Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Sidewalks for Snowden but not Dobbin

Fellow local blogger Columbia Talk posed the question as to whether Snowden River Parkway is Columbia’s new Main Street. He was reacting to a story by Larry Carson in The Sun this past Sunday entitled “3rd lane wanted for Snowden River Parkway.”

Carson also reported that “So far, $450,000 has been allocated for a third lane and sidewalks on the northbound side of the parkway up to Oakland Mills Road.”

But what about Dobbin Road?

Since moving our offices to Dobbin Road a year ago I’ve noticed that Dobbin has no sidewalks. Everyday I see people walking on the side of the road wearing a path in the grass alongside the road. On the other hand, I rarely see anyone walking along Snowden. Dobbin Road is two lane road lined by a wide variety of offices, services and retail. My office is theoretically within walking distance of the Shoppes at Lakeside but there is no safe way to walk there.

Brilliant planning.

3 comments:

Scott said...

it would be nice if there were walks along 175 also.. at least it has a wide shoulder.

Anonymous said...

Columbia and esp Howard County are pathetic places to walk. One can only walk within a community if at all. Communities are not connected and even worse retail is not connected making shoppers take multiple car trips for one shopping experience. Dobbin is particularly bad as one cannot drop their car at one of the car repair places and cross the street safely. In fact I don't believe there are even crosswalks or crossing signals near the Dobbin Center signal.

Anonymous said...

Who will want to walk down that street when more and more retail like the Wegmans opens up there?? Columbia is growing up way too fast. They need to freeze everything...take a deep breath and start to really think about what they are planning as a whole.