Fuck Cars

Living in an urban part of Ottawa, Ontario. The neighborhood is called Centretown West

Grocery: Not a supermarket, but right across the street from my building, there's a corner store that sells all of the relevant staple foods like bread, milk, eggs, some produce, dry groceries, etc.

Pharmacy: Yes actually a couple of options.

Bus stop: There is one near me, and I'm also only about 10 minutes from the metro light rail station.

Restaurant: I live near the city's "little Italy" and "Chinatown" areas, so I'm spoiled for choice here. I also live near a stroad which means fast food options.

Post office: They are commonly in pharmacies here in Canada, and the one near me is no exception

Bank: Yes, in fact I could probably access a branch for all of the major Canadian banks within a 15-20 minute walk.

Elementary school: Yes there's one close to me. A high school too.

Daycare: Yup, a few actually.

Hospital: Not within walking, but there are clinics

Barber: Quite a few over in Little Italy, including the one I go to.

Bar: Tons along the strip of Little Italy

Mall: Nope, but lots of shopping options at individual shops around me. Malls are gross anyway.

University: I am about a 20 minute walk to Carleton, and the walk would be through the park mentioned above

@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars In a Brussels suburb we've got all of those things within max 15min walking except a gas station, a sports arena and a movie theatre.

@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars

I grew up in Collingwood, Melbourne and all of these things were within 20mins walk from my house.

I'm on the other side of Melbourne now (Footscray) and the only thing I'm not walking distance from is 'sports arena'..unless you count horse racing.

All but 5: grocery story, mall, university, sports stadium, hospital

@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars All of the above except university which would be an approx. 40 minutes walk or 10 minutes by bike.

Live in Rio, from this list i have almost everything in a 15 minute walk distance the only exceptions are

• shopping mall(30 min walking)
• public hospital (used to have but it closed, now the closest is 30 min walking)
• Movie theater(30 min walking)
• Sports arena(1h walking)
• Public University(2h walking)

Although i have a lot of services close, it is still a chore to go walking because a lot of the walking is uphill, i wish there was more public infrastructure to help people move up and down like trams and stuff like that, way back them the city uses to have trams everywhere, but now there's almost none.

What isn't on the list, but i absolutely didn't want around, was an neopentecostal church. Unfortunately, they are everywhere and super loud and disrespectful.

Larger German city (>500k), just from memory

A grocery store, about 11

A park, 1 large, three small

A pharmacy, six

A bus stop, only a few, dozens of train and tram stops

A restaurant, 40+

A post office, one large, dozens of shop-in-shop ones

A bank, six, dozens of ATMs

A gas station, none

An elementary school, two

A day care center, five

A hospital, I have to walk 20min for that :(

A barber shop or hairdresser, about a dozen

A shopping mall, one

A movie theater, three

A bar, 40+

A university, none

A sports arena, none

@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars I'm in Riverside South in Ottawa, so I can only walk fifteen minutes to a park, a bus stop, and an elementary school (which also, I believe, operates a day care). That's it. But if I expand that to half-an-hour, I can add a pharmacy and a post office in one direction and *maybe* a restaurant and a grocery store in another (I'm not sure if I'd get there in half an hour, though. Might be a bit longer).

And lord knows the bus stop in Ottawa, via OC Transpo is... a gamble.

@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars
In Manchester, England.
All within 15 minute walk except for:
Hospital - 20 minutes Metro (but health centre only 5 minutes walk)
Cinema - 20 minutes Metro (but theatre 10 minutes walk away)
University - 20 minutes bus

Buses and Metro every 12 minutes or better.

@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars who doesn't want a park 15mn walking from their home? SMH.

I have all of this in a 15 minute walk of my apartment. The key thing, if people would like all of this very close by is they will need many fold more apartment buildings.

That's the thing people aren't willing to accept in the US.

Also who tf really needs the post office that close by, these days? Makes me think this was an older crowd that was polled.

Why are bars so low? Do Americans like having to use a car when drinking?

@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars I’m in Toronto’s Danforth area, so basically everything except a professional sports arena is within 5-20 mins walk.

The framing of that poll has such a sinister American conspiracy theorist edge: “if your local government decided…” — like having these things nearby can only be forced upon you and you must fight back.

@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars this just shows that despite countless tv shows that attest otherwise, Americans have no appreciate for the humble neighbourhood bar.

15 min walk.. In the US...?

@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars One thing you can get within a 15 minute walk of some US homes is arrested!

(My grandma went for a walk in a Miami suburb. The locals thought that someone walking (rather than driving) was obviously suspicious so they called the cops. Because my grandma was white and female and elderly, rather than black and male and young, they stopped to talk to her rather than just shooting her. They then spent several minutes trying to get her to admit that she was walking because her car had broken down - they just couldn't get it through their heads that she was walking because she wanted to walk.)

@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars Practically all of them (I'm in Europe of course) although the hospital and the sports arena would require a brisk walk, more like 20+min. But there are dozens of doctors nearby.

I have all except the hospital and university are about 10 mins drive. My bank is about the same, but I haven't walked into a bank for about a decade. I live in a city that's had a focus on modern design, though. The result is everything is a walk away. Super boring. I get in the car and head to the mountains every chance I can get so I can feel like I'm not in a retirement village and still have some sort of constitution. Ya know, in case of the zombies.

@ajsadauskas @fuck_cars No cinema @ 15 minutes and only a couple of medical centres (no full hospital), but everything else is right here.