I walked over a mile each way to school on city streets when I was well under 14.
The universe is constantly expanding; a mile is longer now than back in our day.
Exactly! For me, it wasn't city streets, but rather frozen-over Michigan dirt roads. We lived at the end of a private street (no bus service) that was at the end of a dirt road. When the dirt roads became the cause of a lot of service problems to the bus, they changed the route to only stop at the intersection of the paved roads and dirt roads.
Through rainstorms - walk. Through snow-storms - walk. Through ice storms, and ice-skating conditions on the roads - walk. A mile, in each direction.
Our country is going nuts. Absolutely nuts.