Give my sidewalks dignity

Last Friday, I was at the Congress for New Urbanism's New England chapter for their Sustainable Urbanism Summit in Portsmouth, NH. There was an excellent series of speakers who offered a number of insights, thoughts, and perspectives on the future of urbanism and sustainability in coming years. Check out the links if you're interested in learning more!

A lot of what was discussed captured my thoughts, but in particular, I've been mulling over Jason Schrieber's comments on what makes people take public transportation. As an avid walker, I am also an proponent of public transit, so I care a lot about this issue, but I also found part of what he said to be directly relevant to walking planning and infrastructure, too.

We all know that people are more likely to take public transit if it provides gains in time, cost, goes where people want to go; that's all pretty intuitive, right? But Jason talked about a fourth factor that's often overlooked: dignity. That is, even if I were going to save time and money and be delivered more or less door-to-door by public transit, I might still choose to take a private vehicle if the transit option is unpleasant, or makes me feel lousy, undervalued, or unimportant.

How many of us have decided to take transit somewhere only to find the bus stop poorly marked, wait forever for a bus that never showed up, have transit employees be unhelpful or unfriendly, poorly maintained and cleaned facilities, broken escalators, and delays that are never explained. If you take public transit even occasionally, you've probably had one or more such experience. Folks who take it every day run into this kind of thing a lot, and, of course, some systems are worse than others. For people who have a choice in how to travel, this kind of thing discourages use of public transit. For people who are obligated by economic or other constraints to rely on public transit as their primary or only means of travel, this sort of thing can reinforce the cultural idea that they don't "deserve" better service. That's bad for all of us, I think, but that's a longer, larger discussion.

This point about dignity is an important one, however, and it extends beyond public transit. Pedestrians are often subjected to incredibly lousy walking conditions, but because we don't think of sidewalks as services in the same way that we do public transit, we may overlook this. But it's one of the primary areas that we at WalkBoston focus our attention. When sidewalks are in poor repair, are too narrow, are dirty, feel (or are) unsafe, we are discouraged from walking, and those who do walk, either by choice or by necessity, are cast as second class citizens. When these conditions exist alongside expensive and well-maintained roads, we demonstrate our greater interest in cars than in people.

Many of us take the walking infrastructure as-it-exists for granted. It's just what is, and that's that. But sidewalks, pathways, and other public areas don't spring up out of nowhere. They are the result of intentional or unintentional decisions on the part of policy-makers, funders, communities and individuals. As walkers, we can request and even demand a walking environment that is not only functional but also dignified.