Living within 1 kilometer walking distance of a grocery store is amazing. Instead of expensive fast food I can get comparatively inexpensive deli food. And if I want to be frugal and cook meals myself, cheap beans, rice, fresh meat, dairy, and produce are all available. Plus, I get a nice daily walk instead of checks notes from a previous life drive twenty minutes to the gym each day to walk on a treadmill.
Forgot the gym membership. With a car you can drive to the gym to walk on a treadmill.
these days $45 at costco is like two things, and $50 at a regular grocery store is six things.
but the analogy still holds that walking is much cheaper.
Where are you shopping where you can get a weeks worth of food for only 50
This is assuming you live in a walkable town or neighborhood. I remember a reddit post (can't find it anymore) of a guy trying to walk less than 2 miles to an appointment in Orlando. He followed Google Maps directions down the shoulder of a highway that led to a dead-end, backtracked, tried again, and finally made almost all the way to his destination, which was on the opposite side of a 6-lane highway Google wanted him to cross.
I've only ever visited the theme parks in Orlando, but I experienced one intersection I had to share with cars. I spent every walk sign waiting for cars making a turn to yield. Even though I had the right of way, literally none of them did, until I finally had to run across the street because the cars at the red light, who could see I was 1/3 through the intersection, floored it the second their light turned green. Sure, fuck all of those car-brained drivers who refuse to yield to pedestrians, but also fuck that city for not fining drivers for shitty behavior, or at least changing their traffic lights so all cars have red lights when pedestrians have the walk sign.
Anyway, point is, personal choices are important, but they can't overcome the systemic issues created by car culture without collective action. And Orlando sucks ass.
My car costed less than 6k. But yeah 1-2k on maintainence, $1200 insurance and probably 2k on gas every year. E-bikes looking very interesting.
Ok everyone. Make weekly groceries $200 and Costco $190. Does that make a difference about the point of this post? Ya’ll…
Here on Copenhagen:
This is also coincidentally how the math works on big box stores.
top 83 comments