Wouldn't it be a better idea for people to walk those short distances, given how fat people are these days?
This assumes that people live within walking distance. I live a mile and a half from the closest store. I live 10 miles from the closest Walmart which would be the first real grocery store I hit. Most of the stores I go to are more than a mile apart so parking at one and walking to another is out of the question. Since most of this country is in a simular situation, cars will stay king.
What this observation misses though is that people would be more likely to get more exercise with moving sidewalks while causing less pollution and less traffic. As a much younger man I used to walk all over Portland from the Saturday Market to Powell's to the Library. I would park at one end of downtown and huff it. Now I couldn't see doing that becuase dragging kids along, or my elderly in-laws, and whatever bags would be too hard. Think about it, do you want to drag a kid that is too big for a stroller but still young enough to want to be picked up when they are tired over a 10 block trek back to the car? Right now, I would more likely skip downtown and go to my stores at the suburban strip malls rather than trek downtown and if I did go downtown I would probably drive location to location.
Wouldn't it be a better idea for people to walk those short distances, given how fat people are these days?
This assumes that people live within walking distance. I live a mile and a half from the closest store. I live 10 miles from the closest Walmart which would be the first real grocery store I hit. Most of the stores I go to are more than a mile apart so parking at one and walking to another is out of the question. Since most of this country is in a simular situation, cars will stay king.
What this observation misses though is that people would be more likely to get more exercise with moving sidewalks while causing less pollution and less traffic. As a much younger man I used to walk all over Portland from the Saturday Market to Powell's to the Library. I would park at one end of downtown and huff it. Now I couldn't see doing that becuase dragging kids along, or my elderly in-laws, and whatever bags would be too hard. Think about it, do you want to drag a kid that is too big for a stroller but still young enough to want to be picked up when they are tired over a 10 block trek back to the car? Right now, I would more likely skip downtown and go to my stores at the suburban strip malls rather than trek downtown and if I did go downtown I would probably drive location to location.