Ask Lemmy

For me everything more than 10' of walking from my home is a bike default. Except i need to transport bulky equipment or it rains very strongly. Then its walking with umbrella + bus/train. (I dont own a car, as I live in a City.)

Where I grew up it was about a 45 minute walk to the library. I went maybe twice a year.

Now I'm about 15 minutes from the library and I'm there weekly.

Its a perfectly fine walk to go that far, it just kinda blows to do it regularly

If I had no responsibilities for the day I would walk that but if I had anything else it would add up too much

Everyone has their own definition of “walkable”. For me that’s not, plus it’s getting to the point where the books i’d likely get would be annoying to carry. But also do you mean literally walkable or “don’t need a car”. The latter includes transit and micromobility

I walk to my library but it’s less than ten minutes. Especially since they put up parking meters, walking ten minutes is more convenient than finding change or feeding a profiteering app company.

Unfortunately the best part of my towns downtown is a mile away so less convenient. Most of the time I’ve lived here I’ve decided to drive the mile but since pandemic I’ve been far more likely to walk. I recently went to a diner where a newly opened trail made it a nice walk despite it being over a mile.

And the definition of walkable changes over time as well. As a young adult I lived in Boston and considered essentially everything walkable. While I was also a big user of transit, they tended to be too slow and crowded when you can walk instead. Most of my driving was to move my car for street cleaning or snow removal

Today, my longest walk was 6.8 km. Took about 2 hours, but I had frequent stops as I was collecting kids from their schools and taking them to their respective sports clubs. When I have to go to the office, I run commute, 8 km each way. My watch says that my average step count for the past 7 days is 20,109 per day. I may be an extreme case, but walking 3.7 km to the library would be so routine I wouldn't even think of taking a bus.

Not really.

I may do a walk like that if I incorporate the walk as a leisure. But if I have to just be in a place I won't be walking more than 30-40 minutes to get to it if there's a fastest more convenient way.

Nope. That’s would be about the whole of my daily free time just walking over there and back. As I’m aging time is becoming the absolute scarce resource :-(

I live in the US and even my walk to the library isn't that bad. Ive done walks that long or a bit longer as a novelty or to get exercise, but in general no, about half an hour is about as long as I "normally" like to go without looking into a bus or something.

I walk 1,5 km in 10-15 minutes (depends on if I am alone or not), so yes I would walk that. But I like walking, I can suggest walking as a way to hang out haha

No. I would walk ~5-20 minutes to a bus/train station that would take me there.

Edit: for < 4km I would walk. Why does Google think that would be such a long journey in terms of time (which my first response was based upon)

I usually run that kind of distance on a e scooter. Faster, less noise and pollution.

People talking walkable cities forget that cars move more than just people. And people don't stay in one living spot all the time. No modern city works without the logistics moving goods in and out and peoples stuff from and to their homes and businesses.

So you can't just remove all the streets and make a denser neighborhood. You need alternative solutions for logistics. I work in rail and I can tell you there is too many people starving in the world, but not for a lack of food but for a lack of logistics infrastructure to get the food to them in time.

Me personally I love underground rail networks and pneumatic tube delivery, but as an engineer i know about the weaknesses of these systems. For now that remains a dream.

I live in a walkable European city.

My nearest library is 5 minutes away, there's a bigger library maybe 20 minutes away, and for anything further I'd take public transport.

Nah. If I can use public transport for such distances, I will.

For once because it's quicker, and because my path would probably lead along some noisy roads, so it wouldn't be fun to walk there

Very much depends on my motivation, my schedule and the weather. Walking much more than half an hour feels like a fair distance, and if it's unpleasant weather then I'd be tempted to take a bus or train partway.

But if it's nice weather and I've got plenty of time, walking an hour to go to a museum or whatever would seem perfectly normal.

What kind of path takes 75min for 3.7km? In a normal environment, this should be doable in 40 minutes.

It's gonna be real annoying for future me with arthritis.

I wouldn't hesitate to walk that far for a library, but realistically I'd take my cruiser bike for that distance. I've heard people tend to cite around 15-20 minutes as the maximum walk length that is considered "walkable," but I've often chosen walking longer distances than that even when other options were available. For dense urban areas, I'd rather walk that take a bus unless it's really far. Sometimes I get passed up by the same bus 5 or 6 times along the way. I agree with others who have said that time estimate sounds way long.

Definitely would bike or bus something over 30m

Bus or bike distance.

But i also walk closer to 3mph so maybe it would be on the edge of the weather is nice.

Hey, my local public library is 3.2km away from me, which is about a 45 minute walk!

Anyways, no. I have multiple affordable public transit options that can take me there in 10 minutes. There are also bike lanes for the entire route if I ever decide to bike.

We do that few times a year but bike is designed for these distances

I did close to that, when I was finding jobs after college, I was applying to listing in a library,/uni library. The trains back before pandemic decided they need to renovate for 6 years, so it left with limited options for transportation

I used to live about that distance from my work. I only walked it occasionally, if the weather was nice, I had the time to spare, and a little extra energy. Generally I took the bus.

I think 30 minutes is about how long I’d walk to get somewhere before considering public transit or driving.

I think the most I would walk is around 40-45 minutes. So no, 1h15m would be far too long to justify walking. Maybe on the weekend if the library was super nice?

Yes, when i was a piss poor student I walked home from the booze shop because I missed the bus.

No. I'd not do that anymore. I don't have the free time and I prefer other kinds of exercise.

By the way, count the actual time it took you to walk that. From personal experience, Google Maps always says a considerably higher number

I walk more than that just to listen to my podcast in peace lol

Hell no. Maybe if it was a really nice weather, but I would still go home with a bus or a tram, no way I'll carry books that long.

I will sometimes walk up to an hour or so to go somewhere but that's more occasional, for something I need to do regularly 30 minutes is the upper end. Above that, I would usually look at public transports, bike, or car options

1h15 for 3.7 km sounds quite slow though, I would expect closer to 45 minutes for that kind of distance around where I am

Depends on the weather but probably not. I would walk an hour to a concert, to keep from having to park the car, but library, no. 2 miles doesn't seem like it should take that long though - 2 miles is the distance kids have to have between their house and the school before the school bus will get them, so I had to walk that twice a day for 7 years of my youth, it didn't take an hour.

That's almost what it takes for me, so yes.!

No, I wouldn't. For daily needs, the walk needs to be less than 10 minutes. Weekly less than 20, and anything over that needs to be a special thing. I know the pain of lugging back groceries and a heavy load of books on what was a 20 minute walk one way. Those get a bike with luggage, or the scooter.

I think my requirements would be the same if I had to use a car, actually. An hour trip to see relatives is a once a month/every two months thing.

I've been walking 3 miles uphill to get to uni every day and it makes you feel so much more accomplished when you do it. I live in a pretty car centric city but there are pavements the whole way there so it's not too bad.

I used to walk an hour and a half to get home from university, but I bussed to get there so I could sleep later and not be too sweaty when I arrived. I believe this would hold true for a library, as I tend to use that time to reflect on what I learned and plan out things.

That said, I'm an outlier; most people won't walk more than an hour, or even 30 minutes, unless I promise them a fun stop on the way or something.

No.

Walking that much sucks because you are all sweaty when you arrive at your destination.

Walkable environments wouldn't include distances like that anyways. The real way to solve this issue is to have town centers that you drive to, and then leave your car behind when you enter it.

i try to walk 4 miles a day and often i burn those miles going to the library