5 ms·

I walk my kids to school in the US, but I definitely see kids as young as 6 walking without a parent. I choose to walk with my kids because I enjoy it, and it'

I walk my kids to school in the US, but I definitely see kids as young as 6 walking without a parent. I choose to walk with my kids because I enjoy it, and it's easy exercise. That said, a lot of parents still drive their kids - the vast majority I would say. Even people who live within walking distance. It definitely is faster if you look at it in a vacuum: you save 10 minutes round trip! And when casually discussing things with them, that's usually the excuse - they just don't have the time! They're always running late! etc. But I get a 20 minute walk out of it, and spend time with the kids talking about stuff. So to that I say: I'm multi-tasking. Part of me thinks this problem isn't much different from the fear of child abduction: overblown. But there is something especially frustrating about the times this happens because people think they are doing something good when they really aren't.

kungfooey 4y ago
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).
- andrepd 4y ago
  Car-centric infrastructure and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
  - xyzelement 4y ago
    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?
    - ako 4y ago
      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,
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
    - p0pcult 4y ago
      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 4y ago
        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 4y ago
      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.
- ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
  No offence, but that sounds like a terrible place to live.
  - QIYGT 4y ago
    Yes, but sadly still better than 99% of the US.
    - JeremyNT 4y ago
      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.
- listless 4y ago
  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 4y ago
    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.
- Falkon1313 4y ago
  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.
- Gigachad 4y ago
  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.
  - mtrower 4y ago
    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...
  - zdragnar 4y ago
    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.
  - badcppdev 4y ago
    And so many stories about people shouting at strangers.
- JeremyNT 4y ago
  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.
maxerickson 4y ago
The schools here got a lot more car/bus heavy when five k-6 elementary buildings consolidated down to one k-2 and one 3-5 (with 6 rolled into the 6-12 building). There's a closed and sold elementary building about 4 blocks from here.The consolidated buildings are still reasonably close, but still some multiple of that.
seanmcdirmid 4y ago
I walk my kid to the boys and girls club, and back, it is 5 minutes away, school is 7 minutes. It is nice to live in a semi urban area.

kungfooey 4y ago

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).

andrepd 4y ago
Car-centric infrastructure and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race.
- xyzelement 4y ago
  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?
  - ako 4y ago
    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,
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - p0pcult 4y ago
    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 4y ago
      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 4y ago
    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.
ThePowerOfFuet 4y ago
No offence, but that sounds like a terrible place to live.
- QIYGT 4y ago
  Yes, but sadly still better than 99% of the US.
  - JeremyNT 4y ago
    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.
listless 4y ago
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 4y ago
  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.
Falkon1313 4y ago
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.
Gigachad 4y ago
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.
- mtrower 4y ago
  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...
- zdragnar 4y ago
  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.
- badcppdev 4y ago
  And so many stories about people shouting at strangers.
JeremyNT 4y ago
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.

maxerickson 4y ago

The schools here got a lot more car/bus heavy when five k-6 elementary buildings consolidated down to one k-2 and one 3-5 (with 6 rolled into the 6-12 building). There's a closed and sold elementary building about 4 blocks from here.The consolidated buildings are still reasonably close, but still some multiple of that.

seanmcdirmid 4y ago

I walk my kid to the boys and girls club, and back, it is 5 minutes away, school is 7 minutes. It is nice to live in a semi urban area.