Sidewalks, trails, biking, walking and running

As most of you know, I’m for all of the above, because these items are certainly positive parts of an active lifestyle. But, they can be dangerous when an individual doesn’t do them properly. Now, I’m not going to list the fatalities that occur on each item, because I don’t want to put you, my readers, to sleep, but all of us should be aware of how there is a good and proper way to enjoy all of the above as part of our lifestyle, and for them to always have a positive effect on our lives. However, if any of the above are used improperly, they can have a negative effect on not only your life, but others.

First, let’s consider sidewalks; well sidewalks are everywhere…no they’re not. In fact, as growing cities began to expand after the Second World War, many towns stopped building sidewalks. It was just curb and yard, if it was in a residential area, or curb and parking lot in a shopping area. The age of the automobile was in full swing, and everybody had a car or two, so who’s going to use sidewalks? Looking back, we can see that was a huge mistake, and a number of cities are now adding the sidewalks, which should have been constructed years ago.

Here in El Dorado when the shopping areas away from downtown built up along north West Avenue and Hillsboro Streets, sidewalks ended as you left downtown, and the subdivisions under construction stopped building sidewalks about the same time. As far as public accessibility to shopping is concerned, all of those areas should have sidewalks connecting to residential areas. Every day I see people trying to walk to the shopping areas away from downtown dodging cars in the street or stumbling down the unpaved shoulder of the street. The bottom line is easy; a city can’t have too many sidewalks, and almost all of our incorporated towns need more. Of course, sidewalks are for people to walk on, and not for scooters, bikes, or even runners. Keep that in mind as you use the sidewalks. But as an extra point concerning sidewalks, I must mention that all sidewalks sooner or later have crosswalks. They are for people to cross the street, and for the traffic to completely stop, and not just try to dodge the pedestrians.

On a trip to Switzerland, I watched how the Swiss treat a crosswalk. When a pedestrian approaches a Swiss crosswalk, all traffic, including bikes and scooters, stop immediately as soon as that person steps into the crosswalk, and traffic doesn’t move until he or she is out of the crosswalk. I don’t know how many people are killed in crosswalks each year, but as I dodge traffic in downtown El Dorado, where all intersections have four-way stop signs, I wonder how long it will be before I will feel a bumper and hear an ambulance coming for me?

And now for trails: northwest Arkansas is certainly head and shoulders above the rest of the state in developing trails, and that area is an example of why trails should be a key part of every cities master plan. In Seattle, a third of their downtown workers use trails and walk to work. But trails aren’t for bikes or scooters and certainly not for three or four wheel vehicles.

A number of years back, Dr. Glasser, from the University, led a design team to El Dorado, and as part of that study, the team designed a series of connecting trails that linked recreational and shopping areas to the residential subdivisions of the city. It was an impressive plan and well received, but in the 18 years since the study; guess how many miles of trails have been implemented? 0. Yes, we have one new trail and it’s a trail to nowhere. It circles the County Fairgrounds and Municipal golf course. There is nothing wrong with an exercise trail, but the real purpose of trails is to connect residential, shopping, and recreational areas. Dr. Glasser’s study proposed a trail from the fairground and golf course down the adjacent railroad to downtown. That’s the purpose of trails. If you want to walk around in a circle, go walk the stadium track.

Now let’s consider biking. I don’t regularly bike any more, but I’m strongly considering getting an electric bike to commute to work. However, I did ride a bike constantly from 8 years old until I was old enough to drive. Yes, bikes are a great form of transportation and recreation, and yes, you should share the road with bikers, but, and this goes for scooters, bikers both conventional and electric. Sharing the road also means sharing the traffic signals, stop signs, and stopping at crosswalks.

Most of the time when we walk or run for exercise, we must walk in the street or on the shoulder since sidewalks are few and far between. I do it six times a week, and the skinny guy on the 167 bypass walking on the wide shoulder of the road is me. It’s about a four mile walk. I used to run it, but after some minor knee aches and after doing some reading on the internet-“Why Walking is the Best Exercise”I started just walking. But there is a proper way to walk just as there is a proper way to drive a car, and that is to walk facing traffic. There are many days during the winter when Vertis and I drive to town early and it’s still dark. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen runners running with the traffic wearing dark clothing with nothing that reflects. Those are the runners, for the most part, who are hit by cars. I’ve had to swerve a number of times to keep from hitting a runner during the early morning darkness. And yes that goes for walking. When I do my afternoon walk it is always facing traffic, and I have had a couple of times where someone, not paying attention to the road, drifted off on the shoulder, and if I hadn’t moved they might have hit me. Walking and running are pluses when done properly, but countless numbers of walkers and runners are killed each year because they don’t run against traffic. I walk out on the bypass because it’s four lane with wide shoulders and although cars zoom by at 65+ MPH I can see them coming, and with the broad paved shoulder, I can easily step aside, if a text-reading driver drifts over toward me.

Here in Arkansas it seems we are always playing catch up in most of the things we do, and the idea of using anything but the automobile for transportation is not part of the average person’s lifestyle around here. However, we will catch up because just as the internet and cell phones swept the country, they didn’t start in Arkansas, but they finally did become part of our routine. So what we need to do now, is push forward with city and state government to be pro-trails, pro-biking, pro-walking, pro-running, and pro-scooters, to measurably improve our quality of life.

Richard Mason is a registered professional geologist, downtown developer, former chairman of the Department of Environmental Quality Board of Commissioners, past president of the Arkansas Wildlife Federation, and syndicated columnist. Email richard@ gibraltarenergy.com.