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Abstract
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Regulations and policies give priority to cars over pedestrians. This needs to change. One of the key issues affecting the quality of the environment and the quality of life in our towns and cities is road traffic. The automobile has local and global implications. At the local level, pollution greatly affects our health. For example, higher levels of pollution are linked to direr cases of COVID-19. Globally, climate change is the most important challenge we are facing. Beyond poor air quality, "traffic means. . . [high] levels of noise and a weakened sense of. . . local community." Noise and pollution "give[] rise to high [economic] costs," jointly with the "delays caused by congestion" and the health effects of a sedentary lifestyle usually connected to automobile culture. More people traveling on foot should reduce our dependence on cars.
To address the externalities of the 273 million vehicles in the United States, the focus is often on making cars cleaner, improving public transport, and sometimes increasing the use of alternative modes of transportation, such as bicycles. Connected to the latter, the idea of complete streets has gained traction. Complete streets capture the idea of multi-use streets: "[Complete streets] are designed and operated to enable safe access for all users, including pedestrians, bicyclists, motorists and transit riders of all ages and abilities." This Essay focuses on the less-traveled path of complete streets: sidewalks. To deal with automobile externalities, transportation by foot must take the center stage. Where the sidewalk ends, the problems begin: We need sidewalks to live safer, healthier, greener, and even wealthier lives.
While the public right of way over streets initially served mostly pedestrians and horses because automobiles were not widespread when many cities were built, automobile culture has taken over. Sidewalks have been ignored for far too long. Cars have been the main beneficiaries of the easement. Sidewalks became narrower as automobiles' reign over the streets consolidated.
The situation is direr in many suburban neighborhoods that do not have sidewalks because they were built with the idea of differentiating from urban areas, as embodied by Shel Silverstein in his famous poem, "Where the Sidewalk Ends," about a non-urban, ideal place that children enjoy. COVID-19 has proven the poet wrong and shed light on the fact that children and the rest of society need sidewalks. Sidewalks offer the possibility to enhance our communities, protect the environment, and allow us to live healthier lives.
Beyond the expansion of the space occupied by cars and the diminution of the one occupied by pedestrians in the right of way, pedestrians are receiving the leftovers in many regulations.
Snow removal is a good illustration: while cities remove snow from the street, often residents are in charge of the sidewalk. In many municipalities, other aspects of road and sidewalk construction and maintenance are equally allocated. For example, sidewalk maintenance, repair, and construction are assigned to the landowner in many municipalities...
Language: en |