Respect for Peds

I have been on this respect thing for a little while. I know I have only written one entry about it, but I have been thinking about it a lot lately.

Riding to work this morning I saw a couple of things that got me thinking about respect for pedestrians.

The first incident occurred as I was coming down Mountain Highway this morning. This road has a side walk on only one side of the street (typical of North Vancouver). The road is set up in such a way that if you are walking up or down the hill there is no way to see the construction until it is too late to change your route. There are signs for traffic warning of construction ahead, but nothing for pedestrians.

At the construction site the workers were "polite" enough not to block traffic by parking on the road, instead they all parked on the sidewalk. For pedestrians it was impossible to pass. Again there seems only to be respect for automobiles.

The second incident has taken a bit longer to get me annoyed. Close to my work the city has decided that crossing the road for pedestrians is far too dangerous, so they have decided to install curb extensions into the road and a median so that pedestrians have a safe place to stand and wait for traffic to stop. First of all as a cyclist I am not in favour of curb extensions in general. In the particular location I am referring to here they are particularly dangerous as two lanes are merging into one at the curb extension -- even more dangerous for cyclists. It is the construction of the curb extensions that I was amazed at however. In constructing them the city workers closed both sidewalks and didn't provide alternate arrangements for pedestrians -- other than walking through someone's yard. What were they thinking -- would people stop walking? Would children stop going to school? Again another example of a lack of respect for anyone other than a motorist.

I sent an email to the DNV about the sidewalk closure on Mountain Highway. I wonder If I'll get a response.