I was talking to a friend and complaining that the nearest grocery store is 3km from me, he says that Europeans consider that a reasonable distance to the store and I’m just being lazy.
I don’t have a car, I don’t have a bike, and the bus only comes by every four hours. Am I being unreasonable for not wanting to carry groceries 3km in 30C weather, or is my friend full of shit? Neither of us have been to Europe.
My closest supermarket is 400m away, and the next supermarket over is 1.1km. I walk there daily, sometimes multiple times a day. 3km is quite far and I would not consider that walking distance.
It’s certainly possible to walk that distance once every (couple of) months, if I did not have my bike available for whatever reason? But I would consider regularly walking 40 minutes one way every other day to be far to be too much. That distance is cycling distance, not walking distance.
On a side-note. Did you just say that the bus arrives only once every four hours? My lord… It might as well basically not exist at that point.
I lived in NYC and now in Canada. Your distances seem about accurate with my limits, though NYers are infamous for walking everywhere, including up and down 6 flights of stairs. It’s certainly not the norm in the US.
This is a great time to introduce you to the American public transit system.