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Only because people drive everywhere. If you live in a well designed city you just walk everywhere and you don't have to do anything extra.

It's only hard because we make it hard.



I walk my kids to school every morning. And I walk to pick them up. It's a 10 minute walk to get them, so that's about 40 minutes of walking each day. I could drive and get there in 2 minutes then wait in a line. It would probably cut the time in half, but walking is better for the environment (noise, pollution, safety, wear and tear), me, and my relationship with the kids (we, y'know, talk while we walk).

There's people that live even closer that drive their kids to school. One of them lives literally 19 houses down the street from it.

I also have a rule where if I can go somewhere within 20 minutes on a bike, I'm taking my bike. Most places I go fall under this rule, and I live in what most would call a suburban hellscape.

My wife used to drive to work. Driving took longer than walking. But she still drove.

I think it's less about easy vs hard and more about the culture around driving in the US.


That's great - for me the problem is weather. Where I live it's hot, >80s Fahrenheit, >28 celsius, for 4 months a year. So unless I want to always be sweaty, I can't really walk more then 10 minutes at a time.


You sound like you live in the Midwest like I do.

I tried biking to work for a while - 13 miles. During summer/fall, it was pretty nice, I'd go early in the morning, shower at the gym, and then bike home. 2 workouts a day when the weather was fair.

The sweaty part, you'll get less sweaty as you get more in shape, both exerting less and retaining heat less efficiently due to lower BMI. But - you'll probably never not be sweaty if the distance is anything significant like, say, 13 miles.

Let's talk about colder climates. I was a consultant for a few years, and got to travel all over. I recall visiting Calgary in the winter, and some maniac dev manager biked to work every day, rain, snow or shine. 6 miles he said (helpfully translating units for me).


Carry a water bottle and take showers. Sweat is normal, if you don't like it wash it off.


Folks seem to have forgotten about sun umbrellas as well.


There needs to be a shower where you're going, and you need to budget the extra time and change of clothes.


And do the thing at dawn if you can!


In the US a large number of people have moved to suburbs in the south. On a bad year our lows are in the 90F range. Add in asphalt architecture and in the sun temps are commonly 125F+


Patient: "Doctor, it hurts when I do this." Doctor: "Then don't do that!"


Or get a dog.




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