Sharing the Sidewalk

[Llarry]

Don't know if this is a question, or a rant, or what...


A few of the times I've been out and about, I've come across places where I've had to leave the sidewalk because it was otherwise occupied. Now I'm not talking about pedestrians or bicycles, they're easy enough to deal with. I'm also not talking about the main road sidewalks, they're not a problem either.

What I'm on about, is the local in-neighborhood sidewalks. We have soft curbs here, so it's easy enough to get up and down just about anywhere, and not just driveways and corners (in fact, most of the corners do not have ramps, so I have to get up or down away from the corner), so maybe it's not a big deal. In the small streets around the house, I use the street instead of the sidewalk, often to avoid these types of hazards:

- Cars parked up onto the curb
- Cars parked out the end of driveways, across the sidewalk and even partway into the street
- Trees overgrowing the sidewalk (from the side, not just low branches). We have cactus here, so this has the potential to be *really* painful...
- People loading/unloading/working on cars (just yesterday I diverted to avoid a guy cleaning out his car. Had the door swung out across the sidewalk, and various things - vacuum, car seat, child, etc strewn about...)
- Trash/Recycling bins
- Rocks, gravel, branches, etc, especially common where house or lawn are under construction/renovation.


So, is there anything to be done? Anything to say if there's a person present at one of these hazards? Or am I just idly venting? I certainly don't think that I have any *more* right to the sidewalk then they do, but I also don't see as I have any *less*...

Thoughts?

[SEGsby]

I have too, have experienced many of these issues myself.

For me, I feel I'm just getting a small taste of what the handicapped community has had to deal with for a very very long time. However, their mobility choices tend to be variations of motorized chairs, so their height requirements are much less than ours.

SEGsby


Don't know if this is a question, or a rant, or what...


A few of the times I've been out and about, I've come across places where I've had to leave the sidewalk because it was otherwise occupied. Now I'm not talking about pedestrians or bicycles, they're easy enough to deal with. I'm also not talking about the main road sidewalks, they're not a problem either.

What I'm on about, is the local in-neighborhood sidewalks. We have soft curbs here, so it's easy enough to get up and down just about anywhere, and not just driveways and corners (in fact, most of the corners do not have ramps, so I have to get up or down away from the corner), so maybe it's not a big deal. In the small streets around the house, I use the street instead of the sidewalk, often to avoid these types of hazards:

- Cars parked up onto the curb
- Cars parked out the end of driveways, across the sidewalk and even partway into the street
- Trees overgrowing the sidewalk (from the side, not just low branches). We have cactus here, so this has the potential to be *really* painful...
- People loading/unloading/working on cars (just yesterday I diverted to avoid a guy cleaning out his car. Had the door swung out across the sidewalk, and various things - vacuum, car seat, child, etc strewn about...)
- Trash/Recycling bins
- Rocks, gravel, branches, etc, especially common where house or lawn are under construction/renovation.


So, is there anything to be done? Anything to say if there's a person present at one of these hazards? Or am I just idly venting? I certainly don't think that I have any *more* right to the sidewalk then they do, but I also don't see as I have any *less*...

Thoughts?

[bentbiker]

Don't know if this is a question, or a rant, or what...


A few of the times I've been out and about, I've come across places where I've had to leave the sidewalk because it was otherwise occupied. Now I'm not talking about pedestrians or bicycles, they're easy enough to deal with. I'm also not talking about the main road sidewalks, they're not a problem either.

What I'm on about, is the local in-neighborhood sidewalks. We have soft curbs here, so it's easy enough to get up and down just about anywhere, and not just driveways and corners (in fact, most of the corners do not have ramps, so I have to get up or down away from the corner), so maybe it's not a big deal. In the small streets around the house, I use the street instead of the sidewalk, often to avoid these types of hazards:

1.) Cars parked up onto the curb
2.) Cars parked out the end of driveways, across the sidewalk and even partway into the street
3.) Trees overgrowing the sidewalk (from the side, not just low branches). We have cactus here, so this has the potential to be *really* painful...
4.) People loading/unloading/working on cars (just yesterday I diverted to avoid a guy cleaning out his car. Had the door swung out across the sidewalk, and various things - vacuum, car seat, child, etc strewn about...)
5.) Trash/Recycling bins
6.) Rocks, gravel, branches, etc, especially common where house or lawn are under construction/renovation.


So, is there anything to be done? Anything to say if there's a person present at one of these hazards? Or am I just idly venting? I certainly don't think that I have any *more* right to the sidewalk then they do, but I also don't see as I have any *less*...

Thoughts?
Guess you'll first have to decide whether it is a big deal or not. I have to believe that in most communities, items 1-3 and 5 are ticket-able offenses, if you want to report them to the police. If there is any chance you would be identified, you might want to think twice though. I have little sympathy for people who are basically too lazy to abide by the law, but these are your neighbors. It would be great if, in utopia, you could just ask them to be more considerate, but this is the real world, and I can pretty much guarantee that you showing up on a Seg to complain, would not elicit the desired result.

If, by any chance, this is in a single community, where there is an association, you could write to the association and ask for homeowner responsibilities to be addressed in the next association newsletter.

[KSagal]

I too have experienced all the above and more...

I feel the most annoyed at the people who park in a way that clearly disregards those who use the sidewalk. I rarely say anything with one exception...

Sometimes, when the town is putting in a sidewalk or widening a road, or even re-paving after road work or repairs, they allow for a telephone pole or other obstruction in the sidewalk. When I find something like this, I bring it to the attention of the town, so that they can fix it.

IT takes them forever, but these are major obstructions, and will be there for a long time if I did not speak up...

[Llarry]

For me, I feel I'm just getting a small taste of what the handicapped community has had to deal with for a very very long time. However, their mobility choices tend to be variations of motorized chairs, so their height requirements are much less than ours.



Yeah, I see that. I think I'm getting more attuned to that. A co-worker just went through a period in a wheelchair, and he had some real horror stories to tell. It's not like it's ever deliberate, it's just so easy to not think things through... On the flip-side, my wife's an architect, and I've heard tales of local officials going so far overboard in over-reading the ADA so as to be virtually impossible, and often counter-productive, to comply. There's a local architect in a wheelchair who's been known to show up to council meetings in order to give a better qualified view of what's actually needed and fair.


It would be great if, in utopia, you could just ask them to be more considerate, but this is the real world, and I can pretty much guarantee that you showing up on a Seg to complain, would not elicit the desired result.

If, by any chance, this is in a single community, where there is an association, you could write to the association and ask for homeowner responsibilities to be addressed in the next association newsletter.

Yeah, that's what I was thinking too. This is not such a community. We moved here 11 years ago specifically to avoid an association, after getting *far* too involved in one. We had a major exterior renovation going on, and the contractor realized that he was way over his head on the size of the project. My wife ended up using her expertise and contacts to save the project, and I ended up as the President of the "Freakin' Loonies" (the board). We managed to arrange to get the work done without having to make an additional monetary assessment, and the thanks we got were verbal abuse and politics that would have made Machiavelli blush...




Sometimes, when the town is putting in a sidewalk or widening a road, or even re-paving after road work or repairs, they allow for a telephone pole or other obstruction in the sidewalk. When I find something like this, I bring it to the attention of the town, so that they can fix it.

IT takes them forever, but these are major obstructions, and will be there for a long time if I did not speak up...

I'm happy to say that's one thing that doesn't seem to be a problem around here. In fact, some of the corners have had ramps added, and the pattern of them doesn't look like accommodation for specific individuals, but rather an ongoing policy by the city of "fixing" any corner they already have to do work on.


Well, thanks for the thoughts. I figured that wasn't much to be done, but it's nice to get a reality check that it's not just me...

[dynk]

I glided to the PuertaRican Fest Saturday, and on a major road found that at the end of sidewalks they did not have it ramped for wheelchair access. Clearly against the ADA laws. I will bring it up to my city Councilor.

[SegwayDan]

Don't know if this is a question, or a rant, or what...


A few of the times I've been out and about, I've come across places where I've had to leave the sidewalk because it was otherwise occupied. Now I'm not talking about pedestrians or bicycles, they're easy enough to deal with. I'm also not talking about the main road sidewalks, they're not a problem either.

What I'm on about, is the local in-neighborhood sidewalks. We have soft curbs here, so it's easy enough to get up and down just about anywhere, and not just driveways and corners (in fact, most of the corners do not have ramps, so I have to get up or down away from the corner), so maybe it's not a big deal. In the small streets around the house, I use the street instead of the sidewalk, often to avoid these types of hazards:

- Cars parked up onto the curb
- Cars parked out the end of driveways, across the sidewalk and even partway into the street
- Trees overgrowing the sidewalk (from the side, not just low branches). We have cactus here, so this has the potential to be *really* painful...
- People loading/unloading/working on cars (just yesterday I diverted to avoid a guy cleaning out his car. Had the door swung out across the sidewalk, and various things - vacuum, car seat, child, etc strewn about...)
- Trash/Recycling bins
- Rocks, gravel, branches, etc, especially common where house or lawn are under construction/renovation.


So, is there anything to be done? Anything to say if there's a person present at one of these hazards? Or am I just idly venting? I certainly don't think that I have any *more* right to the sidewalk then they do, but I also don't see as I have any *less*...

Thoughts?
Sidewalks are fundamentally public thoroughfares, for the most part subject to city ordinances, some of which may prohibit their blocking. However, they're also cultural artifacts, and subject to local area "agreements" regarding their MISuse which happens in part by lack of enforcement and simply by lack of anyone to object, due to infrequent use by actual transient pedstrians.

Some neighborhoods opted out of sidewalks entirely in the 70s and 80s!

It's also a matter of economics involving how police man power gets spent. Sidewalk regs or drug busts? Not too hard to choose, I'd say.

So if you're not inclined to organize a sidewalks advocacy group to inspire the red necks to clean up their acts and their respective chunks of "your" public thoroughfare, then there is the "Jeffersons" option to "move on up to the east side", as the theme song went. :-)

[yosgof]

Don't know if this is a question, or a rant, or what...


It's a rant :D.

The problems you describe are common all over the world - or at least are as common here in Tel Aviv. Our city council is overhauling the city pavements all over the place so with every passing day the Segway-worthy mileage increases and yet the people occasionally will park and block and obstruct and ...

Initially when running into obstacles I also thought of the disabled, felt pity, got mushy and it did not in any way help me to get around on my Seg.

Eventually I've adopted a different approach. Now I treat every single glide as a mini challenge with the following guidelines:

- Can I get from A to B without getting off the Seg? If not what's my minimum of times to get off for a given route?

- Can I spot an obstruction sufficiently in advance and take evasive actions?

- Can I anticipate potential obstruction way in advance so as to correct my route?

- Can I safely negotiate seemingly impossible obstacles through skill?

- If it’s a person doing something out of bounds (such as cleaning his car with all the s**t all over the pavement) can I eyeball him into clearing a path for me?

- If it’s a nice blond… self edited out for Pam…

One must take into account that on a Segway a slightly longer route through a better gliding environment will usually be more efficient and effective in term of time.

So having applied this approach for some time now, I've developed efficient routes for my regular commutes.

On irregular glides to new places I just keep applying the same approach turning the obstacles into fun.