Do you prefer a neighborhood with or without sidewalks?

[Champagne Supernova]

I live in the burbs where there are no sidewalks. The city just finished putting sidewalks on the road that leads to the middle school and the crying and whining from the rich white folks on Nextdoor was fucking ridiculous.

I grew up close the city where there are sidewalks everywhere. I miss them.

[aliciabella]

Mar 13, 2018 13:02:16 GMT -5 knx9211 said:

WAIT WHAT I skipped to the end thinking someone had somehow made sidewalks !DRAMATIC!, but we're on page 5 and still just talking about sidewalks?

Yes. Yes we are. They may have turned on me already, not sure yet, lol.

[fumbalina]

I see all these comments about how little traffic the street gets, but I doubt it is as little as non-walkers believe. I live a mile down a street that ends in a dead end just past my apartment without sidewalks. There are still dozens of cars an hour. Since I did not own a car for six months, I often would walk to the bus stop (1 mile toward the busy street). Then the fitness center flooded (Harvey), so to get some exercise I was walking. Jumping out of the street to the ditch is not even always effective for staying out of the way of cars because there are drivers who attempt to run you over anyway. There are also people that roll down their windows and tell you to use the non-existent sidewalks.

I am an able bodied adult and still have difficulty navigating the lack of sidewalks, so I know that anyone with any mobility impairment or balance issues would find it impossible. I would prefer to have a sidewalk, but I had to choose my living space due to the acceptance of my 90 lb black dog and my other German Shepard mix. So I chose based on this being the single place that would allow both of my pets to stay with me. When I moved in I had an operational vehicle so I did not notice some of the problems with access that this place had. It would not have affected my decision though as it was the only place out of 300 that I contacted that allowed my animals.

Having lived without a car for a while I do notice how hard it is to get around. If I move again I will look for a place that is near a bus line, where the buses run more than every hour. Our bus system is so horrible that that hour is usually two because the buses on the route tend to run within 5 minutes of each other, so there is twice as long a gap as listed.

[heyjude]

Mar 13, 2018 12:52:50 GMT -5 wawa said:

Mar 13, 2018 12:43:55 GMT -5 heyjude said:

We live in a world where debates about sidewalks are a refreshing change of pace. I wonder how much of our cement supply comes from Russia?

Very little if any.  We import a relatively tiny percentage, and most of that comes from Canada. 

minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/cement/mcs-2017-cemen.pdf

I’m trying hard to make this thread worthy of 2018 intrigue!

Russia invented the 311 system, right?

[wawa]

Mar 13, 2018 13:13:40 GMT -5 heyjude said:

Mar 13, 2018 12:52:50 GMT -5 wawa said:

Very little if any.  We import a relatively tiny percentage, and most of that comes from Canada. 

minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/cement/mcs-2017-cemen.pdf

I’m trying hard to make this thread worthy of 2018 intrigue!

Russia invented the 311 system, right?

In Russia, the government calls you.

[heyjude]

It’s harder to precinct walk neighborhoods w/out sidewalks. So if you care about democracy at alll and want Trump out you should be pro sidewalk all the way.

[heyjude]

Mar 13, 2018 13:14:22 GMT -5 wawa said:

Mar 13, 2018 13:13:40 GMT -5 heyjude said:

I’m trying hard to make this thread worthy of 2018 intrigue!

Russia invented the 311 system, right?

In Russia, the government calls you.

😂😂😂

[wawa]

Mar 13, 2018 13:05:50 GMT -5 meshaliuknits said:

Mar 13, 2018 12:54:12 GMT -5 @angryharpy said:

Also, I forgot to mention that people who park in a driveway but block the sidewalk are FUCKING ASSHOLES.

YES

*joins angryharpy's church of the pedestrian*

I've left a note citing the relevant code...

[SwimDeep]

My H and I disagree on this. I would prefer sidewalks where we live. He would prefer to live in a nice quiet neighborhood with no thru traffic where they weren't needed. The problem is, we live off of a main road. Getting out for a walk is dangerous. You're either walking in the ditch or in the turn lane, and the speed limit is 45mph. We have enough pedestrian traffic to justify the sidewalks too because we live about a 1/4 mile from a huge outdoor shopping center, and we're surrounded by neighborhoods. We're also across the street from a cow pasture. (This entire area used to be rural years ago.) City planning ftw.

[CheeringCharm]

Strongly prefer WITH so I can walk around the neighborhood.

[lucybrown]

Mar 13, 2018 12:54:12 GMT -5 @angryharpy said:

Mar 13, 2018 11:32:18 GMT -5 WanderingWinoZ said:

I can see it being a matter of personal preference. I had sidewalks in my old neighborhood & never used them. In some neighborhoods with large lots (1 acre+) it wasn't realy necessary, but almost all the smaller neighborhoods around here, that are 50 years or younger, they have them.

Maybe b/c we had ltos of trees, but they always had cracks and uneven edges. They weren't really wide enough to run on side-by-side, so we always ran in the street. They were fine for running solo with my dog, but I had to be careful since I run in the dark. Also, where lots of people park in the driveway, their cars block the sidewalk, so you had to go into the street anyway.

Once I had a baby (newborn), I didn't like dealing with all the bumps/ramps, so we ran/walked in the street.

Also, I forgot to mention that people who park in a driveway but block the sidewalk are FUCKING ASSHOLES.

I totally agree.  However, I give people a pass when they live in an area that doesn't allow overnight parking on the street.  Sometimes their driveways are really short and they cannot fit their cars anywhere else.  This is the case on my street...lots of one car garages and super short driveways.  We always park in the garage to keep the sidewalk clear, but any overnight guests are fucking assholes.  

The one time H parked on the driveway and blocked the sidewalk, DD ran her bike into the side of his car.  

[lucybrown]

And even though it's irrelevant at this point in the thread...I'm team sidewalks. We refused to buy a house in an area with no sidewalks. Walkability was high on our non-negotiable list.

[heyjude]

Mar 13, 2018 13:19:44 GMT -5 SwimDeep said:

My H and I disagree on this. I would prefer sidewalks where we live. He would prefer to live in a nice quiet neighborhood with no thru traffic where they weren't needed. The problem is, we live off of a main road. Getting out for a walk is dangerous. You're either walking in the ditch or in the turn lane, and the speed limit is 45mph. We have enough pedestrian traffic to justify the sidewalks too because we live about a 1/4 mile from a huge outdoor shopping center, and we're surrounded by neighborhoods. We're also across the street from a cow pasture. (This entire area used to be rural years ago.) City planning ftw.

In the 80s my grandparents had similar thoughts as your H and moved to a neighrbood and street just like you describe. They are now in their 80s and in such terrible shape because they don’t get out and move because of that very charming neighborhood of theirs. It’s become their prison.

[mrspez07]

Mar 13, 2018 10:42:03 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Per ADA compliance, any neighborhood without sidewalks will eventually have to be retrofit with sidewalks.

Part of my job deals with this, and we had a neighborhood fight having sidewalks put in (they saw it as gentrification). We had to do some creative planning to get that neighborhood ADA compliant, while still honoring their wish to not have sidewalks.

I was thinking about this as I was reading. How does ADA retrofit work on roads with slope greater than ADA standards? We do a lot of work on small commercial projects in infill areas and we have to provide an ADA route to the public walkfrom the front door.

[marathon55]

One more thing to add. People who park consistently over the sidewalk. Asshats! If you have a really short driveway or have guests over I get it. But around here you can easily get four cars in your driveway without even using the garage. Get your shit together.

When my daughter is out with me at night riding her bike I cringe when she has to go quickly dodge some stupid car sticking over the sidewalk.

[wawa]

Mar 13, 2018 13:35:30 GMT -5 mrspez07 said:

Mar 13, 2018 10:42:03 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Per ADA compliance, any neighborhood without sidewalks will eventually have to be retrofit with sidewalks.

Part of my job deals with this, and we had a neighborhood fight having sidewalks put in (they saw it as gentrification). We had to do some creative planning to get that neighborhood ADA compliant, while still honoring their wish to not have sidewalks.

I was thinking about this as I was reading. How does ADA retrofit work on roads with slope greater than ADA standards? We do a lot of work on small commercial projects in infill areas and we have to provide an ADA route to the public walkfrom the front door.

 The sidewalk itself is just going to be a greater slope than allowable.   Cross slopes still need to meet.  So do the ramp slopes. Level landing areas, etc.   My understanding is that there's nothing in the rules that "allows" the running slope to be "wrong".     this is where the "as practical/reasonable accomodation" part of the ADA law comes in.  Somebody could sue, and but it's unlikely that a jury would award damages because the sidewalk had the same slope as the adjacent road when the entire road is just on a hill.  

For site access paths it's usually much stricter since you're starting with a blank slate so there's a lot more that could be "practical." 

[Deleted]

I don't even care if you have a short driveway. You knew that when you bought the house. Figure something out. Someone in a wheelchair isn't suddenly able to go around your car just because you had REASONS to block the sidewalk.

[MrsAxilla]

Our neighborhood has these narrow little sidewalks that force you to walk single file or in the street/yards. It sucks.

[msmerymac]

Mar 13, 2018 12:42:54 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

OH! My husband obliterated his ankle while out hanging tags for code enforcement for people to shovel their sidewalks. I feel like some people in this thread might feel like that's karma re: working for the gubmint for fining people.

Perhaps a known hazard if people are tagging houses for non-sidewalk-clearing compliance, though. I wonder if that job requires a higher rate of worker's comp coverage. 

[Deleted]

I'm so glad I've never had to shovel snow in my life.

[wawa]

Mar 13, 2018 13:38:36 GMT -5 melmaria said:

Mar 13, 2018 10:42:03 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

Per ADA compliance, any neighborhood without sidewalks will eventually have to be retrofit with sidewalks.

Part of my job deals with this, and we had a neighborhood fight having sidewalks put in (they saw it as gentrification). We had to do some creative planning to get that neighborhood ADA compliant, while still honoring their wish to not have sidewalks.

What is the timeline for this?  And this is nationwide and literally applies to every neighborhood in the country?  I'm having a hard time imagining this ever happening in some of the super far out exurbs (even though I think it'd be awesome).

Sorry if this is a dumb question.

Yes and no.  ADA compliance absolutely applies to everybody everywhere.  Public, private, etc.  Anything new built with any sort of federal funds is mandated to be compliant.  I think plenty of states (if not all) have a similar requirement.  Nobody builds something new without at least making an attempt to bring it into ADA compliance.  When it comes to retrofits of things you're not otherwise changing - that's a matter of funding and political will and the timeline is basically being driven by a risk assessment of how much it costs and how long they can go before they get sued for being out of compliance.  It sounds like Pixy's municipality has taken a fairly risk averse approach to it.  Most of the places around here with which I'm familiar have a "if you touch it, you fix it" approach, and are counting on the regular maintenance schedule to eventually catch up to the issue.   My state did do a comprehensive overhaul of their existing sidewalk corner ramps a few years ago.  My county has done something similar.  Places with no sidewalks at all, but no angry citizens asking for them, are further down the list.  

[wawa]

The other wrinkle with ADA compliance is that they change the specs reasonably often. Based on new research/best practices, etc. But so a sidewalk ramp built 10 years ago is probably not actually compliant anymore. 20 years ago it definitely isn't. And this is infrastructure with a fairly long lifespan. And even new stuff - it's not that strange that it was DESIGNED to be compliant, but then shit happens in the field and the way it gets built, not so much. Level landing areas are a bitch in particular - that slope is hard to build precisely, and if a tree root or something grows under the thing it'll tilt it and bam, no longer compliant.

[msmerymac]

Of course I want sidewalks. I don't just want sidewalks, I want a walkable community, which means mixed-use streets or at least commercial property not too far away from residential. I don't want a "walkable" community with no sidewalks and no traffic where you can't walk to anything but the neighboring houses. No! I'm trying to live in a society, here. TBH, most of my front yard is sidewalk.

There's a development of million+ dollar homes going up a few miles from me and I was interested to see they'll have sidewalks, even though you won't really be able to walk to anything yet. Except maybe a recreational trail, which is nice.

Also, I run into my mayor at the grocery co-op and theater all the time, and I know where she lives, and I also have her email address.

In theory, we wouldn't need sidewalks, since streets are for everyone. EVERYONE. And bikes, pedestrians and even cars (I guess) could co-exist in harmony. But as it is, sidewalks, protected bike lanes, and travel lanes all segregated out (though anyone can use the generic travel lanes) is the safest option. wawa you probably know a lot about that kind of stuff.

[captainobvious]

[shauni27]

I have nothing else to add that hasn't been said since page 1 of this thread, EXCEPT that the sidewalks in the neighborhoods here are cleared by the town within the day of the snow storm. It makes it so nice for running (except when people snow blow their driveways afterwards and then all the snow covers the sidewalks again...)

But it is mostly a moot point because real neighborhoods in the area I live in are hard to come by.

[katieinthecity]

There are more posts in the sidewalks thread than in the Tillerson thread. Does that mean the Russians have won?

[fryjack2]

Mar 13, 2018 12:31:39 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

So, as you can see, people have very strong ideas about sidewalks. Our surveyors have had people pull guns on them when out surveying to implement sidewalk connections on city owned right of way.

This right here is why knocking on someone's door telling them to shovel their sidewalk is not a good idea aliciabella.

[wawa]

Mar 13, 2018 13:56:58 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

Of course I want sidewalks. I don't just want sidewalks, I want a walkable community, which means mixed-use streets or at least commercial property not too far away from residential. I don't want a "walkable" community with no sidewalks and no traffic where you can't walk to anything but the neighboring houses. No! I'm trying to live in a society, here. TBH, most of my front yard is sidewalk.

There's a development of million+ dollar homes going up a few miles from me and I was interested to see they'll have sidewalks, even though you won't really be able to walk to anything yet. Except maybe a recreational trail, which is nice.

Also, I run into my mayor at the grocery co-op and theater all the time, and I know where she lives, and I also have her email address.

In theory, we wouldn't need sidewalks, since streets are for everyone. EVERYONE. And bikes, pedestrians and even cars (I guess) could co-exist in harmony. But as it is, sidewalks, protected bike lanes, and travel lanes all segregated out (though anyone can use the generic travel lanes) is the safest option. wawa you probably know a lot about that kind of stuff.

this is a huge topic of debate in my world.  Certian people are trying very hard to bring back the shared streets.  the hot term is Woonerfs.  thank you Dutch people.
Whatever you want to call them, it's streets where cars aren't #1.  They're making progress, but it's a thing you see in like hot infill shared use development, so it's not about to come to a residential subdivision 40 minutes outside of a major city anytime soon.
But even beyond that it's such a hard sell in the US where people who drive cars think that the streets belong to them, that they have a right to minimum delay and maximum speed, so it just doesn't feel SAFE not to keep everybody in their own lane.   We have too many places that should be quiet shared streets and are instead designed as high speed roadways.  

So like...this - this is a hard hard sell.  But does that guy need a sidewalk?  nope.  


I pulled that picture from a strongtowns post that I thought was actually really interesting in how it presents the idea if you're curious: www.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/1/20/unbiased-streets

[fryjack2]

I also just drove home from work in the middle of a noreaster. I felt bad for all the people out who had to walk in the street because the city sidewalks are not the priority right now.

[aurora]

I feel peer pressured to reply.

Weighing my desire not to shovel on my city's timeline against the rights of people to feel safe walking on my street, I have to vote sidewalks. Though, I would love something like wawa posted instead.