For some reason, I was thinking about this at work today. I have lived in different parts of the country, so I’ve seen, for example, Pennsylvania Dutch/ Amish people driving buggies on the roadways. But what if you decided that you were going to ride a horse rather than use a car in order to save fossil fuels? Is that legitimate/ legal in most places today? I can imagine businesses might not want a horse tied up next to the doorway, but what if you had the horse “parked” at the back of the lot, next to some grass or with a feed bag? Can people get around by horse in many/ any cities these days?
You can definitely do it but it might take some planning. Cities like New York and New Orleans have mounted police patrols for instance so the concept isn’t that unusual. The problem isn’t the riding so much as it is tying up a horse when you want to get down for a while. Most towns and cities aren’t built for that these days. I live in a town of about 13,000 in Massachusetts horse country and people ride up and down our street all the time but all of this is supported by large horse farms. I think that most states have right-of-way laws for horses like they do for bicycles but it is the non-riding part that is the problem.
We live on horse property, and people are always riding horses through the neighborhood, but going 1/2 mile to the shopping center would be an impossibility. Not only isn’t there any place to hitch your horse, but the cars and pedestrians would make it very stressful for the horse. There are probably some very rural towns that still have hitching posts, but they are surely a dying breed.
I rode my horse to high school in my senior year in Tulsa in 1961 many times. Lots of grass around it then. Nuns and Christian Brothers who ran the place were cool with it.
6-7 years ago, guy who travels cross country in a small covered wagon and a 4 team of mules spent the night at the place and we let the animals out into the pasture. Stayed an extra day. Interesting guy. Maybe 35 years old …
In the UK at least, you have to be careful where you park…
Here is a story concerning a man who rode his horse to work when gasoline prices reached $3 per gallon a couple of years ago.
Jim Jundt lives 15 miles south of Minot, ND (pop. 37,000). I note from the map that his place of work, the Goodyear Tire & Auto Service, is also on the south side of Minot so Jim wouldn’t have encountered much city traffic on his journey. I don’t know whether he’s still using his horse (Patty) to commute but if I was his employer I’d strongly discourage him from so doing.
It would seem to demonstrate a singular lack of faith in the product I was trying to sell.