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What can you get to within a 15-minute walk of your house?

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 @fuckcars #walking

580 comments
  • Who needs a gas station within walking distance? One need a gas station within 15-minutes driving.

  • @ajsadauskas @fuckcars I'm kind of sad that "cafe", "bookstore", and "library" aren't even on this list at all. 😢

    I would honestly have to do a web search to find out where the nearest elementary school, day care, and gas station are, but I'd be stunned if I didn't have those within 15 minutes. As it is, I do have everything else, including a university and a sports arena, and two malls. (I'm in between the Barclays Center and Long Island University in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, NYC.)

  • Im confused about (from the poll)

    • bar.. if this is not walkable you are promoting drunk driving. (even if its not your thing)
    • what do you need to walk to the gas station for? or is this being used also as a corner store?
  • As someone in the UK, I already live within a 15 minute walk of most of these.

    Is it really that bad over there? If you're not within a quick walk to the shops, or the doctors, or school, tram and bus stops, opticians, dentists, etc, how do you and the kids get anything done?

    Who would intentionally move somewhere like that? The first thing we do when looking at moving to a new place is see what services are within walking distance, to get an idea for how worth it living there would be.

    If you've got to walk 30+ minutes just to get to the shops? That's an arse ache you don't want.

  • @ajsadauskas @fuckcars There's a couple of weird things missing there I would definitely include, like a doctor's office, a library and a gym.

    I'm in a city in the UK and a lot of those are in 15 minutes walk from me. Some, like a hospital, university, cinema, shopping mall and sports arena and I think a bank I'd have to go into the city centre for, but that's only about 30 minutes walk, 10 minutes on the bike, or a short bus or metro ride. I'm generally pretty lucky in my location.

  • @ajsadauskas @fuckcars I can walk to all except university (1hr walk, or 15min bike ride) and sports center (1+ hr walk, 18min bike ride).

    I don't get the gas station though. Why so many "should"s? Why would you need to walk to a gas station?

    Unless ppl are considering "gas station" to mean "convenience store", which in a lot of America that's what they are.

  • I would love this being contrasted with what they get on average, it would probably really depressing.

    It's interesting, walking 15 minutes to the next bus stop sounds like a nightmare in a city but pretty good in the country ...

  • Do people really use the post office or bank that often? If I'm walking into either of those, odds are something has gone catastrophically wrong that day.

  • Why less people want daycare in walking distance than restaraunt? Even less than fucking gas station.

    And who are those 32% who don't want bus stop in 15-minute walk? Or why? Maybe they don't want it so far away and want it in 3-minute walk? If so, then I agree with them.

  • I lived in the suburbs once that required a 1 hour bike ride just to get to the nearest bus stop. That place was miserable

  • Larger German city (>500k), just from memory

    A grocery store, about 11

    A park, 1 large, three small

    A pharmacy, six

    A bus stop, only a few, dozens of train and tram stops

    A restaurant, 40+

    A post office, one large, dozens of shop-in-shop ones

    A bank, six, dozens of ATMs

    A gas station, none

    An elementary school, two

    A day care center, five

    A hospital, I have to walk 20min for that :(

    A barber shop or hairdresser, about a dozen

    A shopping mall, one

    A movie theater, three

    A bar, 40+

    A university, none

    A sports arena, none

580 comments