To Americans: How far apart is everything in the US? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 9 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) by dch82@lemmy.zip to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world

100 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I've heard the legends of having to drive to literally everywhere (e.g. drive thru banks), but I have no clue how far apart things are.

I live in suburban London where you can get to a big supermarket in 10 minutes of walking, a train station in 20 minutes and convenience stores are everywhere. You can get anywhere with bus and train in a few hours.

Can someone help a clueless British lemmyposter know how far things are in the US?

EDIT

Here are my walking distances:

To the nearest convenience store: 250m
To the nearest chain supermarket: 350m
To the bus stop: 310m
To the nearest park: 400m
To the nearest big supermarket: 1.3km
To the nearest library: 1.2km
To the nearest train station: 1km

Straight-line distance to Big Ben: 16km

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] IronKrill@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

I'll chime in since I'm in Canada, which is sadly just US delayed by 20 years.

I can walk to a convenience store with high prices in about 5 minutes or 360 metres and little else. It's all residential beyond there until a 25 minute walk or greater and everything is spread out. The main shopping centres you might want to walk around are an hour walk away. To reach the store I actually shop at for reasonable prices, it's a 12 minute drive or a 7400 metre walk (a miserable one with spotty sidewalks)... just for fun, it's about 45m by bus BEST CASE but realistically you will take an hour unless you hit the exact right bus at the exact moment it pulls up.

[-] corsicanguppy@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 5 minutes ago)

But that varies.

Here it's < 100m to the food shopping, pharmacy, post office, Amazon pickup, pros like dentist and barber and a hospital, separate medical test office, some medical specialists, as well as two gyms and a daycare. Hopping the train gets me to one of two biiig malls in about 5 or 20 min. 200m out is a plethora of doctors and specialists, 2 coffee/snack shops, and 2 of the 5 pizza places nearby. Go the km and you'll pass the Starbucks, sandwiches, park, church, more takeout, and 7-11.

We're designed for no-car though. Inasmuch as many Canadian cities still need a car, and while I'm cheating by working 100% remote since CoViD, I haven't driven a car in about a year. This is a special island of accessibility, which they're trying to put around all the train stations and experiment with more walking.

But distances are still crazy for visitors. People land in Toronto and ask "can we take a day trip to Banff?" Not realizing it could be 71 hours of driving to get there.

Travelling to see my family via ferry is a 5-6 hour 100km trip if I optimize it, since it's so inefficient. airplanes cost as much as 120 Starbucks medium frothy hot drinks for the 50km air portion of the trip round-trip, per person, so we avoid that option.

Our little pet island on the west coast, for instance, where we have some quaint buildings and such, is almost 500km long -- which could be the distance almost from dover to Scotland if I believe my AI pothead.

This land mass is huge. You have no idea.

this post was submitted on 24 Sep 2024

95 points (95.2% liked)

Ask Lemmy

26309 readers

1650 users here now

A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions

Rules: (interactive)

1) Be nice and; have fun

Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them

2) All posts must end with a '?'

This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?

3) No spam

Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.

4) NSFW is okay, within reason

Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either !asklemmyafterdark@lemmy.world or !asklemmynsfw@lemmynsfw.com. NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].

5) This is not a support community.

It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions. If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email info@lemmy.world. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.

Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.