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I read that 60 percent of car trips in the US are under 5 miles and it kinda broke my brain
Saw this stat last week on a bike group page, from some federal travel study, that most trips people take in cars are shorter than 5 miles. Like, over half of them. I sat there thinking about my own street in Portland where dudes fire up a 4,000 pound truck to grab one thing from the store 8 blocks away. Meanwhile I'm out there on my beater commuter with a milk crate ziptied to the rack doing the same thing in the same amount of time. I timed it once, red lights and all, and the car guy actually beat me by like 90 seconds round trip, which seems like nothing until you add parking and the walk from the lot. The part that got me was how many people told me it's too far to ride when they're talking about a distance a fifth grader could handle. Three miles is nothing. It's 15 minutes at a chill pace. So here's my thing, am I wrong for thinking most people just never actually checked the number on their own trips? Go look at your last 5 drives and tell me how far they really were.
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charlesowens7d ago
Did your buddy ever actually map his own drives? Mine swore his gym was too far to bike, then we looked it up and it was 2.1 miles. He'd been driving it twice a day for two years. Blew his mind when I showed him the number on his own phone.
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