The Sidewalk
Aug 31st, 2010 by Tana
If someone parked in the middle of the road, blocking it completely, and then when you asked them to please move, as obviously they were blocking the right of way, they tartly told you to use the next street over…would that not be rude and inconsiderate of them?
The sidewalk is for pedestrians as the street is for cars.
Pedestrians should not have to randomly cross the street to use the ‘other sidewalk’ just because some inconsiderate fool has either parked their car across the sidewalk or is running their sprinkler so that anyone walking across that stretch of sidewalk gets wet.
It really isn’t that difficult of a concept to understand, is it?
This morning on my walk, someone had set their sprinkler in the middle of the sidewalk, and I had to walk up into the middle of their front yard to get around it. And when I mentioned to him that the sidewalk was for pedestrians, not sprinklers, he growled at me to use the sidewalk on the other side of the street.
I have to weave all over town every morning to avoid walking past houses where people have automatic sprinklers that they just HAVE to run early in the morning while everyone is out exercising. I mean, really, if you want to have automatic sprinklers that also sprinkle the sidewalk, run them at 4 a.m. when nobody cares.
But people just don’t get that.
And we have an obesity epidemic in America where one third of Americans are obese and another third are overweight. Clearly none of these people use the sidewalk or they might have a clue.
Maybe.
What do we have sidewalks for, anyway?
well that’s frustrating! I’ve got my own sidewalk story from yesterday, must be going around. Mine, though, is about a LACK of sidewalk! AJ just started middle school, and somehow the transportation office for the district thinks that it’s a good idea to drop all the kids in our neighborhood off 5 blocks up on a main road, with no sidewalks. (Instead of at the corner of the cross street that actually leads down to all the blocks that these kids live on. which they drive past after they drop the kids off 5 blocks before, and then make them schlep down this insanely busy road, with NO SIDEWALKS!)