Safety is relative. Consider that by living in a walkable area avoiding driving, you may be reducing your risk of being one of the ~40 automobile-related deaths a year in the DC region.
Very true. When it's easier to drive across the street or down the block than walk, you will be less healthy.
Part of what I loved about living in Asia (Taipei, Tokyo, et al.) was that public transit required walking to, between and from stations/stops. It's not much but it's just enough.
Other possible sources of bias: People who walk more live in more walkable neighborhoods and are likely more wealthy, live in places with less air pollution, have less traffic noise disturbing their sleep, and travel fewer miles in cars thereby reducing risk of car accidents.
For those who live in such cities (and not just visit), everything they want to do is a 3-15 minute walk, not a drive. You can get groceries, stop at a cafe, go to a doctor's appointment, and pick up your kids from school (or better yet, they can walk themselves, because their school is nearby and getting killed by speeding SUVs is not a concern) - all within a 15 minute radius. If the walk is truly too far, a metro stop is often nearby.
Hell, even walking if it's close enough! I moved to a place slightly under a mile from work and walking to and from everyday is blissful and life changing, even accounting for the weather.
Being able to safely walk to places (work, shops, points of interests) is so often overlooked, and its super good for you! *
*Now if we could curtail cars inside cities it would be even better due to lack of emissions.
These sorts of analyses get complicated fast. Walking is riskier in part because you're more exposed to the "killer self-driving cars", but also people with preconditions will walk. Like, if you're drunk you'll walk home, if you're unfit you're more likely to walk than cycle, etc., people walking probably get mugged more often, ...
Consuming less can be associated with better quality of life.
More walkable neighborhoods mean you need cars for less errands, which means less money spent on road infrastructure and more money being invested in more efficient solutions.
There's a difference between a walkable neighborhood and cars that look out for pedestrians. There are a lot of US neighborhoods where you wouldn't particularly want to walk through them since they're suburban wastelands, but cars will respect you if you do.
Yeah that was my joke/point. Walking alot means you are more likely to be doing that walking instead of using a car on average. City dwelling being the main scenario and I am sure there are other scenarios. By specifying car accidents (and not just accidents) I biased it further
Within one block of my house is a park, a subway stop, a mid sized mall, a variety of restaurants etc. I find it's easier to walk to most places in the area than get in my car and then look for parking. Honestly, most of the high density parts of Arlington Virginia are vary walkable because it's both high density and mixed use.
"In most places in America walking is not a practical mode of transportation because of distance; it’s miles from your house to the grocery store, for instance. If you live in a city this might not be obvious to you but half the country lives in the burbs or rural areas."
That seems like a problem that could be solved through zoning. Solutions that by your definition inherently put people at risk seem an easy thing to re-evaluate.
Maybe I was lucky, but I never felt in danger in major US cities walking literally everywhere. While in D.F. I had some anxiety outside of central roads.
I find that car-driven, suburban culture makes this difficult to achieve. I have lived in many different environments: cities, villages, suburbs, even farms. Only in the suburbs was walking actually disincentivized. A comfortable house with a big TV and urban sprawl that made it impossible to walk anywhere useful just leads to a lot of sitting either on the couch or in the car. The ability to walk places whether it be your job or the supermarket makes such a huge, huge difference for a person's health.
That depends on many factors. Living in a crowded European city I have plenty of shops in walking distance, protected sidewalks and a traffic nightmare. It would take me longer and I'd be much more likely to get into an accident when driving to any of the shops nearby; walking is easier and safer. If you have a city designed for cars like most US cities seem to be the story is very different.
Per se walking is definitely safer, given decent walking conditions. If all you got are sidewalk-less streets and only big shops that are a decent distance away, that's not the fault of walking but of bad city design. similarly in winter, if there's snow and your city clears the street but not the sidewalk then of course the sidewalk is less safe.
You’re only comparing the upsides of walking to downsides of cars. Re: Security, I lived in a walkable city, well, guess what happens when you walk in those beautiful utopic cities with diversity, you get mugged. And I was luck to not hold my boyfriend’s hand at the train station, a gay couple died for that. And it’s so forbidden to talk about it that, when you have a discussion about rape, many girls will admit to it, “but don’t talk about it, it would make people racist.” And indeed people would compound on this experience, while always dodging the racism labels, but always very distinctly describing this exact toxic behavior of walkable cities.
I’ve moved to a car-centric city with gated communities. Much less stress. No need to deal with predatory people in the building. No need to deal with awful people defending the predatory people. I miss walking, but it’s a straight up better quality of life.
(Source: http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6128a2.htm)
Also, by including walking in your commute, you are reducing your risk of death from obesity and diabetes, among other factors.
(Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2736383/)
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