I think one of the reasons people don't walk much is because they're in such a hurry. Being a home owner, I find myself at the local Lowes store 2 or 3 times a week, usually just to look around and get prices on stuff. So, I try to walk there from work during my lunch hour whenever I can. It's a 3 mile round trip, so by the time I've walked there, walked around in the store for a while, and walked back it takes about 1hr 15min. If I drive, I can accomplish the same thing in less than 30min. So, it depends on how busy I am at work, etc, whether I have the time to walk.

Another thing that would help is if they (the city planners and such) would make it safer and more convenient to walk. The walk to Lowes has a 1/2 mile stretch with no sidewalks. So, I have to walk on the shoulder of the road. I tried avoiding this by cutting along the back side of a church's property, but that didn't work out because there were kids from their Christian church out for recess and they started harassing me! Can you believe that!? They started yelling at me from 200 ft. They didn't use foul language, but it still bothered me that "Christian" school kids would act that way and that the teachers would allow it. People can really be annoying at times, which is why I live in the country where there are fewer people.

By the way, while I'm on the subject of annoying people, the cyclist that I've referred to in earlier posts that ride on the rural roads in my area are sometimes quite irritating. They get in groups and carry on conversations at the top of their lungs so they can hear each other over the wind noise. They often use foul language like "that was a h*** of a ..." or "how the f***did you do that ...", which really irritates me, especially if I'm out in the yard playing with my 4 year old twins!