[kungfooey]

I live about a half mile from my kid's school and we walk most days, or I bike.

However, it has been... eye opening. We live in a fairly urban area of Nashville, but my street doesn't have sidewalks. We've been yelled at multiple times (me, my wife, and our kindergartner) by drivers to "Get out of the road!" (This is on a 25 mph street.) There are ditches and uneven ground on both sides of the road.

Even the sidewalks we _do_ have on our route are paltry... about 3 feet wide and immediately adjacent to a busy 30 mph road. We sometimes walk in the grass next to the sidewalk, and I actually had one neighbor yell at us to "Get out of the yard, get on the sidewalk." That one took the cake for me.

So, yeah. There's a lot of reasons people don't walk to work, but one of them might be that everyone and everything assumes you're supposed to drive in a car and idle in the parking lot for 20 minutes rather than walking. Walking can be _stressful_, especially if you're doing it with multiple kids (which I often do).

[Gigachad]

Large parts of the US seem like a nightmare society. I can’t imagine how limiting life must be when your basic freedoms like walking are so restricted.

[zdragnar]

Any forum with a large group of problem-solvers who are discussing a problem are going to have a larger-than-average number of people announcing all kinds of terrible things.

Put another way, some Americans just love complaining about America.

We're a country of 330 million people, spread out the length of an entire continent. Name a problem, and somewhere, someone has it. No place you go to has every problem, and I imagine most places you go the average person will have more good than bad to say about where they live.

[mtrower]

I don't know, I used to make similar sorts of treks daily, but on county highways (speed limit 55). No sidewalks. Uneven sides with drops.

I just gave cars berth, and wandered into the ditch when necessary. So the ground is uneven; never bothered me any. I didn't feel particularly restricted; I just went where I wanted to go, however I needed to do it. Probably not the best place to walk with your kid, I'll grant.

What did get to me was freeways; the idea that you have this huge swathe of road that's just straight out illegal to cross on foot.

What's really limiting, though? Not having access to a vehicle when you need one...

[badcppdev]

And so many stories about people shouting at strangers.

[Falkon1313]

When I was faced with the big commitment of buying a house, that was a major factor. Grocery store, credit union, pharmacy are all within easy walking distance, hospital's just a little further, and going downtown is still reasonable if the weather's nice.

There's a bit of our road without sidewalk, and someday I'd like to fix that. But mostly, it's just really nice to live somewhere walkable.

I've done a lot of walking in non-walkable areas before. It is awful. And I think that's most of the country. Been hit a couple of times by the side mirrors of drivers who were driving right on the edge. Had to make my way on roads with steep dropoffs or ditches on one side and cliffs on the other. Crossing big highways. It's dangerous.

I can totally see why some people just won't do that and won't let their kids do it. But what amazes me is that most people don't even see that as a problem. It's something that can be fixed.

[listless]

I live in the Nashville area as well. I’m sorry this is the state of things where you are. The walkable areas have all become super expensive because everyone wants to live there.

[JeremyNT]

Yet people keep building more suburban sprawl with no public transit or bike connections around town. It is all isolated and divided by huge stroads. Local celebrities even call the bike lanes that do exist here a communist conspiracy.

I live in Nashville right now too and it's just a mystery to me why people want to live in a place built this way. I guess Nashville residents simply do not share my values, and they want to drive their big cars on big roads. The idea of their kids walking to school must be completely alien.

[JeremyNT]

I'm currently living in Nashville and it has an especially terrible built environment. It is one of the most car brained cities in the entire country. The fact that you have any sidewalks at all is exceptional in this place.

My daughter's school is under two miles away, but I can't let her ride her bike alone because it is terrifying. I will sometimes ride with her though.

To get there one has to cross a huge stroad and motorists frequently ignore all traffic regulations. They look at cyclists and pedestrians as obstacles and their hatred is visible in how (and what) they drive. My daughter's bus driver told us that people don't stop at the red stop lights on buses here and I have seen first hand motorists pass and honk at buses that are actively picking up children.

Cities don't need to be built this way, Nashville is just an especially bad place to raise a family. A sibling called it a nightmare society and that is close to correct.

[andrepd]

Car-centric infrastructure and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.

[xyzelement]

I am really surprised every time I see this vehement hatred of cars. I lived in NYC my whole life and didn't have a car, but now we got kids so we happily moved for the house-and-car-in-the-burbs life and it's absolutely better. People make this choice for a reason.

Just curious, do you have a family and do you shlep them by bus everywhere?

[p0pcult]

Cars existing != car centric culture.

Have you been to, say, the Netherlands? There are plenty of cars in Amsterdam, but it is the opposite of a car centric culture. Bikes and pedestrians abound (including bikes with places to "shlep" your kids or cargo around), and they all have right of way, anywhere, and the drivers generally seem to respect it.

Contrast that with a big American city like NYC, and though probably the vast majority of New Yorkers don't own a car, it is still very car-first in the priority of who gets to use the streets.

[stuaxo]

The Netherlands wasn't always like this, pics of it in the 70s show a typical car centric (in European standards) place with cars everywhere.

Not being America there will have actually been sidewalks everywhere though.

[Aeolun]

I think the issue is that you don’t get to choose. Just because your city is walkable doen’t mean you need to walk everywhere.

I go basically everywhere walking, but if I visit my friend the next city over we take the car.

[chasd00]

I feel the same, lived in a large city when single just to be part of all the hustle and bustle. I liked it but I mean eventually all the bars/restaurants/music venues start becoming the same. Got married and started a family, eventually moved out to the suburbs. It’s MUCH better for families. Good public schools nearby, lots more parks and stuff geared for kids. Very safe, like leave your doors unlocked overnight safe. Yeah I have to drive more but I don’t mind, the benefits definitely outweigh the drawbacks.

[jchmrt]

But of those benefits you mention, most are not in contradiction with a walkable neighbourhood. In my home town, most things are in walking and biking distance and we still have good public schools, lots of parks and safety. These things have nothing to do with cars, if you just make the choice to create them somewhere walkable.

[ako]

We have two cars, but anything within walking or cycling distance I prefer to do walking or cycling. E.g., 10 minutes walk to school with the kids, 20 minutes cycling into the city to do shopping,

[QIYGT]

A whole lot of people who can afford to live anywhere in the world and choose to raise their kids in NYC disagree with you.

[sfpotter]

Better how? You don’t actually say why you prefer your new lifestyle. Clearly lots of people prefer to live without a car. Have you ever bothered having a conversation with them? Maybe if you did, you’d be less surprised!

[eweise]

Its easy to go places like the beach, camping, skiing, fishing, golfing, etc. Basically all the things I like to do except biking and hiking which I can do from my house.

[Gigachad]

These are all occasional things. Day to day life is better car free. And then when you want to go out you can rent a car. Or even own one. You don’t have to use a car for every single activity just because you sometimes go skiing.

[eweise]

This is every weekend. Also, kid soccer practices are about four times a week and too far to walk or bike. Soccer games on the weekend can be 60 miles away. The grocery store is eight miles away.

I sense that the no car advocates are single people living in cities. I lived car-free back on those days. But once you have a house and a family, a car is a basic necessity. Its financially impossible to raise a family in a city on the US west coast, with the same standard of living as suburbia.

[mtrower]

Until you want to do things like bring groceries home (more than you can carry in your two hands), or something novel like, say, building materials. People do do those sorts of things, you know.

Or are you telling me that day to day life is better if I'm not a woodworker?

More food for thought: how cold does it have to get, with how much snow on the ground, before walking can be reasonably said to be unattractive to the average individual?

[acchow]

Car-centricity is a result of neighborhood design, which necessitates owning a car. There's almost nothing within walking distance of most houses. As you add cars, you need to add car infrastructure (especially wider streets for car parking, lanes of vehicles, sidewalks, parking lots etc). This further increases walking distances and also creates coverage areas that public transit cannot feasibly satisfy. Cars create a problem that only they themselves can "solve".

[ThePowerOfFuet]

No offence, but that sounds like a terrible place to live.

[QIYGT]

Yes, but sadly still better than 99% of the US.

[JeremyNT]

No, it's really not. I'm living in Nashville right now and it is exceptionally bad compared to many areas I've been.

It's a tourist town in a red state. Their priorities and funding do not align with making a pleasant built environment for residents.