Not just the width of the street, but the pedestrian infrastructure surrounding it too!

Walking to the nearest corner store from my home requires me to cross the same 2 lane road a total of 4 times, unless I feel inclined to ignore the sidewalks and step on strangers' properties.

IMO the pedestrian infrastructure and presence of things to walk to matters far more. There's a 4 lane road in my city that goes by the university area and it's fine because that area was designed with walking in mind. The area is full of high rise apartments, countless restaurants, a world class university, a massive park, and has a nearby LRT. There's even a pedestrian overpass.

Speaking of overpasses, I noticed really great underpasses when I visited Warsaw. They had some really large streets, but they weren't an issue cause you could just go under the street (and that was also filled with shops). I found Warsaw to be a very walkable city and it was largely because of stuff like underpasses and simply things of interest being close by.

I had a similar experience visiting London but because of the Tube. London's public transit is literally the best I've personally used. Despite being a foreigner, I was able to get to literally everywhere I wanted to go with ease. I only wish Canadian cities would emulate that instead of the States as they tend to do.

Yeah Ive lived in places that if you look on a map and type stores, restaurants, and etc it's technically walkable. In practice it's narrow sidewalks straddling 45 mph roads with cars that are darting in and out of entrances. Whenever you have to cross the street you gotta pray the 45 mph car doesnt come into a right on red too hot and slam ya.

Then after crossing 4 lanes, feeling the wind of dangerously close traffic, and walking past car centric not that great scenery you arrive at your destination. A parkinglot but from the outside. So now you gotta dart past the parkinglot road where drivers are at their worst and finally passed the parking lot before getting into the store.

It's doable but its not easy or enjoyable, and honestly kinda dangerous when you consider your surroundings, the speed at which cars are traveling, and how due to lack of pedestrian traffic they also dont expect you to be there crossing the street.

It's notable that there's vanishingly little evidence that more lanes is correlated with reduced trip times or less congestion for people in cars. I'm not even talking about things like induced demand -- just that literally, sometimes turning a 4-lane into a 2-lane or a 6-lane into a 4-lane has minimal impact on trip times on that road. All the world of "road diets" usually makes driving better, not worse.

The more lanes there are, the more points of automobile conflict. Points of conflict are the seeds of congestion.

1. Smoke weed
2. Play catch
3. Drink a beer
4. Skateboard
5. Bmx