I’ve heard the legends of having to drive to literally everywhere (e.g. drive thru banks), but I have no clue how far apart things are.
I live in suburban London where you can get to a big supermarket in 10 minutes of walking, a train station in 20 minutes and convenience stores are everywhere. You can get anywhere with bus and train in a few hours.
Can someone help a clueless British lemmyposter know how far things are in the US?
EDIT
Here are my walking distances:
- To the nearest convenience store: 250m
- To the nearest chain supermarket: 350m
- To the bus stop: 310m
- To the nearest park: 400m
- To the nearest big supermarket: 1.3km
- To the nearest library: 1.2km
- To the nearest train station: 1km
Straight-line distance to Big Ben: 16km
Hard disagree on DC. The public transit is bad, the train only goes a few places, and the majority of the city is not easily walkable, only the touristy parts. I’d also call it a depressing shithole, but that borders on opinion.
WMATA busses need serious work and there aren’t enough bike lanes for last mile connectivity, but by US standards it’s about as good as it gets outside of NYC.
The busses are the main differentiation between European and US cities in my experience. Only Seattle and SF get close to running a decent bus service.
Fair enough, not everyone will have the same experience. The busses can suck; at least the metro is tidy and runs well. My cousin in Georgetown doesn’t have a car, and he manages to travel to and access everything he needs, including going out to Potomac or Silver Spring. Going east/west is tricker, but on the flip side DC is rather small for a major city, and they’re building the purple line. Public bikes and scooters are also everywhere which is nice for visitors. Additional bike lanes and connectivity is needed for sure.
Compare to Baltimore, where they have the one metro line, which is broken half the time.