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On the "transportation experience" in America
Jul 27, 2007
People don't walk much any more in the U.S. The car seems to mediate all our traveling now. So this is "where the sidewalk ends."
The Washington Post covered this a few years back in A Walk on the Wild Side:
I can remember when -- in a suburban Washington childhood in the '60s and '70s -- walking was common, routine even. We walked to the shopping center, walked to school...
But somewhere between then and now, walking as an option in suburban America seems to have virtually disappeared. The facts bear this out. Between 1980 and today, the number of children walking to school has fallen from 70 percent to less than 10 nationwide. Walking as a means of getting from here to there is 36 times more dangerous than driving, according to the Surface Transportation Policy Project, a research and advocacy group.
...Nationally, 78,000 pedestrians were struck and injured by cars in 2001, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration; 4,882 were killed.
This is one reason I live in Manhattan, where people can and do walk (and often in parks, where cars aren't allowed).
Same reason why I live in Boulder, Colorado, where we have a downtown walking mall, and over 300 miles of bike paths.
Despite what car commercials would have you believe, walking and biking tend to be much better experiences. :)
I have actually lived in LA without a car for 3 years. [gasp!] Yes, it can be done! People miss out on a lot by driving in their cars.
Without going into the obvious health benefits, I feel that a city's underbelly can only really be experienced on foot!