Walkable and bikeable, please. While it is nice to be able to exercise and explore, sometimes I just need to transport a few bags worth of groceries, and carrying bags for over an hour is not fun.
I’ll take a bike and some pannier bags please.
An average casual biking speed in a city is about 20 km/h. So, 10 minutes would be about 3.3 km. But, most people walk a lot faster than that, Google Maps estimates about 5 km/h.
I’d say 1 hour walking is closer to being 20 minutes of biking, especially if you have to lock and unlock your bike at the start and end of your trip.
A walkable city means everything, including the grocery store, is a conveniently walkable distance away, which would automatically make it bikeable, too. An hour’s walk to the grocery store does not a walkable city make.
It doesn’t mean everything is a convenient walking distance away, just the most important things that you do daily or weekly: groceries, pharmacy, library, schools, etc. For some things that aren’t needed as often, you might need to take a bigger trip. Say to go furniture shopping, go see a lawyer, go watch live sports, etc.
I’d say I live in a walkable city – or at least in the walkable part of a city. Everything I need regularly is a short walk away. I don’t have a car, and don’t feel like I need one. I can walk to get groceries (in fact, there are 2 different major grocery stores within a 15 minute walk). But, if I want to buy specialty groceries, like specialty Asian or Mexican foods, it’s a bit too long for a comfortable walk, so I prefer to bike.
Having said that, even though it is a very walkable part of the city, it is still dominated by cars. A lot of people don’t take advantage of the fact that it’s walkable and they drive, even just to get groceries nearby. Because of all the driving, the walking isn’t nearly as pleasant as it could be. The area has a fair number of things that make driving inconvenient, including cul-de-sacs, speed bumps, one-way roads, etc. There are enough things designed to reduce vehicle through-traffic that I can get almost anywhere nearby faster on a bike than someone can do in a car. There are cul-de-sac that have bollards allowing bikes to go through. There are little pathways between roads that are open to pedestrians and bikes, but not to cars. And, to be fair, it’s rare that cars are driving dangerously fast in the area. But, they still own the road. And, because they’re so incredibly convenient, most people around here still mostly do their errands in a car because… why not?
I feel it’s hard to find places which are walkable but not bikeable (outside of the USA)
A walkable grocery store is at max a 10-15 mins from the house (in my opinion). This allows you to just pop in and buy stuff while coming from the public transport stop without having to schedule big trips for the entire week/month.
i feel like there’s a general tendency for people to mean different things when they say “bike”, some people think dutch-style cycling where high gears are something you use when you’re late for school, other people think more like road biking where low gears are something you begrudgingly resort to when you encounter a steep incline.
slow cycling is perfectly compatible with pedestrian places so long as it isn’t like a medieval alleyway, but fast biking is going to end up with people getting bruises.
Fast cycling isn’t really compatible with walkable culture. It needs some level of infrastructure for separation (lanes, lights, crossings, etc) to prevent collisions. I don’t understand the fascination with fast cycling for anything except for sports, exercise or long distance travel.
Slow cycling and walking don’t need any such infrastructure and that’s commonly considered as a walkable area. It brings roughly 1 km radius in a 5-10 minute zone and that’s enough area for at least 60-70% of required facilities (school, police station, fire station, hospital, groceries, bakery, shopping, transit stops).
and here i feel we’ve overcorrected.
Fast biking is absolutely fine (i have an e-bike, it’s very nice) and doesn’t require any insane infrastructure, just some wider straighter bike paths between more significant and far apart destinations.
like i’m sorry but i’m not gonna bike to the next town over at 15km/h, and those routes aren’t going to have lots of pedestrians.
A big road having bike lanes is perfectly fine. Moreover it’s encouraging to see people talking of putting bike lanes for commuters. But that’s a bikeable area, not a walkable one. And these 2 make sense in diff situations.
As long as kids and old people are able to walk or slow cycle most places, unsupervised (in a 20-40 minute radius around their homes), I’m happy with that. A place suitable for these 2 demographics is walkable for almost everyone else as well.
I remember some comment somewhere on lemmy about e scooters being too slow (it was 10 or 15 km/h?) so they shouldn’t be in a bike lane and all I’m thinking is “I wonder if I exceed 5 km/h on my bike when there’s strong headwind” lol
I’m not sure dutch biking is a good example for slow biking. A lot of bikes here in the Netherlands are e-bikes these days, and even without e-bikes people tend to be quite fast, especially on main streets that go straight for a while.
But then, most streets have bike lanes, and cars are very bike aware in streets that don’t. Pedestrians and bikes don’t share the same space.
Walkable and bikeable, please. While it is nice to be able to exercise and explore, sometimes I just need to transport a few bags worth of groceries, and carrying bags for over an hour is not fun.
I’ll take a bike and some pannier bags please.
If it’s an hour to the grocery store I don’t think that’s walkable either
an hour to walk to the grocery store is about 10 minutes on a bike. Just get a backpack to carry things.
I think you’re off by a factor of 2 or so.
An average casual biking speed in a city is about 20 km/h. So, 10 minutes would be about 3.3 km. But, most people walk a lot faster than that, Google Maps estimates about 5 km/h.
I’d say 1 hour walking is closer to being 20 minutes of biking, especially if you have to lock and unlock your bike at the start and end of your trip.
Yeah, that’s bikeable, but not walkable
A walkable city means everything, including the grocery store, is a conveniently walkable distance away, which would automatically make it bikeable, too. An hour’s walk to the grocery store does not a walkable city make.
It doesn’t mean everything is a convenient walking distance away, just the most important things that you do daily or weekly: groceries, pharmacy, library, schools, etc. For some things that aren’t needed as often, you might need to take a bigger trip. Say to go furniture shopping, go see a lawyer, go watch live sports, etc.
I’d say I live in a walkable city – or at least in the walkable part of a city. Everything I need regularly is a short walk away. I don’t have a car, and don’t feel like I need one. I can walk to get groceries (in fact, there are 2 different major grocery stores within a 15 minute walk). But, if I want to buy specialty groceries, like specialty Asian or Mexican foods, it’s a bit too long for a comfortable walk, so I prefer to bike.
Having said that, even though it is a very walkable part of the city, it is still dominated by cars. A lot of people don’t take advantage of the fact that it’s walkable and they drive, even just to get groceries nearby. Because of all the driving, the walking isn’t nearly as pleasant as it could be. The area has a fair number of things that make driving inconvenient, including cul-de-sacs, speed bumps, one-way roads, etc. There are enough things designed to reduce vehicle through-traffic that I can get almost anywhere nearby faster on a bike than someone can do in a car. There are cul-de-sac that have bollards allowing bikes to go through. There are little pathways between roads that are open to pedestrians and bikes, but not to cars. And, to be fair, it’s rare that cars are driving dangerously fast in the area. But, they still own the road. And, because they’re so incredibly convenient, most people around here still mostly do their errands in a car because… why not?
I feel it’s hard to find places which are walkable but not bikeable (outside of the USA)
A walkable grocery store is at max a 10-15 mins from the house (in my opinion). This allows you to just pop in and buy stuff while coming from the public transport stop without having to schedule big trips for the entire week/month.
i feel like there’s a general tendency for people to mean different things when they say “bike”, some people think dutch-style cycling where high gears are something you use when you’re late for school, other people think more like road biking where low gears are something you begrudgingly resort to when you encounter a steep incline.
slow cycling is perfectly compatible with pedestrian places so long as it isn’t like a medieval alleyway, but fast biking is going to end up with people getting bruises.
Fast cycling isn’t really compatible with walkable culture. It needs some level of infrastructure for separation (lanes, lights, crossings, etc) to prevent collisions. I don’t understand the fascination with fast cycling for anything except for sports, exercise or long distance travel.
Slow cycling and walking don’t need any such infrastructure and that’s commonly considered as a walkable area. It brings roughly 1 km radius in a 5-10 minute zone and that’s enough area for at least 60-70% of required facilities (school, police station, fire station, hospital, groceries, bakery, shopping, transit stops).
and here i feel we’ve overcorrected.
Fast biking is absolutely fine (i have an e-bike, it’s very nice) and doesn’t require any insane infrastructure, just some wider straighter bike paths between more significant and far apart destinations.
like i’m sorry but i’m not gonna bike to the next town over at 15km/h, and those routes aren’t going to have lots of pedestrians.
A big road having bike lanes is perfectly fine. Moreover it’s encouraging to see people talking of putting bike lanes for commuters. But that’s a bikeable area, not a walkable one. And these 2 make sense in diff situations.
As long as kids and old people are able to walk or slow cycle most places, unsupervised (in a 20-40 minute radius around their homes), I’m happy with that. A place suitable for these 2 demographics is walkable for almost everyone else as well.
I remember some comment somewhere on lemmy about e scooters being too slow (it was 10 or 15 km/h?) so they shouldn’t be in a bike lane and all I’m thinking is “I wonder if I exceed 5 km/h on my bike when there’s strong headwind” lol
Where I lived in the Netherlands there often were electric bikes and scooters and sports bikes going 30+kph on the bike lanes.
I’m not sure dutch biking is a good example for slow biking. A lot of bikes here in the Netherlands are e-bikes these days, and even without e-bikes people tend to be quite fast, especially on main streets that go straight for a while.
But then, most streets have bike lanes, and cars are very bike aware in streets that don’t. Pedestrians and bikes don’t share the same space.
I hate to break it to you, but if you have to walk an hour to buy groceries you’re not living in a walkable city.