Yesterday ...
The inequality of sidewalks? It goes much further than this in New Albany.
Today ...
The article linked below concludes with this sentence: "A lot of the problems can be solved by doing something no computer can: just walking around."
In New Albany's case, I'd recommend that every elected official and appointed department chief be placed in a wheelchair, and required to spend a day attempting to navigate city streets. It might finally impel comprehension, though it's doubtful.
By the way, the quote on the meme above comes from a real social worker, who has been there and done that.
Here's the article, followed by views of New Albany's eternal and maddening inconsistencies.
You Can't Achieve Vision Zero If Pedestrians Don't Come First, by Eric Jaffe (City Lab)
From the article.
... The sign asks pedestrians to use the sidewalk across the street. That seems innocuous enough at a glance, but in practice what it’s doing is either pushing people into the middle of the street, where they’ll be in closer contact with moving traffic, or generally disrupting their route and making it less pleasant to walk. It chooses this approach rather than establishing a temporary walkway on the same side of the street—even if that means inconveniencing cars by reducing lane width or (gasp!) removing curb parking on the opposite side.
A policy that truly prioritized vulnerable street users would do something along the lines of what Seattle recently did—making sidewalk closures an absolute “last resort.”
Our sidewalk work: Why a warning sign here, on 5th Street ...
... but not here ...
... or here?
Finally, as we've pointed out more than once, handicapped sidewalk travelers have been bumped entirely from the Break Wind block. Their alternative? Cross the street without a crosswalk, and with nothing to slow the one-way traffic, or go out into the parking lanes.
Jeff Gahan's crack team of suburbanites just plain doesn't get it, eh?
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