Milan’s a really big city with lots of people and very narrow roads. The population of Milan is around 1.3 million people (whoa, that’s a lot of people!), which is about five times the population of Salt Lake City. Milan is also very established and historic, meaning that the roads and buildings were laid out way before there were cars. This means the buildings tend to be really close together and the roads are narrow and often made of cobblestone. As a result, people in Milan have small cars, motorcycles, or take public transportation instead of driving.
I’ve also observed that a majority of the time walking or taking public transport is faster than driving. This is completely opposite of the U.S., where it is almost always faster to drive somewhere because of how spread out everything is. The streets in Milan get so crowded with people and other cars that driving is a lot of stopping, driving slow, then stopping again. If you take public transport, however, you can take the underground metro or take a bus that has its own lane to avoid traffic. The same goes for if you walk. When walking you don’t need to stop as often, so even though you’re moving slower than a car can, it takes the same amount of time to get to your destination.
Additionally, Milan doesn’t get as cold in the winter as Utah, which makes walking possible year round.
