How close is close enough (children/ teens walking/ independence)

[Closetlibrarian]

Prompted by the other thread about about the perfect location for a family home, I'm wondering how far is close enough for teens to have independence as they get older?

We're (hopefully) about to move to a village that is about 1.5 miles from a town. DC currently primary age, but one of the reasons for this move is so that we don't become a taxi service when they're teenagers (we're currently more remote and have to drive everywhere). We want them to be independent as they get older. I can walk from the village to the town in about 25 mins. There's a bike path/ safe walking route. DC will go to school in the town (although there is option of primary in the village, but we prefer the school in the town and are happy to deal with that school run until they're in senior school). Is it close enough that the kids will be able to independent when the time comes? I figure that people living in big towns often have a 20-30 min walk to the centre/ friends' houses, etc. I did a 30-min train commute to school alone from the age of about 10 but that was about 100 years ago

Reasons for choosing this village over the town are to still have a decent sized house with a decent sized garden (in our budget, both tend to be v. small and pokey in the town) with space for the other types of things that are good as kids grow into teens (2nd reception, bigger bedrooms, etc).

We want and need this to be a future-proof move (beyond the unexpected befalling us) and not to have to move again until the DC leave home!

If theres a safe bike/walk route, then thats no problem at all. We live in a very small town, but its a mile and a bit to DS's secondary school and he cycles to school by himself

Sounds like a good option to me. We live in a city but were careful to choose a house close to transport so the kids could travel independently as they got older.

I think it's the degree of safety rather than distance that counts. 25min totally OK if it's a safe area throughout. Then again if they wanted to take a bus or train instead, is that an option and would that also feel safe? Are there a lot of other teens doing the same commute to this school? Safety in numbers kinda thing.

Mine are doing commute 10mins walk + 10mins train + 10mins walk on their own, to and from school. They started commuting on their own when they were 10 and 12.

That's great to hear CMOT. DH also cycled a similar distance to school from about the age of 8, but again that was back in the dark ages

I meant safe as in safe area not full of trashy people, more than off-road kind of safe by the way.

illuminati no public transport to speak of in the village, apart from a bus that is scheduled clearly to take kids to and from the secondary in the town. But in terms of social life, they'd need to walk/ bike if they wanted to be independent. It's a safe route in terms of traffic (off-road path), but I'm not sure I'd want a teen doing it on their own after dark as it's a quiet route (but I suppose that would be the same in the town). Once they get to the town there's a train station/ bus routes.

Have you yourself walked the route in the dark?

@TheCanyon, no not yet. Only in the daytime. It's a bike path that runs alongside a road - road on one side (separated by grass verge/ hedge in places) and either fields or playing fields on the other side.

I think that if school runs are manageable independently then that's as good as it gets really. You'd taxi them late in the dark anyway, wherever you live. In the daylight cycling is a good idea.

Unless you are happy with them walking at night and in bad weather conditions, you'll still end up doing a fair amount of taxiing.

Are there streetlights? If not, the walk/cycle might not be be very doable in the winter when the hours of daylight are really short.

I think I'd want to check there was a bus or local taxi firm for times when either walking or driving weren't doable for some reason.