Originally Posted by
Maelochs
Sounds like an ideal situation to be car-lite or car-free.
Is it also the kind of town where a lot of specialized stuff is pretty far away? is there Uber/taxi/bus service if you need to visit 'the Big City" (or the nearest large town)? Or is pretty much everything you will ever need already somewhere in town?
I haven't lived in a walkable town in along time. Having a good bike in a town like that feels like being Superman--you can get anywhere so quickly, a bike is almost as fast as a car.
I don't envy you (my own life is okay, too), but I appreciate the situation you are in and I am glad for you and glad you enjoy it.
The only drawback? You don't get to cruise by traffic jams and smile at irate drivers.
I suppose it depends on your definition of specialized. I don't do much myself that I would really consider requiring specialized stuff. We have a decent movie theater in town (not my thing really, but its there), a number of good local restaurants within easy access and if you want to get to the very far other side of town (still only about 7-8 miles) you can get to a number of bigger chain stores that aren't on my side of town (there are a number of strip malls all right by each other on that side of town). But I've got Walmart, a big home improvement chain, a groceryand most things I really NEED on my side of town within about 2 miles. and downtown is about 2 miles into town and our downtown is pretty decent with a number of small local shops and restaurants down there.
There is a small us service in the area that can get you to a few neighboring towns, and the buses even have bike racks if you need them. Amtrak is one of the stops in the neighboring town, convenient for seeing family who also live near Amtrak. Their schedule isn't super convenient, but its quite inexpensive to ride and not a bad choice when needed.
As for traffic jams, nah, at lights I normally just take a place in line, trying to thread the gap between cars and curb only to have them deal with passing you right after the light turns green just isn't worth the hassle. At least not to me.