We lived in several states and large cities (and a few in Europe) before choosing where to settle and raise our kids. After multiple encounters with criminals (violent and otherwise) in the cities, a primary goal was to be as far away from the center as possible. We would prefer living in rural, sparsely populated areas, but careers force us into/near large cities. After our experiences, we both loathe the idea of being out and about and unprotected on city streets or sidewalks. I also abhor public transportation in any form, as I hate being crowded into a closed area with strangers. I prefer my truck’s 7000lbs of steel between me and the “madding crowd”.
We have no interest in the “vibrant, colorful” etc. city-based entertainment venues and prefer the quiet of a far-flung 'burb. We live in an isolated waterfront community with an exemplary school system, and crime is so rare that we don’t even get a mention on the county’s crime maps. House lots are more than double those in the cities, providing room for the kids to play, ride go-carts, and I have large gates enabling me to store RVs, 4-wheelers, and other toys onsite. After arriving home, we can bike over to the park, walk the dogs along the shore, or back the boat into the lake and let the kids tube or wakeboard. When my SIL stayed with us a while back, she commented: “You guys live on vacation, every day.”
The 40 minute commute is a small price to pay for this, imo.
With chains and 4-wheel drive, I’ve yet to encounter weather that kept me from where I need to go.
I live on a ~1.5 mile rural road, there is only one house in sight from my house. Otherwise mostly woods.
About 2 miles away is a small town with the basic necessities including grocery stores and some restaurants. There are other small towns about 20-30 minutes away. 40 minutes away is a small city with lots to do.
I can walk and bike on my road, there isn’t much traffic. But usually when I walk I like to go somewhere, so I walk the high school or elementary school track, walk a circuit around a small town, or go hiking on trails. I don’t bike too much but there are some rails-to-trails trails within an hour or two that I enjoy a few times a year.
I live and work in downtown Minneapolis, and my address comes us with a walk score of 99. Looks like I’m just a couple blocks too far from a park to get a perfect score. Downtown Minneapolis is no Manhattan, but it’s got all the basics, and it’s only about a 40-minute train ride to the Mall of America for basically anything else. It’s not uncommon to look back and realize it’s been a week or two since I’ve been more than 2-3 miles from home.
I live in Portland, OR. The walkscore site gives us a walking score of 18, transit score of 28, and bike score of 32 (“Flat as a pancake, minimal bike lanes.” which is laughable, as I’m a block away from a major E-W bike lane/path that connects with N-S paths, or I’m about 1.5 fairly low traffic miles to another big N-S bike lane that goes right into downtown.). That said, I regularly bike:
To work, about 5 miles each way
To the gym, about 7 miles each way
To the grocery store, about 4 miles (adds about 2 miles to my commute if I stop on the way home from work) – and there are several more easily bikeable if that particular store doesn’t have what I want, including right on my regular commute home.
To the library, about 4-5 miles
To the farmers market, about 5 miles
To any number of restaurants, parks, entertainment events/venues, varying distances
To the liquor store, right on my commute home.
To the bike path along the Columbia River, a block or so away, for recreational riding
I drive everywhere. But if I were someone who walked or biked, there are a couple of small food stores within a couple of miles of my house. The library and post office are within 2-3 and there is room along the street to walk there, but not sidewalks per se the whole way.
For a real food shop though, it’s at least 20 miles.
Confession: I love to bike my 28 km to work, but will take the car or truck to Kroger, under 1 km away. I don’t bike to work religiously (I consider the weather as well as offsite meetings), but I do it when I can. But if I have to go to Kroger, I’m in a hurry, or have to carry too much.
I could change my lifestyle, and only go when needed, but I figure, oh well.
The website is weird. My house is 23, but if I just put in just the city it is 58.
The default address is ~1.25 miles from my house.
Both give the commute to location to the nearby bigger city.
Sometimes I get a bike time of 25 minutes (reasonable) and sometimes I get > 1 hr
I can’t seem to get a bike score but that commute is mostly flat (there are steep hills in the area)
From my house to work is 4.6 miles, which I bike often (I carry a change of clothes in my panniers). I also bike to the bank, library, post office and a smaller grocery store. I usually go to a bigger grocery store which would difficult to bike to.
There is an OK hardware store as well.
And this thread inspired me to bike down to the local farmers’ market this past Friday night. I’d been kinda thinking of it anyway because “it’s so crowded, nobody goes there anymore” and parking has become impossible. But this thread took it from “I should try it one of these days” to “I should do it this week.”
Worked out pretty well, actually. I don’t have saddlebags, but I’ve got one of those boxy ‘trunk’ thingies that sits on top of the carrier over your rear wheel. I got 4 cukes, 4 zucchini, 6 peaches, and a tomato in there without squashing anything. I also carried a loaf of sourdough bread home in my knapsack on my back, but the knapsack got in the way of my rear view mirror (attached to my glasses) which was a safety concern so I’m leaving the knapsack home next time. I need to order some saddlebags this week for more capacity, and I should be good for the summer.
We live in a city (NY area) with almost 100 ‘walking score’ I think, most walkable place in US per some survey or other. The mayor is a green/bike type so they’ve expanded bike lanes but urban biking is still too dangerous for my taste. I stationary bike at the gym a lot. Put me on a real bike and I shock myself how far and fast and steeply uphill I can ride without having done it much But I rarely do. We can easily walk to basic stores and to restaurants.
However we also drive fairly often, not far but to places a little more suburban. In part to save money (eg. Costco) but also because we feel like it. Same for having a car at all, not absolutely necessary where we live. But we’re not going to not do something for some abstract reason if we like it and it doesn’t cost much, and gas is a very small % of our budget, and I quite like my car, no way I wouldn’t have one.
Unless the national political will emerged to make gas goddamned expensive, there’s no reason for us not to live in a walkable place and still drive pretty often (though our non-road trip driving is ca. 4,000 miles a year, we don’t drive much compared to people driving long daily commutes in the 'burbs and boonies).
You might also look into baskets as an alternative to bags. I’ve been using a Basil Cardiff Rear Bicycle Basket for the past four or five years – great for going to the grocery store (carry it right into the store and use is as a shopping basket) or to pick up Chinese food, etc., and when the weather is iffy I can carry extra clothing I may or may not need.
My neighborhood has a walk score of 22, but that’s because of a nearby church, a small medical complex that doesn’t take my insurance, and two schools–none of which is of any personal use to me. It’s flat, even, and safe, so walking/biking for pleasure is possible in the neighborhood, but greater distances end up crossing dangerous roads or getting into some pretty steep hills.
That was a deliberate choice, though – I don’t like urban life much, but I still like to be in range of decent services, so this is a good compromise. My commute is from my bedroom to my computer room, so I do technically walk to work. I drive a plug-in car with a roughly 30 mile electric range, enough to get me to any of three nearby towns and back without falling back on gasoline most of the time.
It works for me. There wasn’t much chance I was going to walk a lot, anyway.
Nice looking basket. Where and how does it mount? It looks far too deep to hang off the handlebars.
I’ve got a cheapo folding basket like this Amazon.com that I mounted on a platform over the rear tire, using a clamp onto the seat post. It’s about 8" wide, x 12 high & 12 deep. It holds a couple of poly bags of typical groc. That plus a typical backpack can handle a couple day’s worth of fresh shopping or two.
The downside is that with anything in the basket the bike is too top-heavy to sit on its kickstand. And it’s a bit hard to swing a leg over the basket empty, much less with tall items sticking out of it. So I end up in a chicken and egg problem where I have to be astride the bike to load the basket, but then it’s right behind my back and hard to reach.
It hangs on the rear cargo rack – not a permanent mount, it just hooks over the rails. There are several user pictures of it in use in the review section on Amazon. Hangs low, so it keeps your center of gravity low. I think the same company makes some non-permanent mount handle bar baskets (but I have too much junk on my handlebars already.) The hooks are several inches long, so no way it is going to bounce off from bumps.
I take the basket in to the grocery store, use it to gather my items, then pile the stuff right back into the basket at the check out … very convenient and that way I never buy more than the basket can hold.
One little thing: I have fallen from my bike once in the past five years; it was the first time I got off the bike when I first got this basket – hooked my heel on the basket when getting off the bike. I moved the basket to the other side and now pay attention … end of problem.
Do you use two of them, or just one? (I gather it hangs from one side or the other of the rack over the rear tire.) Looks like they’re sold individually, but with a decent load, ISTM that the bike would become imbalanced with just one.
we don’t walk anywhere, as the neighborhood is crammed between a 5 lane busy street and a railroad. There’s a park and pool across the railroad down a quiet street about 3/4 of a mile away but for various reasons its usually not too practical to walk (the 100 degree days being one of them right now).
A mile in each direction on the busy road are various restaurants, convenience store, two groceries, the post office, pharmacies, etc. The walk is just so unpleasant on the busy road that we don’t do it - I have done it when I drop my car off at the shop but that’s about it.
But I rarely do. We can easily walk to basic stores and to restaurants.