Municipal development staff worker here. Sidewalk networks are a bitch to implement.
Say you want to put in 6ft sidewalks on either side of a one-land road with a turn lane:
You have a ROW width of 50 feet. With the Existing road, shoulder, storm sewer, and utilities, you have no more room. So you either need to expand the ROW or build the sidewalk on private land.
Expanding the ROW has 2 realistic options. Imminent Domain or ROW dedication as part of the platting process. Imminent Domain is politically impossible in most cases, and if land is already platted, it may not get replatted for another century.
So you have to build it on private land. Most of the time, that takes the form of requiring sidewalk standards as part of site development. That works pretty well, but it requires all the private land in the entire network to re-develop. It’s why you see these weird sidewalks in front of newer business parks that are 50 feet long and don’t connect to anything. When the next property re-develops, they have to connect, but it doesn’t really mean anything until all the properties develop. And “Jimbo’s thrift shop, billboard, fire hazard, gun range, and playground” makes buckets of money by not meeting any modern building, planning, or health codes, so they’ll NEVER re-develop because they’d lose their existing non-conforming (grandfathered) status that allows them to keep doing dangerous shit cheaply.
This is deeply fascinating and I need to hear more about businesses and sidewalks!
Why are some houses in my neighborhood missing sidewalks? I thought all houses had to have them! This is an individual house level, there’s no hoa or the like.
Lots of times, it’s because the house is older than the rules. Other times it may be because of a variance granted to that property. Variances are really only supposed to be granted when meeting code is otherwise essentially impossible because of a unique physical characteristic of the site, but the Board of Adjustments (appointees who decide zoning variances for the city in many states) is made up of political appointees, and the reality is that if everyone likes Dave he gets what he wants even though he shouldn’t.
The area is old, and the houses weren’t here in the 70s (but were here by the 90s) so it feels like the rules should be 90s. But that’s my soup brain going everything should be around by the 90s, maybe.
I’ll blame it all on this mysterious Dave letting these people not have sidewalks when it would be really nice to have sidewalks all the way to the end of the fucking block so I can walk to my polling place without walking into the street.
By the time you’ve added curbs and striping, you’re looking at about 15 feet per auto lane. One lane each direction and a dedicated turn lane, and you’re at 45 feet. That leaves 2.5 feet on each side of the road for drainage infrastructure and utility lines.
It’s actually 12 feet per lane, plus a little extra for striping with a center turn lane, plus a small shoulder and curb. It ends up averaging about 40-45 feet depending on the road classification.
Roads have center turn lanes for a variety of reasons. A big one is so that people turning left don’t stop traffic…Not only is it good for traffic control, but it improves safety during peak traffic because you don’t have impatient assholes whipping onto the shoulder (or sidewalk or bike lane) when someone is trying to turn left.
It also gives room for traffic diversion in case of a wreck, breakdown, or construction while still allowing traffic to flow both directions. Just throw down some cones and make it work.
That’s still driving “among the pedestrians” or “in a pedestrian zone” or whatever turn of phrase suggests that it’s a place where automobiles and people come together, to the disadvantage of those outside the vehicle… and I think you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who slows down that frequently and consistently.
There isn’t any bike infrastructure and they are safer on the sidewalk.
They’re a dick and ride on the sidewalk anyway in spite the very nice protected bike lanes that are right next to the sidewalk. This is the case 90% of the time and could be curbed with some education and enforcement, but that’ll never probably happen.
I mean if you actually cared about reality more than your feelings you could investigate which of these devices kills or injures more pedestrians. But I’m guessing your views are too entrenched to be influenced by facts.
deleted by creator
There are no sidewalks where I live. Everyone is bound to the roads.
America has the weirdest solutions to the weirdest problems.
Municipal development staff worker here. Sidewalk networks are a bitch to implement.
Say you want to put in 6ft sidewalks on either side of a one-land road with a turn lane:
You have a ROW width of 50 feet. With the Existing road, shoulder, storm sewer, and utilities, you have no more room. So you either need to expand the ROW or build the sidewalk on private land.
Expanding the ROW has 2 realistic options. Imminent Domain or ROW dedication as part of the platting process. Imminent Domain is politically impossible in most cases, and if land is already platted, it may not get replatted for another century.
So you have to build it on private land. Most of the time, that takes the form of requiring sidewalk standards as part of site development. That works pretty well, but it requires all the private land in the entire network to re-develop. It’s why you see these weird sidewalks in front of newer business parks that are 50 feet long and don’t connect to anything. When the next property re-develops, they have to connect, but it doesn’t really mean anything until all the properties develop. And “Jimbo’s thrift shop, billboard, fire hazard, gun range, and playground” makes buckets of money by not meeting any modern building, planning, or health codes, so they’ll NEVER re-develop because they’d lose their existing non-conforming (grandfathered) status that allows them to keep doing dangerous shit cheaply.
This is deeply fascinating and I need to hear more about businesses and sidewalks!
Why are some houses in my neighborhood missing sidewalks? I thought all houses had to have them! This is an individual house level, there’s no hoa or the like.
Lots of times, it’s because the house is older than the rules. Other times it may be because of a variance granted to that property. Variances are really only supposed to be granted when meeting code is otherwise essentially impossible because of a unique physical characteristic of the site, but the Board of Adjustments (appointees who decide zoning variances for the city in many states) is made up of political appointees, and the reality is that if everyone likes Dave he gets what he wants even though he shouldn’t.
The area is old, and the houses weren’t here in the 70s (but were here by the 90s) so it feels like the rules should be 90s. But that’s my soup brain going everything should be around by the 90s, maybe.
I’ll blame it all on this mysterious Dave letting these people not have sidewalks when it would be really nice to have sidewalks all the way to the end of the fucking block so I can walk to my polling place without walking into the street.
Thank you!
You’ve got 50’ of ROW but still need more for sidewalks? 🙄
By the time you’ve added curbs and striping, you’re looking at about 15 feet per auto lane. One lane each direction and a dedicated turn lane, and you’re at 45 feet. That leaves 2.5 feet on each side of the road for drainage infrastructure and utility lines.
Where do you put the sidewalk?
Why the left turn lane? 15’ per auto lane?
It’s actually 12 feet per lane, plus a little extra for striping with a center turn lane, plus a small shoulder and curb. It ends up averaging about 40-45 feet depending on the road classification.
Roads have center turn lanes for a variety of reasons. A big one is so that people turning left don’t stop traffic…Not only is it good for traffic control, but it improves safety during peak traffic because you don’t have impatient assholes whipping onto the shoulder (or sidewalk or bike lane) when someone is trying to turn left.
It also gives room for traffic diversion in case of a wreck, breakdown, or construction while still allowing traffic to flow both directions. Just throw down some cones and make it work.
No offense, but your response is classic American traffic engineer Stroad-design. “Need big wide stroad to improve peak traffic!”
Just moved to a place with sidewalks and walking my dog is actually relaxing now.
Right, because that truck would never be driven near pedestrians.
deleted by creator
You must live in a world where there are no pedestrians. Let me guess, suburban USA?
deleted by creator
Do people not cross the road there, or do motorists slow to <5 km/h at every intersection?
deleted by creator
That’s still driving “among the pedestrians” or “in a pedestrian zone” or whatever turn of phrase suggests that it’s a place where automobiles and people come together, to the disadvantage of those outside the vehicle… and I think you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who slows down that frequently and consistently.
It’s cause to change reality.
both vehicles are for roads.
Why are bikes on sidewalks?
In Chicago it’s because of 1 of 3 reasons:
deleted by creator
Both do so I’m not sure what your point is.
I mean if you actually cared about reality more than your feelings you could investigate which of these devices kills or injures more pedestrians. But I’m guessing your views are too entrenched to be influenced by facts.