Incoherent Ramblings

Dear Citizens of Columbia or __________________ (insert appropriate city here);

There is this nifty invention called “The Sidewalk”.   Wikipedia defines a “sidewalk” in the following way:

A sidewalk, or pavement, footpath, footway, and sometimes platform, is a path along the side of a road. A sidewalk may accommodate moderate changes in grade (height) and is normally separated from the vehicular section by a curb (British English: kerb). There may also be a road verge (a strip of vegetation, grass or bushes or trees or a combination of these) either between sidewalk and the roadway (British English: carriageway) or between the sidewalk and the boundary.

The term Sidewalk is used for the pedestrian path beside a road. Shared-use path and multi-use path is reserved for use for ones available for use by both pedestrians and bicyclists.^[1]

Here is my request: WALK ON THE DAMNED SIDEWALK!  It makes me insane to be driving through neighborhoods and people, usually with pets and children are stretched across the entire street – when there is a nicely taxpayer-maintained sidewalk, two to three feet away! Cyclists, yes,  I will share the road gladly.  Pedestrians, please use the sidewalk provided. If, for some, bizarre reason you feel that you are exempt from such usage, do NOT give me a shitty look when I get pissed because I have to come to a complete stop while you ineptly attempt to wrangle “McCarthy” and “Estrella” back to your side instead of running amok.  IT IS DANGEROUS!

More from Wikipedia: Research commissioned for the Florida Department of Transportation, published in 2005, found that, in Florida, the Crash Reduction Factor (used to estimate the expected reduction of crashes during a given period) resulting from the installation of sidewalks averaged 74%.^[12] Research at the University of North Carolina for the U.S. Department of Transportation found that the presence or absence of a sidewalk and the speed limit are significant factors in the likelihood of a vehicle/pedestrian crash. Sidewalk presence had a risk ratio of 0.118, which means that the likelihood of a crash on a road with a paved sidewalk was 88.2 percent lower than one without a sidewalk. “This should not be interpreted to mean that installing sidewalks would necessarily reduce the likelihood of pedestrian/motor vehicle crashes by 88.2 percent in all situations. However, the presence of a sidewalk clearly has a strong beneficial effect of reducing the risk of a ‘walking along roadway’ pedestrian/motor vehicle crash.”

Walkway is a more comprehensive term that includes stairs, ramps, passageways, and related structures that facilitate the use of a path as well as the sidewalk.^[2] The term pathway is used for pedestrian paths that are not next to a road.

So at the very least can you walk in a damned single-file line when you see traffic????