Hang Tough, Manor Park. No Sidewalks: WHOPPER WATCH
“It is astonishing that Manor Park is rejecting sidewalks. The residents should be thinking of public safety, particularly for the children, not about the look of the neighbourhood.”
Mohammed Adam, Ottawa Citizen
Sorry Mohammed but there’s congratulations in this.
My old Ottawa City Hall colleague, a wealth of solid thought on the vague machinations of Laurier Avenue, has swung-and-missed on this one. And Mohammed that’s a baseball term which you might not know as a Liverpool football fan.
The congratulations in this is that over the 16 years of The Bulldog, this is Mohammed’s first Whopper Watch. An astonishing record.
Sidewalk-less neighbourhoods are very safe. Their thin nature and street parking are natural traffic-calming measures. They are great for road hockey because their very nature discourages drivers from using them. They tend to use the wide streets with sidewalks. Two cars parked across the street from each other can block the street. Speeding drivers don’t like that.
The ditches cause rainfall to seep into the ground which means less fecal matter being washed into nearby rivers and thus closing beaches in summer.
Old neighbourhoods with big trees and little traffic are wonderfully safe. Doubtful the people of Manor Park would be against sidewalks if they thought the neighbourhood youngsters would be in danger.
No sidewalks is all rather counter-intuitive but listen to the neighbourhood. The residents most often are right. Residents live their neighbourhoods. Don’t bother them. They’re doing fine on their own without the city’s help … or with sidewalks, the city’s hindrance.
I lived on a street with no sidewalks and it was very enjoyable. Peaceful, green, maybe even a little bit cooler in the summer. People liked to walk in the neighbourhood … day and night. That keeps eyes on the street and makes the area just a little bit safer.
Don’t change a winning game. No sidewalks actually work, though it doesn’t make sense to someone who doesn’t live there.
Good luck with Liverpool this upcoming season, Mohammed.
Ken Gray
For You:
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Councillors Aren’t Worth Big Pay Increase: CRERAR
Yay Manor Park. Fight Those Sidewalks: GRAY
Tierney Issue Caught In Bureaucratic Vice
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The children are fine it is the elderly I worry about who could possibly be using walkers or walking at a slower pace. Can they not have their independence or should they be locked away? Cheers!
Badge, my Manor Park neighbours are in their `80s and go on a walk every day, all year long – one with an obvious limp. They have one (of very many) “NO SIDEWALKS IN MANOR PARK” signs on their front lawn.
Manor Park streets are safe. We had an electric wheelchair-bound woman “walk” her dog on a regular basis on our street for years. We have the RCMP riding their horse drawn carriage going by from time to time. These are curvy, narrow, quiet streets. Kids play basketball and street hockey. All is good.
I prefer to defer to the judgement of the people who can identify a street name as being in the neighbourhood, or not, without having to refer to the maps app on their mobile device. In other words, the people who live there. In contrast, we can rely on city staff who have difficulty knowing the names of the streets, let alone whether they run parallel to or intersect with each other, without reference to a map.
One size never fits all. Never did. Never will. It does, however, fit the person it was designed for. In this instance, city staff.
What makes sidewalk-less neighbourhhods especially safe are 2 of Elmer the Safety Elephant’s fundamental rules – 1) walk facing traffic and 2) wear white at night.