Another spin off: Walking vs Driving time, how much?

[Hobbes]

I was discussing the 'walkable neighborhood' with DH yesterday and the problems, pros of the walkable neighborhood site, and he came up with one measure of how walkable your neighborhood might be.

How much time do you spend in an average week walking vs the time you spend driving?

It's not perfect, but it would seem an indication of how 'walkable' your neighborhood is. Do you walk to school or drive? do you walk to the grocery store to buy that extra gallon of milk, or do you have to drive? do you walk around the corner to the library?

So, we sat down and calculated that on an average week we spend about 6 hours driving time (for the two of us) and about 8 hours walking. Nearly all the driving is taking Emma back and forth to school. The walking is shopping, going to friend's house, going to the farmer's market (we walk to the streetcar and then take it), going to the show (we went to a dance concert for kids this weekend, the theatre is 4 blocks away), etc. If we sent Emma to the local public school, then it'd be 8 walking, 2 driving probably. Unfortunately our local school is horrible :(.

I wouldn't say that you'd spend more time walking than driving in a 'walkable' neighborhood because walking usually doesn't take up that much time, but the ratio could be interesting.

I guess you could count walking for exercise or pleasure (just not treadmills :D).

[aleutsi]

I was discussing the 'walkable neighborhood' with DH yesterday and the problems, pros of the walkable neighborhood site, and he came up with one measure of how walkable your neighborhood might be.

How much time do you spend in an average week walking vs the time you spend driving?

It's not perfect, but it would seem an indication of how 'walkable' your neighborhood is. Do you walk to school or drive? do you walk to the grocery store to buy that extra gallon of milk, or do you have to drive? do you walk around the corner to the library?

So, we sat down and calculated that on an average week we spend about 6 hours driving time (for the two of us) and about 8 hours walking. Nearly all the driving is taking Emma back and forth to school. The walking is shopping, going to friend's house, going to the farmer's market (we walk to the streetcar and then take it), going to the show (we went to a dance concert for kids this weekend, the theatre is 4 blocks away), etc. If we sent Emma to the local public school, then it'd be 8 walking, 2 driving probably. Unfortunately our local school is horrible :(.

I wouldn't say that you'd spend more time walking than driving in a 'walkable' neighborhood because walking usually doesn't take up that much time, but the ratio could be interesting.

I guess you could count walking for exercise or pleasure (just not treadmills :D).

The most walking I do is to and from the car and around the shopping center (mall, grocery, superstore). I also park way far away from the entrance so that I can increase my exercise. If we had sidewalks (or even a bike lane) and you could safely walk from our house w/o having to step out into traffic, I would walk to the grocery, coffee shop, a few restaurants and the bus stop to get to other places. Our public transit here sucks. The nearest bus stop to me is 2 miles away and it doesn't go to the places I want to go.

All the kids activities require driving (and still would if we had walk/bike paths because this city is HUGE and everything is so spread out - seriously most everything is 15-30 min away and it's still all within the city) and DH has to drive to work because his vehicle is his tool box.

[Hobbes]

The most walking I do is to and from the car and around the shopping center (mall, grocery, superstore). I also park way far away from the entrance so that I can increase my exercise. If we had sidewalks (or even a bike lane) and you could safely walk from our house w/o having to step out into traffic, I would walk to the grocery, coffee shop, a few restaurants and the bus stop to get to other places. Our public transit here sucks. The nearest bus stop to me is 2 miles away and it doesn't go to the places I want to go.

All the kids activities require driving (and still would if we had walk/bike paths because this city is HUGE and everything is so spread out - seriously most everything is 15-30 min away and it's still all within the city) and DH has to drive to work because his vehicle is his tool box.
Yeah, work is a problem even in 'walkable neighborhoods' I suspect.

Some people, like your DH, need the vehicle to work, others just can't live near work (lots of work places aren't even near residential). That's a problem if there isn't great public transport.

DH and I are lucky in that respect since we can both work from home.

[Sarah]

I was discussing the 'walkable neighborhood' with DH yesterday and the problems, pros of the walkable neighborhood site, and he came up with one measure of how walkable your neighborhood might be.

How much time do you spend in an average week walking vs the time you spend driving?


ohhh good one!

Okay, we drive to the grocery store because we buy all of our stuff at once, once a week. It's very close, but not practical to walk there for full shopping.

We walk to the park, the corner store for milk, the coffee shop for muffins and coffee, the movie place to rent DVDs and the ice cream place right next to it for treats. The kids *could* walk to school, but DH drops them off on his way to the office. Soon, he'll be able to walk to work, when his office moves. I walk to the pharmacy, to the comic shop, to meals out, to my hair salon, to the yarn store, the library.

So I really do think that the other score was way off. I can get anything I want or need within walking distance. :loveit:

[indigo]

How much time do you spend in an average week walking vs the time you spend driving?

.

I don't actually spend that much time doing either! My neighborhood is not walkable because there's no way to safely cross the big road. But the stuff we do is very close to where we live. School, work, groceries, music lessons, sports, etc....none are more than about 3 miles from our house. So, although, it's not walkable, it's also very convenient.

[Jill]

I was discussing the 'walkable neighborhood' with DH yesterday and the problems, pros of the walkable neighborhood site, and he came up with one measure of how walkable your neighborhood might be.

How much time do you spend in an average week walking vs the time you spend driving?

It's not perfect, but it would seem an indication of how 'walkable' your neighborhood is. Do you walk to school or drive? do you walk to the grocery store to buy that extra gallon of milk, or do you have to drive? do you walk around the corner to the library?

So, we sat down and calculated that on an average week we spend about 6 hours driving time (for the two of us) and about 8 hours walking. Nearly all the driving is taking Emma back and forth to school. The walking is shopping, going to friend's house, going to the farmer's market (we walk to the streetcar and then take it), going to the show (we went to a dance concert for kids this weekend, the theatre is 4 blocks away), etc. If we sent Emma to the local public school, then it'd be 8 walking, 2 driving probably. Unfortunately our local school is horrible :(.

I wouldn't say that you'd spend more time walking than driving in a 'walkable' neighborhood because walking usually doesn't take up that much time, but the ratio could be interesting.

I guess you could count walking for exercise or pleasure (just not treadmills :D).

I know this sounds pathetic but honestly - there is NOT ONE PLACE to walk to from here. NOWHERE. My whopping score of 9 was a crows fly thing, with the CLOSEST thing on the list being over two hilly, winding, dangerous miles away with no sidewalks or even lights for crossing.
IF and I mean IF I felt it were safe to walk or bike we could get to the park by setting out a quarter to half mile in any direction - but that isn't reality.

By contrast, most everyone around here spends a lot of time walking and biking the trails - that we drive to LOL! (there are LOTS of die hard bikers who use the bike lanes here, too- pretty much every road has a bike lane in each direction - but again for MY family right now its not doable. Maybe some day!) OH and a comment about those bike lanes. The cyclists need to stay IN them when there are cars needing to pass, I can not even begin to explain the fear and frustration when there is a bike in front of me that will NOT move over and I cant pass safely unless they do. ARGGGHHHHHH! Sometimes it's even multiple bikes riding in a row!

[Anne]

We really don't walk anywhere--it's all too far to make it feasible. :( Well, we can walk to my inlaws' house, but I'm usually dropping the girls off there before running other errands, or we'll be returning from their place in the dark. I'm not comfortable walking with the girls on our non-existent sidewalks in the dark.

If Madeleine were going to public school, we could walk there easily, but we're not using that school. Everything else is at least a couple of miles away, if not more.

This is far different from how I grew up. We walked everywhere (my mom didn't even have her license until I was 10). And we could walk everywhere. For me, it's the difference between living in the city and the suburbs. If we were to move, I'd certainly look for a place that had some amenities I could reach on foot.

As far as biking goes, I don't feel safe biking on our roads (we live in an unincorporated part of our county) and therefore can't see putting my small children on bikes to go places, either. Bus service is great if you're commuting somewhere where there are a lot of jobs. Other than that, it's not. When we were kids, my brother and I used to take the bus all over Seattle.

Wow, I hadn't really thought about all this very much. Our neighborhood is nice to walk in in the daytime, you just don't really get anywhere.

[mudcreekmama]

How much time do you spend in an average week walking vs the time you spend driving?

It's not perfect, but it would seem an indication of how 'walkable' your neighborhood is. Do you walk to school or drive? do you walk to the grocery store to buy that extra gallon of milk, or do you have to drive? do you walk around the corner to the library?

So, we sat down and calculated that on an average week we spend about 6 hours driving time (for the two of us) and about 8 hours walking. Nearly all the driving is taking Emma back and forth to school. The walking is shopping, going to friend's house, going to the farmer's market (we walk to the streetcar and then take it), going to the show (we went to a dance concert for kids this weekend, the theatre is 4 blocks away), etc. If we sent Emma to the local public school, then it'd be 8 walking, 2 driving probably. Unfortunately our local school is horrible :(.

I wouldn't say that you'd spend more time walking than driving in a 'walkable' neighborhood because walking usually doesn't take up that much time, but the ratio could be interesting.

I guess you could count walking for exercise or pleasure (just not treadmills :D).

I walk about an hour a day to do errands, walk DD part way home from school, etc, and am in a car for *maybe* half an hour on the weekend, unless we decide to Do Something (tm), so thats me and the kids. DD walks for 80 minutes a day - to and from school.

DH on the other hand is currently commuting 2 hours a day in the car - he stops for groceries and the mail on his way home (on his route) rather than us make any extra trips by car. So total, we're driving about 11 hours a week, and walking about 7 hours a week...plus walking the dog.

[Meagan]

I was discussing the 'walkable neighborhood' with DH yesterday and the problems, pros of the walkable neighborhood site, and he came up with one measure of how walkable your neighborhood might be.

How much time do you spend in an average week walking vs the time you spend driving?
:D).

It really depends on the season, here. I will have to keep track of how it goes once we start regularly walking places again. It was a damn brutal winter and frankly there aren't many places we walked AT ALL since December or so.

[Sarah]

It really depends on the season, here. I will have to keep track of how it goes once we start regularly walking places again. It was a damn brutal winter and frankly there aren't many places we walked AT ALL since December or so.

Uh huh, here too. I did some walking to the downtown (all those dinners out -- easier to walk home after a beer than worry about being stupid and driving the four blocks :rolleyes: ) but I maybe walked somewhere once every two weeks instead of daily meandering.

[mudcreekmama]

I think weather and street maintenance definitely contribute to how walkable a community is - I mean, if your city doesn't care about pedetrians and don't keep sidewalks cleared of ice etc - what are you likely to do? Drive. And the more people drive the less they think the pedestrians are important. If it wasn't for the university here - and all the carless students who really demand that they keep sidewalks well maintained - this would be a much less walkable town.

[jump4joy]

We walk to our neighborhood grocery, our bigger supermarket, the video and gaming stores, our hairdressers, and a couple of favorite restaurants, as well as any events going on at the fairgrounds (including things like Asian cultural festival, farmer's market, holiday market, the fair, etc.) Downtown stuff is more like 2.5 miles away (our gym, my work), so that's bikeable but not reasonably walkable (though we do take the bus down there sometimes if it's too rainy). What we tend to drive to is taking Asa to dance and rollerskating classes, and unfortunately our karate dojo is moving this month out of walking/biking range and into a driving-only location (though there may be bus service).

[threecubs]

We really don't walk anywhere--it's all too far to make it feasible. :( Well, we can walk to my inlaws' house, but I'm usually dropping the girls off there before running other errands, or we'll be returning from their place in the dark. I'm not comfortable walking with the girls on our non-existent sidewalks in the dark.

If Madeleine were going to public school, we could walk there easily, but we're not using that school. Everything else is at least a couple of miles away, if not more.

This is far different from how I grew up. We walked everywhere (my mom didn't even have her license until I was 10). And we could walk everywhere. For me, it's the difference between living in the city and the suburbs. If we were to move, I'd certainly look for a place that had some amenities I could reach on foot.

As far as biking goes, I don't feel safe biking on our roads (we live in an unincorporated part of our county) and therefore can't see putting my small children on bikes to go places, either. Bus service is great if you're commuting somewhere where there are a lot of jobs. Other than that, it's not. When we were kids, my brother and I used to take the bus all over Seattle.

Wow, I hadn't really thought about all this very much. Our neighborhood is nice to walk in in the daytime, you just don't really get anywhere.

This sounds identical to our neighborhood, Anne!

[Brenda]

I was discussing the 'walkable neighborhood' with DH yesterday and the problems, pros of the walkable neighborhood site, and he came up with one measure of how walkable your neighborhood might be.

How much time do you spend in an average week walking vs the time you spend driving?

It's not perfect, but it would seem an indication of how 'walkable' your neighborhood is. Do you walk to school or drive? do you walk to the grocery store to buy that extra gallon of milk, or do you have to drive? do you walk around the corner to the library?

So, we sat down and calculated that on an average week we spend about 6 hours driving time (for the two of us) and about 8 hours walking. Nearly all the driving is taking Emma back and forth to school. The walking is shopping, going to friend's house, going to the farmer's market (we walk to the streetcar and then take it), going to the show (we went to a dance concert for kids this weekend, the theatre is 4 blocks away), etc. If we sent Emma to the local public school, then it'd be 8 walking, 2 driving probably. Unfortunately our local school is horrible :(.

I wouldn't say that you'd spend more time walking than driving in a 'walkable' neighborhood because walking usually doesn't take up that much time, but the ratio could be interesting.

I guess you could count walking for exercise or pleasure (just not treadmills :D).

I spend maybe an hour a week driving, hour and a half tops unless I am doing a LOT of real estate work out of the main city.

We walk for almost all of our errands, to the kids' art, archery and girl scouts, and to the office. I probably spend six or more hours a week walking for a purpose.

[Bonny]

I can't even calculate LOL. I spend anywhere between 10 minutes to an hour or so driving per day.

While many of our stops are less than a mile from our house, I prefer NOT to make a walking trip to them. If I'm already driving to and from work, for example, we'll stop at the library or grocery store on the way home. We aren't spending any more time in the car, or using any more gas, and it takes us 20 minutes at the library, as opposed to an hour and 20 minutes if we walk from our house.

Actually, one of the reasons that we've not been extremely successful wrt househunting is that we don't want to move very far from where we are now. DD walks to the highschool (and sports practices, etc). Until my kids are out of school, I prefer to NOT change that.

[movingon]

First, it is cold from October till April and I am extra sensitive to that. Secondly, the nearest store is over 2 miles and it's too expensive to really do more than grab milk or bread. my hair salon is maybe 8 miles away. The dvd place, coffee shop, restaurants and chain stores are all at least 4 miles away. There is a huge shopping area about 10 miles away.

In warm weather, I do walk for exercise 2-4 miles, depending. The high school is 2.5 miles and the grade school id 4 miles. There is no way I'd let the girls walk. While it's fairly safe, people wise, the thought of speeding cars and just girls/children alone scares me.

[Ali]

You cannot walk to anywhere around here. Rural roads, and the closest thing is the ice cream store a mile away. We walk for enjoyment/excersise in our woods.

Dh spends 80 minutes a day to and from work. I'm currently picking up Dalton four times a week from school, which is a round trip of 40 minutes. I try to get stuff done while I'm out doing that so it's all in one trip. Those stops are little things like post office, library, bank, or run in for a quick thing at the grocery. I only shop once every two weeks, so I really try to do without until shopping day.

Until this week with dh being sick, I had been going two weeks between fill ups in my car. Which is pretty good. I've really cut down on my driving.