A Place Where the Sidewalk Ends

As I took a walk this morning, I was reminded of Shel Silverstein's poem "Where the Sidewalk Ends"

There is a place where the sidewalk ends
And before the street begins, And there the grass grows soft and white

because suddenly the sidewalk ended and a very green yard lay before me. I stopped my power chair (aka The Beast) and sat there. I couldn't cross the street because there were no curb cuts in sight and the curbs exceeded the height I can safely jump.

So I turned around until I reached a driveway that was pretty close to a driveway across the street and was going to cross, but saw that there wasn't a sidewalk on that part of the street across the street either.

A jogger ran past me in the street. A bicyclist rode by in the street. I decided to go back the same route I traveled rather than go into the unmarked street. It was safer, especially since this section of road had a blind curve. I see too many headlines about wheelchairs being hit by cars to do that. I wonder, however, whether drivers see joggers and bicyclists on that blind stretch of the road. They are taller. I suppose they can also swerve out of the way (maybe) better. Maybe not. Last year a teen on a bicycle was struck a few blocks away.

It doesn't take long when you travel as a pedestrian to figure out that "sharing the road" is a concept not easily accepted by some drivers. They resent pedestrians of any kind who get in their way, even at well marked crosswalks. And this attitude, ultimately, in addition to not being able to see pedestrians because of road design that fails to take pedestrians into account, can lead to accidents.

Kids get it.
Yes we'll walk with a walk that is measured and slow,
And we'll go where the chalk-white arrows go,
For the children, they mark, and the children, they know
The place where the sidewalk ends.

Check out just the first few minutes of this "wheelcam" video by a wheelchair user going for a cup of coffee and the obstructions he encounters.



And if you've ever wondered what it's like trying to cross poorly planned streets with a guide dog, take a look at this:




If we're going to have mobility for everyone, we need to learn to share the roads.