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It's not just for the community factor. Working out at a gym gives you access to a much wider variety of equipment; you don't have to deal with the headaches of maintaining and replacing that equipment; and for a lot of people it's psychologically easier to exercise if there is a specific place where they go to do it.
I think this kind of proves my point. That's really not practical to do twice every morning, especially on a cold rainy morning in the dark during the winter. Especially if you are feeling sore or worn out after your workout.
That's a royal pain in the rear even if the weather is good. And that's assuming you are young, single, and fit. For your married mother of 4 with a 7 year old; a couple toddlers; and an infant? She's going to bike to the grocery story on a cold rainy day with all these children and be able to bring back a a few days worth of groceries?
22 minutes according to Google maps. If you are feeling tired and want to eat out, having to walk 45 minutes in dark, rain, and cold defeats the purpose. And that's assuming you are young, single, childless, and fit. For a family with small children? Seems impractical to me.
This seems wildly impractical to me. (It's a 15 minute drive by the way.)
According to Google Maps, Big 5 Sporting Goods is 38 minutes by bus (versus 14 minutes by car). Not to mention the pain in the rear factor of waiting at the bus stop, and having to accommodate yourself to the bus schedule. Versus just getting in your car whenever you want without waiting at the bus stop.
The bottom line is that it's simply not practical to live a normal suburban life in Redmond, Washington without a car. You'll spend lots and lots of extra time getting places and it's pretty much guaranteed that you will miss out on a lot of normal activities because it's just way to inconvenient to run out for 15 or 20 minutes the way you can with a car.
Edit: I should also mention that I haven't even talked about commuting to work.
I'm basically telling you I did this and you are still saying it's impractical.
Sure, by "impractical" I don't mean "impossible."
So for example, it's not impossible for a mother of 4 small children to bike a couple miles to a supermarket with her children on a cold rainy day; go shopping; and bike back with the groceries and the children. But it's pretty clearly impractical.
Here's what I had said before:
I'm certainly not claiming that it's impossible to live in the suburbs without a car.
I've lived without a car twice and each time I had to account for weather, but honestly you might not appreciate how mild Redmond is. It "rains" almost every day but it's rarely stronger than a drizzle and doesn't go on that long. There were only a couple times a year that I thought it wasn't safe to take kids out, and those times were due to smoke.
In college I would do most grocery shopping at a Target that was reachable by a bus, but once a Wegmans was open I walked there despite it being what Google says is a 50 minute walk. I would regularly jog down there anyways just for fresh air. It wasn't an imposition to stop at Wegmans, fill up a reusable bag and then walk back. It didn't strike me as impractical or difficult.
My point is that someone designed a neighborhood (Redmond Ridge) in such a way that, despite having a car, I elected to walk 90% of the time. And this is a nice balance between surburb and city and more neighborhood planners should try to emulate this design.
I am not someone who does well in "real" cities. I find them exhausting.
It doesn't necessarily follow that it's practical to go completely without a car.
It seems like instead of contradicting my position, you are claiming that for some people in this suburb, it's possible to get by without a car most of the time. Which is something I don't dispute. Simply put, I am getting the impression that you are arguing past me.
Do you dispute my position? In other words, are you claiming that, in fact, it's practical for a typical suburbanite to live in Redmond Washington without a car?
No, most people would need to own a car or have a friend with a car or at some point use an uber. I don't dispute that. Though I think the same would be true of any city as well, and delivery options/remote work has flattened the difference considerably.
My entire point was and is "I think this neighborhood is one of the ideal examples of urban planning and wish there were more neighborhoods like it."
Thank you.
I would have to disagree with this. If you live in Manhattan, it's not necessary to own a car and a lot of the time it's cheaper and easier to go without a car. To be sure, once in a while you may need to use a taxi or a ride-share service but that would be very unusual and when you do need such services they generally arrive very quickly.
By contrast, in the suburbs, if you tried to substitute taxi services for owning a car, you would pay such a heavy price in terms of money; time spent waiting for your ride; etc. that as a practical matter you may as well just get a car.
Let's say I'm in Manhattan, I purchase a condo or something, and want to paint the walls. How do I get 5 gallon paint buckets from a hardware store to my new abode?
I'm tempted to point out that the hardware store will likely deliver or that Home Depot stores in the NYC area have light trucks which can be rented for a modest fee.
But there is a threshold issue here, which is that your typical condo buyer in NYC doesn't do his own painting. He hires a painter.
Actually that's not totally true, there are surely guys in NYC who buy condos, fix them up, and sell or rent them. If that's your thing, then as a practical matter you need a car. But that's not your typical NYC resident.
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