Sarah Palin may have her bridge to nowhere but Columbia now has a sidewalk to nowhere.I suppose you could technically claim that the sidewalk connects the Dobbin Square shopping center to the Columbia Crossing shopping center on the opposite side of Rouse Parkway (MD Route 175). The only problem is that on the Columbia Crossing side the sidewalk just comes to a dead end.
What are pedestrians supposed to do at this point?
Their options at this point are to walk on the grass or walk in the street. The truly adventurous can try climbing the steep grassy hill. This will land them smack dab in the loading dock area for Dicks and Staples.Whoever planned this apparrently did not think it all the way through. Perhaps they ran out of money?
This is not exactly a pedestrian friendly intersection to begin with. The new crosswalk makes crossing here only marginally safer.
2 comments:
Unfortunately, this is fairly common in Columbia. As I've been walking in the Town Center and Wilde Lake areas, I've noticed several gaps in sidewalk coverage. It really makes being a pedestrian a little problematic. Especially along LPP where the crosswalks are few and far in between and not all of them have signals. Flickr photo group prehaps?
What I would like to know is who was responsible for the sidewalk to nowhere? The county? Who at the county would have inspected and approved its final destination? Is this typical of bureacratic muddling or indifference? We have to rethink and redesign our entire road infrastructure if we expect to go "green".
There are plenty of communities in this country that have wider roads with bicyle lanes painted alongside the auto lanes. If we want to reduce emissions, save gas, and reduce our transportation costs , why don't we have bike trails on all our roads to encourage people to give up their cars for short trips? They'll be healthier for the effort as well.
HH
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