THE PATH MOST TRAVELLED
One of the things I love about winter is the snow; but not for the skiing or snowmobiling, for the aesthetic or even the quiet it brings, and not even for the building of whimsical Calvin and Hobbes-esque snowpeople. Instead, I love the snow because it allows me to see where people travel. And, among other reasons, for me the most interesting thing about where people walk and drive is noticing how little our roads, sidewalks, and pathways are actually used.
If you start looking for it you'll see that sidewalks, if they exist at all, are almost incidental. Typically sidewalks stick to roadways, where cars go – and rarely where people would ever volunteer to travel on foot. And it's pretty common to not find sidewalks at all in the suburbs or even near malls, where humans congregate, or to find road-clinging sidewalks abruptly ending, leaving pedestrians suddenly stranded and having to dart through traffic or walk up the narrow shoulder of a busy street upon slippery gravel and glass. I've seen and experienced this on several continents. It's kind of amazing. It shows an arbitrary and whimsical standard to planning that makes travel by foot difficult and by wheelchair or scooter in many locations virtually impossible – as though that was the aim. And when you get a good snowfall you can see all this so clearly.
Even pathways – those spaces engineered exclusively for pedestrian travel – you'll notice, almost never go from point A to B along a route that humans would take. They may meander in an aesthetically pleasing manner (aesthetically pleasing from the top down, as seen from space or by a designer drawing over a map) or in the most economical manner, taking a course of least resistance in the landscape; but this is almost never how people choose to travel. A dusting of snow reveals folks taking the shortest route or a path that connects two obvious destinations. Curiously, this rarely takes them across a designated footpath but often a couple of metres to one side or even perpendicular to it.
Why the disconnect? In this way, it seems as though designing or building pathways or sidewalks requires no consideration of how humans may wish to traverse a space, or even from which points people are likely to come and go. Why is that? And isn't this like designing neckties with no consideration for necks, or building skate parks that are discouraging of skateboarding? That's how I feel about most pedestrian spaces.
Driving is a little different. Roads are everywhere and are a real priority. Yet, there too a snowfall quickly reveals how often only the middle third or half of a street is actually used by automobiles. This translates into acre upon acre of space needlessly covered in these heat-capturing, impermeable membranes where dirt, gravel, or plants (aka: not doing anything at all) would be a far better option. (With the added perk of capturing rain water and road runoff where it falls, and not piping it away into streams, rivers, and lakes.) This apparent spaciousness, of even the narrowest roadways, also exposes the lie that there isn't room for bike lanes, wider sidewalks, additional furnishings, or further beautification with trees, shrubs, flowers, and public art. It suggests that, without impacting automobiles at all, every single street could accommodate more and better features.
If you doubt any of this I encourage you to visit almost any roadway or public space and see it spelled out in footprints or tire tracks the next time there's a snowfall. Take a whole day and go looking for evidence in your town, make a game of it, and photograph and share your findings widely.
Given the enormous expense of time, space, energy, and resources that goes into implementing these designated walking and driving routes, why do people use them so little or not at all? Is it because they're terrible? Is this just one more case of a thing being broken by design – and for no good reason at all?
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