another city that is more doable without a car, but more difficult than NYC.
I stayed near Orlando not too long ago and there it’s just endless surburban housing with shops and malls dotted about mostly along the sides of main roads. You definitely need a car there.
Denver isn’t great with public transport either. There’s at least a minimal light rain system and buses go pretty much everywhere, so that’s the good part, but the city is so sprawled out that unless your designation is a direct route you’re looking at an hour or more to exclusively use public transport. And that’s really the main city. Start getting out into the expanded metro area and there’s not many choices except for a handful of spur rail or bus lines.
It’s a lot more than many American cities, especially on paper, but in practice it’s pretty rough to use as a primary transport.
Most bus systems in American cities are for people to get to work and back home. Trying to take it to, for instance, a friend’s house, and you’re generally going to spend about 4x the time it’d take to drive there.
The US is pretty big man and things are different in different regions. England is only as big as Alabama.
In the cities you can walk to places or take much more limited public transportation.
Every one outside of the city has a car though. Drive through banks, fast food, pharmacies, and even liquor stores are a real thing.
My commute to work is ~40 minute drive and some of that is at 129 kph.
I rarely walk anywhere for anything besides pleasure. There is a restaurant within ~10 minutes walk but most roads don’t even have sidewalks here and people don’t always pay attention while driving
Where I grew up the closest neighbor was about 2km away, nearest town was 25k, nearest town with a decent grocery store was around 40km, and the nearest “city” was damn near 100km.
Where I grew up the closest neighbor was about 2km away, nearest town was 25k, nearest town with a decent grocery store was around 40km, and the nearest “city” was damn near 100km.
Wow, my London brain just melted (The beach is only 60km away)
It depends on where you live. I have multiple stores around me I walk to all the time, and it takes 20 minutes to drive through the city with no traffic.
But I’ve also lived where you absolutely need a car because everything is so spread out just going to the store would be 15 minutes in a car.
It is fucked here unless you own property already in the good parts or you are upper class income and can move your ass into the good parts despite the obsene costs.
At my current job, I’m about 45 minutes away by car. Car is also the only option. Before I moved closer, I was actually an hour and a half away, so 90 minutes one way, or 3 hours per day worth of driving.
It’s too expensive to live in the cities themselves, so I have to live further out and just commute.
Closest wal-mart is about 30 minutes away, but there’s smaller stores closer if I dont’t need much.
I haven’t mentioned walking/biking because there’s no point in walking where I live. There’s next to no shoulder on the road, and it’s 45MPH (72KPH) roads with mostly large pickup trucks driving on it, so it’s not safe to walk.
For reference, I live in the American south, so it’s somewhat rural.
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This largely depends on where you are in the US. I have moved a lot over the years, from dense city centers, to the dirt roads of rural America. Here are my experiences:
NYC would probably be the most comparable to your experience in London, but seeing as I haven’t lived there, I can instead talk about Boston. When I lived inside the subway range in Boston (Somerville specifically), my experience matches up with yours. I was ~5 minutes from a supermarket and ~15 minutes from the subway/train stop by foot. I was even closer to a couple bus stops for lines that would take me to places like a mall, nearby universities, or the next subway line over (we don’t have an equivalent of the Circle line).
I currently live in Boston suburbs (Metrowest for people that know the area) and can’t really walk anywhere as my street and adjacent streets don’t have sidewalks. I could try to walk on the street, but with the narrowness combined with the speed at which people drive through this neighborhood, it would not be fun. If I hop in the car, I am ~5 minutes from a strip mall with a supermarket, pharmacy, liquor store, etc. and ~10 minutes from the commuter rail train station that I use to commute to the city for work. If I want to head to a large shopping hub with a mall, then it is ~20 minutes away by car. There is a skeleton of a bus system in my area, but it would require traversing ~1.5 miles on streets without sidewalks to get to the nearest stop for me.
When I lived in a rural area (rural PA), things were very different. To get to the nearest supermarket (a WalMart), it took ~30 minutes worth of driving. If I wanted to go to the mall, it was closer to 60 minutes. I am sure there are even less dense areas than that in this country.
Canadian here but this is pretty much the sentiment I wanted to add. If I was answering for the last city I lived in (400k ish, moderate city for here) it would be a very different answer (<30 minute walk generally anywhere in the “metro” area) than for where I live now (rural, 15 minute drive for grocery in three possible directions, pass at least three cannabis dispensaries on the way to any of them and two liquor stores. Public transit is available but is quasi-regional transit too). So grocery is at 15 minutes, and like in your case a mall is an hour, as is a major market like a Walmart, mega grocer thing, Costco…
many parts of rural Alaska, for example have grocery stores less than a mile away from most of their population, but require planes to get to anything larger.
The US is a huge place with lots and lots of different types of communities. From my understanding, some of the older cities on the east coast may have old town walking districts that are probably more like what you’re used to.
I will give you a personal example. I live in Silicon Valley, not in San Francisco or Oakland but rather in what some might call a suburb of those cities, though my “town” has over 80k residents. I live in an area of my city that was once unincorporated and is about two miles from the old town city center. The closest grocery store is 0.7mi from me according to Google maps, and it’s a small family-owned grocer that I’m super happy to have. The larger supermarket is a mile and it’s down a large stroad.
It takes me about 45 minutes to drive to SF with no traffic. If I want to go to Los Angeles, it’s a six hour drive minimum without traffic going 80mph.
I’m in the uk too but I’m out in the northern countryside, just to get to the village newsagents is a 15-20 minute walk and it’s about 12 miles to the nearest supermarket. Even in the UK there are places where you have to drive to almost everywhere.
Had to look that up! It’s a little convenience store that sells newspapers
