This morning I read about St. Louis cutting bus routes. I feel for these folks. Around here, the situation is similar, with bus routes cut almost every year, with the city council deciding to spend money on more important things, like multi-million dollar hotels for folks who never show up.

But I have to wonder whether this is yet another case of complaining about the wrong problem. Why is it a 45 minute bus ride to the nearest gym? It seems like our addiction to cars has led to a situation where there are no neighborhood businesses, and we have to drive, or ride, miles and miles to get to things that, once, would have been in walking distance. Every time I visit Europe, I’m reminded of how dysfunctional our neighborhoods are in the USA, and how broken our zoning system is.

I hope that out of situations like this, the result is more neighborhood businesses, rather than folks protesting and demanding that they are somehow entitled to be ferried to businesses in other neighborhoods.

Along that same line, last night we ate at 7 Leguas, which, although we didn’t walk to it, we *could* have chosen to walk. It would have taken a while. Perhaps we need to make a more concerted effort to go to businesses that we can walk to, and choose to walk to them. I walked farther than that for dinner in Amsterdam earlier this week.