Grand River Transit

[plam]

Open a Metro store within walking distance and I'm trekking there even if parking is free.

I would be inclined to say that, instead of hoping that a huge company decides to open stores within walking distance of their homes, people consider grocery store locations when they choose where to live. They have no incentive to do that at the moment, since driving a car is so cheap (for the people actually doing it).

You're right about zoning, and you're right about intensification: if a lot of us continue to insist on single-family homes on forty-foot lots, few of us will be within walking distance of grocery stores. But, if traveling by car continues to seem so cheap, few of us will walk to grocery stores even when they are. Many trips taken by car right now are short enough that they could easily be replaced by bicycling or even walking. The reason they aren't is because the car user doesn't bear the true cost of the trip.

I live about 300m from the Sobey's on Weber and Lincoln (or even less). So of course I don't ever drive specifically there. Sometimes I would if I'm coming back from somewhere and stop there along the way.

As I was walking around yesterday to Sobey's, the Beer Store and Shoppers' Drug Mart, I was thinking about how they are all set back so far from the street and, with this snow and all the parking, it really is somewhat hostile to walk between these places, even though they're so close to each other. The Beer Store and Shoppers' Drug Mart are particularly bad: you have to walk through a parking lot to get to them. The downtown Kitchener locations are better in that sense.