corny image from
The third or fourth biggest in the world, depending on how you consider the USA's coastal areas.
And our "homeland," as it became (sadly?) known in our new century, geographically expanded very, very quickly since 1776, if compared to other countries.
So, to get around quickly to over-growing USA, we Americans just don't have time to walk.
This habit is in contrast to many other other parts of the world, where you walk, mostly out of necessity but also out of choice/customs/taste.
Certainly that's true of the Vatican (necessity). Or (I suspect, I've never been there) miniscule San Marino. Or in Prague (cultural mores). But not in areas of Moscow, with its horrific traffic (where I decided never to drive again after three years there).
But in America, historically, we Americans don't walk.
We ride, baby, ride.
On a ship, on a horse, in a wagon, on a train, in a car, on a motorcycle, on a bus, on a plane, in a spaceship to get to the next state USA -- the Moon or Mars?
Call it Rock' Roll.
Sure, there's a tradition of paying lip service to "walking" in America.
It's too slow!!!
***
Still, to give it some "cover," walking is in the homeland categorized as the politically-correct (correct term?) "hiking" in pristine woods/our wonderful national parks.
And there have been lots of politically-correct accounts to use your feet for transportation (see Google "walking America") for truly enjoying nature/staying "healthy."
Not to speak of academic-sounding books such as "Peregrinations: Walking in American Literature."
And let's not forget the "stay-forever-young,""serious" physical exercise of jogging.
But still, given our American past -- fast, fast, faster expansion (but, plssss. not around the belt) via the latest forms of transportation, physical or electronic -- walking simply isn't in our blood.
Lone-riding is.
Lone-riding -- not exactly "public" riding.
Riding for me.
Is Riding alone the "American" way?
***
This generalization brings me to the main point of the above comments: the invasion of "scooters" in American cities (thus far, to the best of my knowledge, mostly unregulated).
In Washington, D.C., where I live, these non-walking means of transportation are proliferating like locusts.
They rackessly [pardon the pun], dumped on sidewalks and national parks paths, are like litter -- e.g., empty Starbucks plastic cups with straws stuck into them via circular covers; McDonald's insect-covered (poor insects!), junk-food wrapping papers; discarded prophylactics -- all items that produced by their makers that after being "post-consumed" are dumped on our fair city streets like the daily trash every citizen despises but cannot control/manage given the trash's enormity. I'm not making accusations, just asking questions about what can be done about this...
[Full disclosure: For my sins, which are many, I regularly pick up trash in my neighborhood [for about an hour], placing it in ten-cent "Giant" store bag that I dump into the communal garbage areas in my area].
These unregulated sidewalk scooters (and their "soulmates" with evidently unregulated bicycles) are dangers to (a) the drivers (mostly young, so far as I can tell) of the scooters themselves, who don't wear as a rule helmets so far as I know so that if an accident happens they don't end up in the hospital/morgue (b) to pedestrians, walking under the illusion that sidewalks are meant for pedestrians walking, not scooters or bikes "taking over," the space (c) elderly/handicapped person (accidentally?) run over by the scooter-users (D) [the unexpected, most important].
God Bless America. (And don't depend on God to descent on a scooter) :)
