[thebasketballgeek]

Funny thing is I’m in California rn for a trip and I must confirm the roads are quite smooth.

However, there is a huge lack of active transportation paths and NOBODY walks to places. In a suburb of Sacramento currently (Elk Grove) and it’s a bunch of sprawly stucco single-family houses. The sad thing is the weather is absolutely gorgeous and there are grocery stores within 20 minute walking distance but when I walked to Trader’s Joe or Walmart there wasn’t a single other pedestrian that I crossed paths with. Atleast in suburbs like Bridgwater and Sage Creek there is visible pedestrian activity at all times especially near the town centres.

I also don’t think we truly how much wider US roads are compared to Canada. These US interstates have like 10 lanes regularly even through the mountains. Car Dependency is so bad over there we were coming home from an event at 1:30 AM and there was a fucking traffic jam.

Don’t even get me started on their truly nonexistent public transportation.

So if you scratch past the surface of an American city it’s really just completely garbage for people not using a car. It’s so ingrained to the American identity that I don’t think they can truly solve their car dependency in my lifetime. Atleast in Winnipeg I can see a reality where car dependency doesn’t exist in the next few decades. Hell even where I live in Bridgwater I’m a 15 minute cycle to Walmart, Superstore, and U of M which all have direct connections to AT paths rather then shitty small gutters. So the fact that most residents are within a 15 minute cycle to amenities and services means the city is actually much closer then we all thought to being walkable. Although with our weather I don’t think the notion of 15 minute communities is good enough Winnipeg needs to focus on making 5 minute complete communities instead.