[Insanity]

I live in a metropolitan area and can walk to many stores within a 30 minute radius. (First supermarket is less than 5 minutes away).

But there is the added complication of weight. I can’t buy food for a week without driving there. Nor can I go and buy a TV by just walking to the hardware store.

[willlma]

30 minutes is on the longer side, but I think part of the point of walkable grocery runs is that you don't buy a week's worth of food like you do in a car. When I lived in Paris, I'd happily pop out to buy whatever I needed for a single meal. I had so many grocery stores within a 5-minute walk. Now that I'm in SF, I buy for the week (on my bike with panier bags) because the grocery stores I like are far from my home.

[oblio]

It's an infrastructure thing. With the right regular/cargo bike or even better, an ebike/cargo ebike, 30-40kg of groceries per run is super doable.

> Nor can I go and buy a TV by just walking to the hardware store.

Do you buy a TV more than once every 5-10 years? You can rent a small van or whatever.

[Insanity]

You definitely need infrastructure for that. Biking infrastructure in North American cities is.. not great. Definitely viable in some of the EU ones though.

[mike50]

Personally owned folding shopping carts exist.

[Insanity]

Used to do this in Belgium. Still less convenient than driving, and kinda annoying to use during a Canadian winter.

And again, more limited space.

I commute by walking (1h per day) and typically avoid the car when possible, but for groceries there’s just no way I’d go back to walking to and fro.

[cogman10]

For those to be effective, you do need good walking infrastructure.

I'd grab one of those except for the fact that I don't have a sidewalk connecting me to the grocery store. Totes end up working better for me as a result.