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To Americans: How far apart is everything in the US? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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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

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

I live in suburban Kansas City and these are the distances to the things you mentioned -

Convenience store - 1.2 miles (1.9km)
Chain supermarket - 2.8 miles (4.5km)
Bus stop - 1.2 miles (1.9km)
Park - .4 miles (650m)
Big supermarket - 5.5 miles (8.8km)
Library - 1.9 miles (3km)
Train station - 7.4 miles (11km) (trains are not really a viable transport option here)
Airport - 29.1 miles (46.8km)

The closest publicly accessible business to me is a fast food restaurant about a mile away.

Basically if I need anything, it's a 30 minute walk one way to get there. It just isn't really viable as a regular thing to spend an hour walking to get to/from a convenience store, or 2 hours for a grocery store. Instead, I spend 10-20 minutes in my car for those errands, and save the extra time for walking my dog (since he couldn't go into any of the places mentioned above either, so his walks would have to be in addition anyway.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

OP dweller here!

I will add that indeed these suburbs are designed for driving, even if there are good sidewalks and parks everywhere. Where I am at, everything feels like a 5 to 15 minute drive away. Banks, pharmacies and lots of restaurants have drive-thrus. Major intersections are typically one mile apart on a squared grid. The major stroads are often lined with big stores and restaurants with giant parking lots, while the interior parts of those grid blocks are housing colonies, schools and parks. Different suburbs are connected to each other and the city with arterial highways. And compared to Europe, fuel is very cheap. Cartopia.