People who walk in ditches

[spinbaby]

I see them every day when I pull off the interstate on my way home. A young woman pushing a stroller. Two teenage boys on bikes. An older woman, also pushing a stroller and accompanied by two boys pulling a wagon. A skinny older man wearing the uniform of a fast-food worker.

They walk because they have no cars and must go from where they are to where the convenience store, the laundromat, or their workplace is. Typical of suburban sprawl at the side of interstates, this area has no sidewalks, so people with no cars much travel along the edge of a busy state highway in gravel, on grass, in ditches.

Across town, there's another route where people from town walk out to the Walmart. It's only a couple of miles from where they live, but they must go past where the sidewalk ends, treading the narrow pathway worn into the grassy shoulder of the road, across the bridge over the interstate, and through the parking lot to the Walmart.

What is wrong with us that we build this pedestrian unfriendly sprawl with no sidewalks and no provisions for anyone not driving a car?

[WhiteTara]

1. most of this was done during cheap oil

and EVERYONE had a car; maybe decrepit (and today completely broken down) but cars were the way. Every repuke out there is trying to shut down public transport. They want everyone to have to hire a taxi.

edit for slow fingers and fast brain = typo

[Speck Tater]

2. I live out in the country and there are no sidewalks here.

I walk into town every day for exercise, and there's very few sidewalks even in town, so mostly I walk on the shoulder, or once in town, down the middle of the street since there's no traffic to speak of. But then again, my town only has a population of about 900.

[spinbaby]

3. This is a busy state highway

Quite a difference.

[Speck Tater]

4. That would be sacry

The first mile of my walk is along the shoulder of the main highway through. In the time it takes me to walk that mile I'm usually passed by 2 or 3 cars, which is scary enough. I can't imagine walking the shoulder of a busy highway.