Minnesotans love to walk for exercise. But for utility? Not as much
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Illustration: Brendan Lynch/Axios
The Twin Cities rank among the most active metro areas in the nation, but do we only walk for pleasure?
The big picture: Our willingness to walk for utility has come under recent scrutiny. At a recent RE Journals Summit, Eric Anderson of City Center Realty Partners lamented that it's hard to get people to walk four blocks from Target Field Station to a building in the North Loop.
- "When I lived in Chicago ... I actually walked 10 blocks (from the train station) to my office," he said. "I feel like we're hardy (in Minnesota), but obviously it doesn't prove out in a three or four block walk."
- "For Twin Cities folks, any unnecessary walking, like being forced to park a block from a restaurant, is seen as a travesty," Bill Lindeke wrote in a MinnPost column.
Why it matters: Walking has all kinds of health benefits, and people tend to feel safer when sidewalks are bustling.
State of play: It's hard to measure how much people walk, but there's data that suggests we do pretty well for a U.S. metro.
- In Minneapolis, 7.2% of people walk to work, and in St. Paul, the number is 4.5%, according to U.S. Census data compiled by The League of American Bicyclists.
- That puts Minneapolis above Chicago, Milwaukee, and Baltimore. St. Paul ranks better than Portland, Denver and San Diego.
Reality check: Walking to work doesn't measure the full amount we hoof it. There's no easy way to compare how much we walk for errands, shopping or dining compared to other cities.
Zoom in: A Met Council study estimates that 18% of vehicle trips in the Twin Cities could reasonably be replaced by walking.
- A big reason many of those trips happen in vehicles is because parking lots in front of destinations make walking unpleasant, said Eric Lind, director of the accessibility observatory at the University of Minnesota's Center for Transportation Studies.
- "The reason it's hard to walk is often because it's easy to park," he told Axios.
The intrigue: We also don't have to walk like they do in European and big East Coast cities where driving is difficult, expensive and sometimes slower than walking.
💠Nick's thought bubble: Another factor may be our weather. People get into the habit of, understandably, driving short distances when it's cold, snowy and icy, and they never break the habit when it gets warm out.
- And some of it is perception. We don't see a lot of people walking on our downtown streets, but that's because they're up in the skyways.
Weigh in: What are your walking habits? How far will you walk to work, school, a store or a restaurant?
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