The Crisis in American Walking

Sounds like you live near the red or gold lines, I used to take those to work every day when I worked in Old Town Pasadena and lived in Hollywood (two very walkable areas also).

You're highlighting something a lot of people don't understand about LA - there are tons of walkable neighborhoods in LA, the problem is traveling from neighborhood to neighborhood takes forever and requires a car.

LA was originally a dozen different cities, all walkable, all connected by good public transport. It's very, very slowly returning to that ideal but light rail and subway are about 25 years behind where it could be.

With the accelerated transit programs/taxes (new light rail, new subways, new bus lines) currently underway, the gaining popularity of biking, and the increasing telecommuting, it'll get better. Eventually. :)

Part of it has to be just time. I used to walk a fair amount. A few miles a day. But as life became more busy there just wasn't time to walk to the grocery store any more - I go to the grocery store on the way back from somewhere else, because I just don't have an hour and a half to buy groceries any more.

As an aside, is anyone else annoyed by the appearance of the word "crisis" in the title of every damn news story? A crisis implies immediate danger. The lack of walking Americans is not a crisis. Global warming is not a crisis. Peak oil is not a crisis. These things are all problems, to be sure, but problems we have some time to deal with. Let's save the word for situations where it applies.

I wonder, that no one gave a coders point of view to walking here.

I don't own a car for nearly 25 years. I'm a programmer for more than 35 years, and of course, I got a car with 18. But this first VW Golf told me a lesson, that driving a car and coding is incompatible. I crashed that car twice, after hacking through the night shift at a customer, driving home over fatigued. My second and last car was a BMW2002ti, it was fun, but hard to maintain. And I realized: I do not need a car!

Unlike other self employed, I do not need to carry heavy tools and equipment to serve my customer. And they pay for train and taxi cab, so I don't need a car to go to work. This was 25 years ago, when computer modems started to become brick size and cheap. Now I'm just 100ms away from my shop in Nashville, while sitting in Bremen Germany. A programmer does not need a car. No car could get me faster to work than the internet.

But a programmer needs a walk. Walking is like resting, for someone who sits in front of a computer while work. So I walk to buy my food, and I often just walk the imaginary dog. Walking to the lake, to my boat or to the boats house, just to relax, is one of my methods to attack difficult problems. My eyes can wander around, and legs move by them self, and my mind can drift around the problem, or even better about something completely different. I'll make a coffee, when I'm home, and often sit down immediately to code with much better productivity, than before the walk, when I was blocked. Walking is a way to get me into flow.

I'm currently living in the subs of a major German City. We have good public transport in Bremen, good bike lanes, and I'm faster to nearly anyplace in town, if I take the train, compared to car. But I also lived in the rural. Think about you have to carry your food, and your dogs food yourself over a distance of 5km/3miles, and suddenly a Pepsi becomes a luxury. Not owning a car for 25 years changed a lot of my life, not only when it comes to food, or when I comes to fitness. But most important when it comes to social life. Walking my neighborhood, to buy food, to relax, to talk with over the fence or in shop, is that part of my social life, where I can get contact with "normal" people. People who are not programmers, or belong to my peer group of friends from school, or to my yacht club.

I'm living in a cheap area, because I'm self employed, and reducing monthly cost, increases the runway. I'm not shy talking to a junky on the street. Well I have long hairs, beard and a hoodie also. The kids on the street greet me in the 'right' way to show respect. I helped people moving in, and often stay for a short barbecue or grill in neighbors gardens on my way home. Its important for a community that there is life outside the walls. That neighbors watch each other, especially in the cheaper areas. My ghetto is a good one. E.g. we have a new neighbor since January. An 82 year old lady from California, who came back to Germany because of health (insurance), and because she ran out of money. I saw her first when it was freezing cold, and she was standing there, in her plain white thin clothes in the supermarket. Half of the flats of my U-block here are rented out to Wohnungshilfe, a department of social welfare who have flats, for those who are in need, and can not find a flat on the normal market. Those could be people coming from jail, or in this case a bankrupt woman from California. It took less than 3 hours, to get her some warm clothes, a bed and warm blankets, and some furniture. I visit here regular, because our supermarket that is a mile away has no penut butter.

I own a small parcel in San Antioco, a Sardian island, and the people there have a special tradition called Passagiata. Every day after lunch, they walk the main street, up and down, again and again. Greet each other, talk a bit, drink a coffee or smoke a cigarette.

This kind of Mediterranean art of life is utterly lost in most modern cities. A suburb where people no longer walk, and talk, lost its soul and became a zombie of a town.

You're right. I did see the two-thirds figure quoted in an article elsewhere, but I'll take the NHTSA's word over theirs.

Just to clarify: my commute home is twice as long as my commute to work, so that 20 minutes is for a walk just over 2 km.