Treatment of Pedestrians in the US: Late 1990's vs. Today

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Another difference I found is the income level of the area. When I was in high school, my parents lived in a solid middle class suburb. They moved there for the schools, but it hurt my social life. The suburb had cookie-cutter houses, strip malls, lack of sidewalks in some places, and chain fast food restaurants (with loitering high schoolers in their parking lots). Suburbs like that are a pedestrian's nightmare.

By contrast, the suburb I lived in now is very working class. While it's not rough, it's not wealthy by any means. There are things like liquor stores, a little bit of garbage on the sidewalks, modest houses, numerous apartment buildings, and even graffiti on a rare occasion. I see quite a few people walking, even on streets that don't have sidewalks, and and no one ever gave me trouble for as long as I remember.

What I noticed is that I can get away with a lot more while walking in lower-income areas. For instance, I've carried a 12-pack of beer with no bag over it, through the city streets from the liquor store to my apartment, and people think nothing of it. In the suburb where lived when in high school, even walking with empty hands was a social crime. In downtown areas, it's 100 times true. You can wear a giant fruit hat and a boa around your neck, and no one cares.

I haven't even heard of this problem occurring in California. I don't know where you got the idea that this state's culture is any more auto-centric than that of other states. We have a lot of metro areas where traffic can be a pain, so people often take public transportation and bike or walk part of the distance to where they are going. Exercising is also important to a lot of people, so it's very common to see people out jogging or power walking, as well as walking dogs. Our nice weather probably also encourages people to get out and walk.

There are also a lot of environmentally-conscious people who choose to avoid driving to work because of the pollution.

The above two posts are interesting. I've been thinking about relocating to a warmer region, and spent time looking at real estate forums. What I found interesting is that many people on them were trashing California. Mainly for its taxes and corrupt government, but also for its social environment. Also Texas, but to a slightly lesser extent. Either way, both states were lambasted for their pedestrian-unfriendly culture. I sure don't want to get in my car just to go two blocks. People where I used to live often did just that, to avoid being seen walking. So I'm considering other regions, like the southern East Coast, with compact walkable cities. And the delicious food.

I always thought Florida would fall into that category too, given the fast that most of its cities are very spread out. But nobody on the forum said anything about it being pedestrian-unfriendly, and its stereotypical bad drivers cause problems with their dangerous driving and not their abusive actions. That's exactly what my experience was. I had to really sprint just to cross the street, but no driver ever yelled abuse or threw garbage at me. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by those high school girls in a car being polite toward me after seeing me walking. Of course, that may have been because I was a stranger twice their age, rather than some dorky guy at their school.

Note the number of people walking in Avalon, California:



And this is in Key West, Florida:



From what I understand, you are more likely to get hassled for driving in some parts of Key West.

I already know about Key West. One reason for its pedestrian-friendliness is its age. It was already fully built up to the shorelines when Miami was still a sleepy village. Another reason is alcohol, plain and simple. With the plethora of bars around Key West, the city's congested streets, and Florida's strict DUI laws, nobody wants to drive.

I didn't know about Avalon. I looked it up, and found out it was a small island town, like Mackinac, MI. Having a car there would be impractical, except that it's allowed in theory, unlike Mackinac. I'm sure it would be worth a visit.

From my point of view, for a town to be really walkable, you need to be able to find just about anything you might need by walking. With some place like Key West or Avalon, you would have that. In most towns, it just isn't practical.

Also, in Avalon, since few people have cars, I think that the local businesses will deliver purchases to your home for you.

Outside of the US, Sark would be interesting.

[MOVED from GAD to Random]

Having travelled quite a bit in both countries, I think Canada is generally more pedestrian friendly than the US on average but it does vary quite a bit down in the States. Some places in the US are very ped-friendly while others are not at all.

I take walking over driving any day. Cars are a necessary evil in my mind.

Of course this doesn't apply to me. I'm Canadian. I don't know what it's like for pedestrians in the rest of the country but where I live it stinks. Not only do I have to walk farther than ever now just to do some routine shopping, but people drive like they're blind or just really stupid. For a minor city the traffic is really awful. People don't seem to see me even though it's broad daylight, I'm at the lights or a crosswalk and I'm obeying the rules. Sometimes twenty cars at least go by before one of them stops to let me cross -at the green lights! The walk lights stay on for maybe five seconds before the warning comes on and I know I'm not supposed to run but those cars look ready to rip into me me like lions staring at a lagging zebra. Half the time the lights don't even work, I can't reach the button because there's six feet of snow in the way, and the city assumes no one goes out walking after 6:30 even when the days are long.

I know cars turn people into deranged monsters who do stupid things they wouldn't do while on foot, while under the delusion that it's only other drivers who are bad, not them, and that pedestrians are taking too long, it's always our fault. It's like that Mr. Walker/Mr. Wheeler Disney cartoon I saw as a kid, except that it's not a cartoon and I can BLEED and DIE.

I took the last few months to observe how I'm treated by drivers as a pedestrian, and was very pleasantly surprised. No aggressive honking just to scare me while I'm crossing a street, even without stoplights. No "hey, loser!" insults from shouted passing cars. No garbage getting thrown at me. The absolute worst I've gotten was a car turning in front of me at an intersection, and it was due to the driver's stupidity, not hate directed at me specifically. Mind you, I was left alone even while walking along the roadside in a distant suburb, where there are more deer than pedestrians. (Although I'm sure I got strange looks.)

Why is that? Why did I get so much virulent, rabid hate toward me as a pedestrian in 1990's, but now in 2015, I'm being treated with utmost tolerance, if not respect? Even by high school kids, for the most part. Is my improved body language, the tanked economy, or even the looser restrictions of concealed carry in my state? I highly doubt we humans improved as a species.

While I have to admit that I and most people I know in central Texas do indeed very often get in the car to go a few blocks, the usual reason for that is because it can be so hot and humid that any groceries you're buying are going to suffer even on a short walk home.

When I first moved to Texas in the late 80s, I thought this "use the car for even the shortest journey" thing was just crazy and lazy.

But I soon came to appreciate some of the practical reasons why, when I experienced my first Texas August with highs of over 100 F, and humidity at 90%.

Icecream was melting after a two block walk home in the summer, and milk would be way closer to souring and not lasting as many days in the fridge as it might if you had preserved most of its coldness on the journey home, in an air conditioned car.

Having said this..........before I got my licence (and even after) ---- I walked quite often. This was the 90s and the 00s. And nobody bothered me about it. There were indeed not all that many people walking too (again mostly due not to anything more than the sheer heat) but there were enough that nobody even batted an eyelash.

However, there were some places you just could not physically walk, such as the journey to malls that were built literally unreachable by anything but a freeway running through landscaped verges and nothing else -- if you tried walking along the hard shoulder of a freeway ANYWHERE you would get a very weird reception I'm sure.

But back in the city and the suburbs, walking wasn't a big deal. People only don't do it much because of the heat.

All this talk you keep saying about how you dread to think what would happen to anyone walking in "California or Texas" doesn't make any sense to me, as I lived in Texas for twenty years and walked plenty, and it was absolutely fine.