Tag Archives: sidewalk

Featured Photo
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Featured Photo

Photo courtesy of ekelly80
sidewalk sun
courtesy of ekelly80

Sometimes you should look down; it can be just as important as looking up. To demonstrate, Erin does a great job of catching this small piece of the sidewalk. We’d probably just pass by the sight, and miss how the petals fill in the sections of the manhole, making the lines very distinct. With the petals fanning out like a solar wind, it really does look like a sidewalk sun. Of course, the filter used gives the picture a nice, pleasant, golden hue. An excellent shot however you look at it.

The Daily Feed, WTF?!
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No Sidewalk? Run on the Grass

Time to run on the grass

Time to run on the grass

Running along Colorado Avenue NW recently, I came across this scene: a sidewalk missing, so no place to run that’s not in the street. Now the usual response to this is to run on the pavement, but why? Isn’t the flat grassy area all public property? If you look in the distance, you can see a utility pole in that same flat grassy area, so its city property, not private property.

So I ran on the grass.

My knees were happy, as grass is softer than pavement, and Taxi Dog was happy, her paws like grass much more than pavement. But I wonder if the homeowners are going to be happy? Would you be? Especially if you were excited because your home didn’t have a sidewalk just to keep pedestrians away.

Talkin' Transit
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Questioning Ghost Bike Barricades


Photo by maxedexposure

As a cyclist, I have two minds about the Alice Swanson Memorial that WABA organized.

On one hand, I do see it as a way to remind drivers and cyclists that we all need to share the road and respect each other a bit more, no matter our presumed importance or right of way.

On the other, doesn’t this memorial itself present a danger to cyclist and motorist alike? Pretty soon, this will become yet another obstruction on the sidewalk, no matter its good intentions, and by diverting pedestrians into the street, it will cause cyclist and driver alike to quickly swerve into each others’ path.

Might there be a better way to remind us of the dangers of metal vs. human? Maybe a painted chalk outline of a cyclist on pavement or a rumble strip shaped like a bike?

I for one, would rather have dedicated bike lanes instead of a dedicated ghost bikes.