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[quote user="oltmannd"] There's a whole lot wrapped up in how we live and travel.  As a nation, we don't walk much and we are fat.  These are apparently related things!   When we do walk, we do it just for exercise.  People will drive to suburban parks just to walk around a walking trail.  People who live in area where they walk  more as part of everyday living think this is a silly thing to do.  "Why would you want to walk around in a circle?" Here are a couple of articles about it. <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/walking/2012/04/why_don_t_americans_walk_more_the_crisis_of_pedestrianism_.html">http://www.slate.com/articles/life/walking/2012/04/why_don_t_americans_walk_more_the_crisis_of_pedestrianism_.html</a> <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/04/16/150586667/americans-do-not-walk-the-walk-and-thats-a-growing-problem">http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/04/16/150586667/americans-do-not-walk-the-walk-and-thats-a-growing-problem</a> I've walked around in "older" cities such as NYC, London, Dublin, Hamburg, Mainz, Boston, Phila, DC and SF and found some pretty crowed sidewalks.  People are out going places on foot.  You can walk for miles on Peachtree St. in Atlanta right through the middle of the city at rush hour and feel like you're you're hiking on a remote trail.  San Diego and LA are similar.  I am sure that other American cities that have grown up around the automobile are the same way. [/quote] Oh, things may not be as bad as they seem.  In Dallas, where I lived for 33 years before moving to my current digs north of Austin, nearly 5,000 people have moved to the central city.  And many of them can be seen walking, frequently with their dogs, at all hours of the day and night, although not late night for obvious reasons.  Or at least obvious to me.  Another area where one sees a lot of walkers is White Rock Lake, which is just east of downtown. There, especially on the weekends, walkers, runners, cyclists, etc. can be seen by the thousands.  But few people in Dallas or any other Texas city have given up their motorized buggy.  And I don't think that they will.  Not as long as they can afford it. Amtrak, as well as the state's two commuter rail lines, have seen increased ridership in Texas, and Amtrak's system numbers are up.  Yesterday I rode from Fort Worth to Taylor on the Eagle.  It had a high load factor departing Fort Worth. A significant percentage of the passengers were college students headed for Waco (Baylor), Austin (University of Texas), and San Marcos (Texas State).  My guess is that they were on the train because the cost of gasoline, as well as the overall cost of auto ownership, has made the train a better option for them.  And if we had more trains, I suspect that more people would use them.  However, at the end of the day, I would bet that the first thing most of the students that I saw yesterday day will do upon graduation is head to a car dealership to get a set of motorized wheels.
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