![[meme] Being forced to drive isn't freedom — it's a government-mandated lifetime subscription to oil](https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/13b1a771-76a5-4af4-b41f-4c22fc9165a4.webp){kind=link}
Image transcript:
The “what if you wanted to go to heaven, but god said ____” meme template, but here it says, “What if you wanted to walk to get groceries, but city planners said DRIVE”. The last panel is an image of a massive freeway full of cars.
Image transcript:
The “what if you wanted to go to heaven, but god said ____” meme template, but here it says, “What if you wanted to walk to get groceries, but city planners said DRIVE”. The last panel is an image of a massive freeway full of cars.
As someone who experiences pain while walking essentially any distance over 100m, I don’t want to walk for my groceries. But it’s nice to have a store nearby. I really want an e-bike, but since I need a car and am already forced to pay for one, I can’t really afford to have both.
Think how awesome your drive would be if everyone else walked!
Yeah, walking definitely isn’t suitable for everyone. What we need is dense communities with layered and diverse transit options. High walkability, abundant protected bike infrastructure, and accessible mass and local transit.
so do you want the earth to magically shrink to be walkable or were u thinking ice age level migration style walking
Walkability is a matter of urban design. Only 20% of the US lives somewhere rural; 80% live in a city, suburb, or small town. We’re taking about how the 80% shops.
Walkability is about lot size, density in general, mixed use development (putting houses near restaurants and shops), parking minimums, that sort of thing.
Walkable areas tend to be connected by public transit. Look at Amsterdam - to get to work, you might bike to the train station, take a train, then walk or bike to the office. You don’t have to walk clear across the city; public transit connects walkable spaces.
Compare that with American suburban design, where shops are put far from houses, on ugly-ass loud dangerous stroads with comically oversized parking lots. You don’t walk anywhere because anywhere you’d want to walk to is incredibly unpleasant to exist in. People will literally drive in their car to a walking path or a gym treadmill.
Just curious: what about a normal bike? Is the distance too big or does it also hurt?
It also hurts, and since I’m not very active I don’t have the physical stamina to bike distances much longer than a couple of km. I biked to work for a short while when I lived closer to my job but now I can’t.
Maybe you’d have been in a better shaped if the infrastructure around you were better, but who the hell knows.
Or maybe I’m disabled, lol. Who knows? It’s not like it’s my life or anything. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯