Ask Lemmy

Things around me aren't that far per se, but you have to cross a 45mph road (where people regularly drive 55-60 because it's designed like a highway) along several sections of unconnected sidewalk if you want to get there without a car. The sidewalks are 4ft wide at most and have no separation from the car lanes so you have to walk with cars whizzing by just a couple feet from you. There's also no shade.

For reference - it takes 5 minutes to drive to the nearest grocery store 1 mile away, but walking it's 31 minutes with the unpleasant conditions I mentioned. So I've never walked there. I could bike and it would take 10 minutes, but biking along cars at 50mph doesn't sound fun. I also live on a bike path, but it doesn't go to the nearest grocery store so the nearest one along the bike path would take the same amount of time as if I walked to the nearest one (25 minutes). That one is 3.5 miles (11min) by car or a 1hr walk.

I went to College about 65 miles west of Chicago (or about 1 hour driving). One weekend some friends decided to take a road trip to Maine so one friend could confess their love to someone. They left Friday after classes ended and drove nonstop, took one hour in Maine for the friend to get shot down, and then dove back. They didn't get back until late Sunday night. That's about 1300 miles and with a few bathroom/food stops 24 hours each way.

Depends on the state. There are places where stores are 2+ hours away by car.

In my area, it falls into 2 categories-

1. Things are 20-30 min by car and are 20-30 miles away (highway)
2. Things are 20-30 min by car and are 3-5 miles away.

This is totally based on traffic and roads- I’m in the woods outside Washington DC, so while the density is high in the cities, I’m 15 min from literally everything minimum (by car). I couldn’t walk or bike to a store, I’m 30ish min from work combination highway and local roads.

If you live in a city, you might live literally on top of stores in the same building. Shopping centers with above condos and apartments are becoming a popular replacement for shopping malls in my area, but are very very expensive (often over $1million) for a townhouse in one of these shopping “communities”.

I buy nearly everything online and have it delivered, most stuff (groceries, goods, electronics, housewares, etc) come between 0-3 days.

In my home town getting to most basic necessities took 20min driving. Mind you that was the capital city of my state

Highly dependent on where you live. Some places are very sparse, others are pretty dense.

Depends heavily where you live. Rural places can be an hour drive to the closest grocery store. For me, I live about 5 minute drive from stores and my work. But I cannot feasibly walk to where I want to go, there is zero sidewalks in my area and cars go at least 35 mph on the slow neighborhood roads and 50 mph on the busier main roads (less than 3 minute drive to get to either one). Bus and train infrastructure is basically non-existent so not an option. My only option is risk my life on a bike on the shoulder of the main road (since theres no bike lanes) and hope the weather isn't bad or I have to drive a car .

Nearest convenience store is 200m Chain supermarket is 200m Bus stop is 150m Library is 50m Park is 500m Train station is 800m

NYC makes everything easy

I live out west. Think of how far would be intolerable to walk in 45 degree heat and then add 30 minutes standing by the road, waiting for traffic lights to change, so you can attempt to cross without a crosswalk or a sidewalk, while you roast in the added heat from car exhaust.

At my parents' place, it's about 9 miles (~14km) to the nearest gas station/convenience store, which has super limited hours, or roughly a 15 minute drive. It's about 14 miles (~23km) to the nearest grocery store, or about a 20 minute drive.

I live in the suburbs of a major city, so the nearest stores from me are around a mile (1.6km) away. The nearest big supermarket is like 2 miles (3.2km) away.

Walking?

5 minutes to cafe for toast and coffee, or the closest corner store/gas station

10-15 minutes walk to the closet big grocery store, or pharmacy, better corner store/gas station, also to roller skating and bowling, a jewelry store, like 15 churches, lawyers, medical supply, doctor offices, a hospital, a bank, fast food and small independent restaurants, lots of stuff.

20-25 to work or to the good grocery

It's certainly not London!!! But if you are inside a mid-sized city there is stuff within easy walking distance, and more within short drive (5 minutes) My husband came from the suburbs and that's a different story - house farms ringed by roads too dangerous to cross, everyone drives everywhere. He used to think of "close" as anything a 15 minute drive or less! Not anymore.

83 miles from Disney World, that's probably the closest international landmark, lol. But maybe 4 miles from the beautiful Tampa Theater, which ought to be an international landmark.

Depends on location, but I don’t think I’m too bad.

• To the nearest convenience store (more than that, really; a drug store and mini grocery store): 400m
• To the nearest chain supermarket: 2km
• To the bus stop: 100m (but the bus doesn’t go many places
• To the nearest park: 600m (a small park, a much larger one 2km away)
• To the nearest *big* supermarket: 6km
• To the nearest library: 2.5km
• To the nearest train station: 2km for local rail, like 25km for rare intercity trains

it takes half an hour to walk (one-way) to the nearest store

about 20 minutes to the grocery store, 5 to the convenience store, about 10 to the bus stop 20 to the park. West coast.

Small town in Oregon here (all measured along the routes walked, not 'as the crow flies'):

• Convenience Store: ~150 meters, right down the road
• Supermarket: Will get back to later
• Bus Stop: The local bus company runs a loop around town so there's technically one closer to my house than the convenience store, but the busses that can take you to another town stop at the one ~400 meters away.
• Park: Three parks, which are ~400, ~500, and ~580 meters away respectively, though there's not much of anything at the 400 meter one but some sports fields.
• Big Supermarket: Will get back to later
• Library: ~500 meters (the 500 meter park is right across from it)
• Train Station: 29 kilometers by car to the nearest passenger rail station I can find. Without a car I'd need to walk ~400 m to the bus stop, take a $1 bus ride with the local company to Town B, then take another bus ran by this town's company, and then walk another ~480 meters because they don't have a stop at the station. Google Maps predicts that trip will take about 1 hour 20 minutes one-way, and it would cost $2 (or $4 round trip).

Now, I'm not entirely sure what separates a supermarket from a "big supermarket" in your mind, because to me all supermarkets are quite big by definition, so I'm going to explore three different trip options: one each to two supermarkets in or near my town, and one to the nearest Walmart, which I'm 100% sure should count as a "big supermarket", but which is a couple towns away.

• Supermarket A is close enough that walking to it is a viable option, which would be ~730 meters to the edge of the parking lot or ~875 meters to the front of the store. Alternatively, if I can plan the scheduling of my trip around it or I'm not picky about the timing I can walk ~100 meters to the nearest stop in the city bus loop, wait a while, and walk of right at the front.

• Supermarket B is 2.6 kilometers by foot, but a large part of that trip is walking along the side of a lightly-developed highway with no sidewalks, so I don't consider walking here a viable option. By bus it's the same 100 meters to the bus stop, wait, then directly to the storefront.

• The nearest Walmart is ~25 kilometers away by car, but the local bus company doesn't offer a direct route to that town so I have to take a bus to Town C, take the Town C Bus Company's bus to the east edge of Town D, then take Town D's bus to the Walmart on the western edge. Google Maps says this would take just over 2 hours one-way, and it would cost $2 ($4 round trip) because Town D's busses are all free to ride at the moment.

Corner store with basics: 5 min Supermarket: 15 min Restaurants: 5 min Park: 3 min Bus stop: 5 min Library: 15 min Local rail: 20 min Regional/National rail: 40 min

All walking distances. I live in a neighborhood that was designed before cars existed so it’s more like Europe in terms of distances/amenities. Except our transit infrastructure is shit.

Here are my best guesses from living life:

From house to local stores: City-Couple blocks Suburbs-3 to 10 mins Rural-10 to 45 mins

Metropolitan centers are surrounded by Suburbs which is surrounded by rural. That's sort of stat quo. The distance between Metropolitan centers (not including the retarded NYC and LA type areas) is usually a minimum 1hr from closest centers but in most states they're like 3 hrs apart.

Time it takes to go up or down the east coast is 12 to 17 hrs for most that's not the time to get from northern most tip of main to southern most tip of Florida cuz who the fuck actually does that.

Traveling an hour to do something special is common but traveling an hr for something common or necessity is designated for the extreme mountain ranges like Adirondack, Appalachian, Rocky? (Idk never been just assuming) type of areas.

Anything taking longer than an hr is getting into road trip status and anything over 3 hr is find somewhere to stay and come home tomorrow status. There are exceptions bit depending on how long event is you are adding 6hr round trip time to it.

Caveats:

Rush hour is dependent on area. For example in Buffalo a 45 min trip no traffic is taking you around 50min-1hr in rush hour. Whereas in Frederick, MD (D.C. suburb) a 15 min drive no traffic was taking at leasy 1hr in rush hour. All the same it's every single weekday from 6am to 9am and 3pm to 6pm in every Metropolitan area.

State to neighboring state trips are usually 3 to 6 hr. Usual work commute for everyone not commuting to a city (do honestly most of the US) 5 to 30 mins.

I live in a major city

• To the nearest convenience store: 500m
• To the nearest chain supermarket: 2.7km
• To the bus stop: 400m
• To the nearest park: 1.4km
• To the nearest big supermarket: 2.7km (same one as above)
• To the nearest library: 3km
• To the nearest train station (light rail): 5.6km

Same figures for me:

• Convenience store: 2.7km
• Supermarket: 2.5km
• Bus stop: 4.2km (this may be incorrect I think there was a closer one that didn't show on the map)
• Park: 6.2km
• Big Supermarket: 3.5km
• Library: 6km
• Train station: 7.9km
• Hart Plaza(nowhere really analogous to big Ben around me): 46km

For me things were not in meters or feet but hours driven. From my home town the nearest stoplight was 1.5 hours away by car. This is also the closest chain restaurant (like McDonald's or simular). We had a school bus, but other than that no public transit. The next town over (15 minutes) has a supermarket.