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
Desire path for straight sidewalk
This is the us right? Many nations would struggle to fail at sidewalks this hard. Those are poured slabs, they could have connected them to the curb for less work and more space, enough to fit the sidewalk in the right place.
that’s also a giant avenue with a speed limit likely anywhere from 35-50 MPH right next to the curb you want this sidewalk to run up against. sure, there’s a light there to slow people down before the intersection, you might say… and to that, i say, the unfortunate reality of living in a country where everyone has to risk their lives driving a car everyday is that the vast majority of drivers are nincompoop incompétents that you wouldn’t trust to shine your shoes, let alone with your life.
civic engineers have to consider local cultures and environments when designing even shit like sidewalks and paths that might seem dummy simple. they made the right call here for safety in an american locale. people don’t often careen their cars all the way off the road. people very often clip right up against the curb bc of low visibility, drunk driving, etc.
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.
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.
The people have spoken.
Make the road by walking.
Passing Lane
I'll never understand why city planners do that. Like, it's clear you could have definitely had a little bit narrower sidewalk going straight through, but instead they just went around it.
If it's worried about spacing, they could just make it on both sides like a smaller path to the left of the pole and then the normal path curving around for like wheelchair access.
The width is for safe travel by people in wheelchairs. I've been in situations where a mere inch too narrow meant we had to go back to wherever we could cross, or drive/walk in the road, or even give up on that street entirely. Could you possibly fit the pavers if you took it all the way to the edge? Would it be safe for that stretch of roadway? The people who laid the sidewalk presumably measured and decided not. Now, could they have paved the straight AND the curve? Probably yes, but at greater expense. And we'd miss out on this nice desire path.
Has to be 4-6’ for accessibility, and if there’s plowimg in the winter the sidewalk plow has to fit.
What I don't get is why the pole had to go right there. Why not put the sidewalk where you want it and then put the pole to the side? The fire hydrant seems to be doing just fine where it is.
bet you $10 the pole was there first. The cost of working with the cable company and paying their approved expensive team to remove it and moving it vs just taking your existing city contracted cement team and doing a little squiggly
money is always the motive
I'll throw in another $10 that the sidewalk was somewhere else initially.
I'm betting the road was narrower, and the sidewalk further to the left (in the photo). The pole was to the right of the sidewalk. These were all planned/built around the same time.
Then the road was widened. The sidewalk had to be pushed (moved/rebuilt) further to the right. They could've put it far enough over to be completely on the other side of the pole, but that would have other implications - including running into the fire hydrant in the background.
man I'm so glad we don't have to deal with that here. All poles are owned by the town here, if they wanna move a pole they give notice to the utility companies "hey this is being moved on X date, if you wanna keep services on it we recommend you be there" (coordination wise, we still have many regulations to follow)
In some places it'll be the phone company and the power company and the cable TV/internet companies as well. You'd have to coordinate with all 3. And there may be regulations about how close it has to be to the street to enable repairs -- regulations put there for the safety of the workers, as well as to keep the lines away from tree branches that might take them down during a storm.
Accessibility
The sidewalk, light pole, curb, etc. were all probably built at different times and designed by different engineers with different values and priorities
Probably some idiotic law the designer had to follow
They care more about it looking visually pleasing than being actually usable.
Idk why they make the sidewalk all zig-zaggy in some places (not like the image here which just seems like poor planning). It doesn't even look cool.
there's one near my ex's house going to the plaza. instead of walking straight then left into the plaza property, people walk over the grass to get onto the property.
Made by anti-LGBTQ+ sidewalk jerks.
/jk (for those that need it)
I don’t get it
It's not straight.
But shouldn't it be straight then if it was made by anti-LGBTQ+ sidewalk jerks?
I think they're joking that the desire path was made by homophobes, not the sidewalk.
Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Thank you.
Eh, actually that makes more sense lol. I dunno then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
They're just a little confused.
Ohh.
What do you mean? It's clearly Bi.