Not walking in Raleigh (and Cary)
February 22, 2012 4 Comments
BBC came to Raleigh to take a look at the problem of America’s non-walkable cities (thanks for the link, JW). Of which Raleigh is a prime example. Alas, those bastards at the BBC have not enabled embedding on the video, so you’ll have to click over if you want to see it (it’s about 4 minutes). I have, at least, included a screen shot that shows a sign that an activist has been installing all over Raleigh to show how walkable– or not– our city is. I had been really wondering about the sign I kept walking past telling me it’s a 72 minute walk to the art museum from where I get pizza. Who the hell is going to walk that, I kept asking myself.
Later, the video addresses the lack of sidewalks. Personally, this drives me crazy. Cary (a Raleigh suburb– yes, I’m the problem for living too far from work, I know) is supposedly a family-friendly community, but woefully short of sidewalks. So, every time we walk the dog, i.e., every day, we’ve got to dodge cars while walking on the streets. It’s horrible. Not to mention kids walking around all the time. In my former, decidedly non-progressive home of Lubbock, TX, every single inch of residential housing had sidewalks. Now, that’s the way it should be.
About Steve Greene
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I share your frustration with the lack of sidewalks. I live in Chapel Hill, supposedly bike and walker friendly and all kinds of liberal eco-goodness. Well, the walking part is crap. Many neighborhoods have no sidewalks. Our doesn’t and it pisses me off. No housing development should be approved for construction unless it has sidewalks. Period. At least one of the main east-west roads is 2 lane with no shoulder for a good bit of the way. Not a single pedestrian overpass to allow people to walk a few blocks to a mall, stores, and shops without crossing a 4 lane divided highway. Yeah, there are some nice trails meandering around the woods, but you have to drive to get to them. I don’t know how kids who grew up in our neighborhood (established in 1960) learned to ride a bike with all the blind turns and blind hills on the narrow ribbons of asphalt that twist and turn along the hillsides.
This is easily one of the most frustrating things about the Triangle area.
Walking/running is one thing; biking is worse. I’m training for my first (sprint) triathlon in May. I’ve been looking for places to cycle, and it’s really frustrating in Cary/Apex/Raleigh. I search online and keep seeing that Cary has been voted very bicycle-friendly, but every route I scout has too much traffic and/or a too narrow or debris-filled bike lane or shoulder. And the short stretches where attention was paid to bike accommodation are not contiguous.
The rural areas are better for long rides, but I there have been many times I’ve been in my car and suddenly come around a curve and right up on a cyclist.
I have some hardcore friends who bike to work, but it the road planning seems to discourage it.