sage philosophy: walk, but know your limits

I live in a Midwestern city that is totally focused on driving. There is scant public transportation. When we moved here from the East Coast, we chose our neighborhood primarily for its walkability, since that’s what we were accustomed to, but in a city designed for cars, I found myself often underestimating distances and setting out for walks that wound up to be unreasonably far or avoiding a walk because I was unsure of the distance.

My saving grace, especially now that I am doing all of this with a triple stroller, had been Gmap pedometer, but just this week I discovered that Google Maps now has a walking direction option in Beta that also estimates the walking time. I started off mapping the furthest distance I knew I was comfortable with — from my house to our preferred local coffeeshop, or 1.7 miles roundtrip. The library, Walgreens, co-op grocery store and post office are all 1.4 miles or less. Today, I saw a craigslist ad for a garage sale in our neighborhood that looks promising. A quick peek at the map shows me it’s 0.6 miles each way. Totally doable, and my first thought was that I would need to drive!

As the triplets get older, I plan to apply this principle more widely. If I park in a central location when I do need to drive, how many errands are within walking distance? Until someone released a hybrid minivan, at least.