this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024
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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

(page 5) 39 comments
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[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Walking?

5 minutes to cafe for toast and coffee, or the closest corner store/gas station

10-15 minutes walk to the closet big grocery store, or pharmacy, better corner store/gas station, also to roller skating and bowling, a jewelry store, like 15 churches, lawyers, medical supply, doctor offices, a hospital, a bank, fast food and small independent restaurants, lots of stuff.

20-25 to work or to the good grocery

It's certainly not London!!! But if you are inside a mid-sized city there is stuff within easy walking distance, and more within short drive (5 minutes) My husband came from the suburbs and that's a different story - house farms ringed by roads too dangerous to cross, everyone drives everywhere. He used to think of "close" as anything a 15 minute drive or less! Not anymore.

83 miles from Disney World, that's probably the closest international landmark, lol. But maybe 4 miles from the beautiful Tampa Theater, which ought to be an international landmark.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

it takes half an hour to walk (one-way) to the nearest store

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

about 20 minutes to the grocery store, 5 to the convenience store, about 10 to the bus stop 20 to the park. West coast.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Depends on location, but I don’t think I’m too bad.

  • To the nearest convenience store (more than that, really; a drug store and mini grocery store): 400m
  • To the nearest chain supermarket: 2km
  • To the bus stop: 100m (but the bus doesn’t go many places
  • To the nearest park: 600m (a small park, a much larger one 2km away)
  • To the nearest *big* supermarket: 6km
  • To the nearest library: 2.5km
  • To the nearest train station: 2km for local rail, like 25km for rare intercity trains
[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 months ago

I have never lived in a big city, always living in the suburbs where everything is a drive away. But nothing was too far away to drive to so when I talk about where something is today, even if it's 10 miles away, I'm like "it's just around the corner".

Grocery Store: 4.4 Miles Pharmacy: 4.9 Miles Doctors: 6.4 Miles Library: 2.4 miles

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Here are my best guesses from living life:

From house to local stores: City-Couple blocks Suburbs-3 to 10 mins Rural-10 to 45 mins

Metropolitan centers are surrounded by Suburbs which is surrounded by rural. That's sort of stat quo. The distance between Metropolitan centers (not including the retarded NYC and LA type areas) is usually a minimum 1hr from closest centers but in most states they're like 3 hrs apart.

Time it takes to go up or down the east coast is 12 to 17 hrs for most that's not the time to get from northern most tip of main to southern most tip of Florida cuz who the fuck actually does that.

Traveling an hour to do something special is common but traveling an hr for something common or necessity is designated for the extreme mountain ranges like Adirondack, Appalachian, Rocky? (Idk never been just assuming) type of areas.

Anything taking longer than an hr is getting into road trip status and anything over 3 hr is find somewhere to stay and come home tomorrow status. There are exceptions bit depending on how long event is you are adding 6hr round trip time to it.

Caveats:

Rush hour is dependent on area. For example in Buffalo a 45 min trip no traffic is taking you around 50min-1hr in rush hour. Whereas in Frederick, MD (D.C. suburb) a 15 min drive no traffic was taking at leasy 1hr in rush hour. All the same it's every single weekday from 6am to 9am and 3pm to 6pm in every Metropolitan area.

State to neighboring state trips are usually 3 to 6 hr. Usual work commute for everyone not commuting to a city (do honestly most of the US) 5 to 30 mins.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

According to wikipedia, the contiguous 48 states of the US (which occupy the middleish part of North America) are 8,080,464.3 km2, compared to Europe’s 10,180,000 km2, so that should give you an idea. My country is nearly as big as your entire continent, thus things are very spread out. Also our entire modern culture was designed around cars, suburbs and racism, so towns are flat, expansive and nothing is close to anything useful unless you have a car—woe to those without (myself included).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

Corner store with basics: 5 min Supermarket: 15 min Restaurants: 5 min Park: 3 min Bus stop: 5 min Library: 15 min Local rail: 20 min Regional/National rail: 40 min

All walking distances. I live in a neighborhood that was designed before cars existed so it’s more like Europe in terms of distances/amenities. Except our transit infrastructure is shit.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

I live in a major city

  • To the nearest convenience store: 500m
  • To the nearest chain supermarket: 2.7km
  • To the bus stop: 400m
  • To the nearest park: 1.4km
  • To the nearest big supermarket: 2.7km (same one as above)
  • To the nearest library: 3km
  • To the nearest train station (light rail): 5.6km
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

I live in a planned community where everything is supposed to be accessible by walking or biking. There are greenway paths all over the place. I generally drive because I can't carry a weeks worth of food on my bike and most destinations don't have a safe place to lock your bike up. An unattended bike seems to be considered a free bike.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

For me things were not in meters or feet but hours driven. From my home town the nearest stoplight was 1.5 hours away by car. This is also the closest chain restaurant (like McDonald's or simular). We had a school bus, but other than that no public transit. The next town over (15 minutes) has a supermarket.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

250 m to the nearest mini market

400 to the nearest mini mall

1k to the railroad station

400 to the park

150 to the (unreliable) bus stop

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (8 children)
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