Desire path for straight sidewalk
this post was submitted on 03 Nov 2025
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Desire Paths
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Desire paths Desire paths can be paths created as a consequence of erosion caused by human or animal foot-fall or traffic. The paths usually represent the shortest or most easily navigated routes between origins and destinations. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desire_path
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I live in Canada, the sidewalk abutting the street is not an issue, and the only time I hear such antisidewalk nonsense is from americans (in MPH of course). That 30 cm of grass is not a meaningful barrier of any kind and the pole is not built to be a car barrier.
i’m not saying anything anti-sidewalk. not once. you’ve just kind of demonstrated to me that you don’t actually really care about the civil engineering at work here and mostly just want an excuse to shit on americans, which is honestly kind of lame because you really don’t need to invent things to shit on us right now, there’s plenty of real things to go around.
of course the grass isn’t a meaningful barrier. of course the pole isn’t a car barrier (even though in the US they often are because they’re often reinforced with steel and concrete).
i… never claimed any of those things, or even anything close to it. i actually even addressed those assertions pre-emptively by acknowledging the actual reason one might build a sidewalk this way in the US, but you seem to not really be reading anything i’m actually saying.
no idea what you’re on about, man. have a nice one.
You are saying that you should not have a sidewalk directly next to a street, due to the speed of the street. A uniquely anti sidewalk us-centric view, not saying you are against sidewalks but that you have bought the bad civil engineering at work there. I have not demonstrated to you anything about my knowledge of civil engineering, just that I disagree with yours.
This same argument has been tried here to not put in a sidewalk. Its weak and silly. Sure having a barrier is better but a having a sidewalk is leagues better then not having one or having the one pictured above.
just because i acknowledge why american civil engineers make the choices they do doesn’t mean i condone the entire situation as a whole.
of course it would be better for american infrastructure to be updated, modern, and un-frankensteined.
until that massive societal undertaking can be done to address the root causes of incredibly high pedestrian injury rate in this country as a whole, however… your local small town road engineer isn’t god and has to work with what we have. and in the united states and american locales it is statistically safer for pedestrians to have those extra feet of space between them and the cars. yeah, it’s a band-aid solution to a gashing wound of a problem, but i don’t understand why you’re acting so pretentious about it and like the only issue here is the placement of the sidewalk. the image represents a failure of american society, the engineers that made this sidewalk did the best with what they had and this design is likely the safest in the provided context.
what, do you want them to pave the sidewalks like in canada and just deal with the hundreds of extra injuries and deaths a year that will result because the rest of society hasn’t been appropriately changed as well? you wouldn’t just build american style intersections in the middle of bangkok, why the fuck would that change here??
you have demonstrated your knowledge of civil engineering by showing me you don’t even seem to understand the basic premise of designing for the environment your installation will even go in…
there’s nothing i’ve really said here that’s an assertion or opinion, it’s not really something to agree or disagree with unless you’re willing to make that disagreement on the same technical grounds the information is built on. if you want to disagree with this you’re disagreeing with the entire body of civil engineering’s idea of good practice worldwide, not just some stupid americans.
the OP picture is not bad civil engineering, it’s great civil engineering doing exactly its job in a bad society.
It is bad civil engineering as in it costs more, does less and looks silly. I am stating that we have the same issues here, and the sidewalks are not at all standardized. The solution is not some massive societal upheaval and rebuilding of all infrastructure, but to just don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. The engineers in this case used more material, more complex forms, more design work to do a worse job. There is no more risk to the public unless you have some info I don't. Hell whats the risk of having sidewalks vs not having them (as most american places I have seen just don't have them at all)? What is so different in the us then Canada that a small strip of grass after the curb makes such a difference? This seems like more of that terrible american exceptionalism that bleeds over here.
Put the sidewalks in, don't overthink it unless you have the budget. That is all I am saying.