{"id":644,"date":"2018-12-11T15:15:41","date_gmt":"2018-12-11T15:15:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/?p=644"},"modified":"2023-03-27T15:51:11","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T15:51:11","slug":"slow-steps-in-the-growth-of-sidewalks-in-durham","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/9thstreetjournal.org\/2018\/12\/11\/slow-steps-in-the-growth-of-sidewalks-in-durham\/","title":{"rendered":"Slow steps in the growth of sidewalks in Durham"},"content":{"rendered":"
Above, Jose Gomez has to walk in the grass beside a busy highway for his morning commute to work because there are no sidewalks. Photo by Daniela Flamini<\/em><\/p>\n Jose Gomez commutes by bus from his home in northeast Durham to State Road 54 and Carpenter Fletcher Road. He then must trudge a quarter-mile to his job at Jimmy\u2019s Famous Hotdogs. There are no sidewalks, so he has to walk on a patch of grass beside the busy highway. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt gets really dangerous when I have to walk home at night, around 11, 11:30 p.m., when I can\u2019t see my surroundings well,\u201d said Gomez, 47, a fry cook. \u201cIt would make a huge difference to have some space for pedestrians.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n The area along State Road 54, from east of State Road 55 to the western limit of Research Triangle Park, is typical of many Durham neighborhoods and commercial areas. It\u2019s not a friendly place for pedestrians. According to Bryan Poole, a city transportation planner, his department has identified 500 miles of sidewalk needs evenly spread around the city, and existing projects address only about 20 percent of that. <\/span><\/p>\n In late November, Durham\u2019s Public Works Department presented designs for new sidewalks in the area around Highway 54, including the patch of grass Gomez and his coworkers use on their way to work. But these designs are still six years away from completion, and there are already significant complications due to obstacles like retaining walls, driveways and bike lanes.<\/span><\/p>\n Poole helps the city decide which areas of Durham most urgently need sidewalks. He explained that the process of actually getting them constructed can be a slow, heavily bureaucratic endeavor. \u201cIt\u2019s hard for the public to understand how long it takes for sidewalks to be built,\u201d he said. <\/span><\/p>\n Dale McKeel, a bicycle and pedestrian coordinator, said that \u201cresidents have shown a strong demand for the last thirty years.\u201d The crux of the problem lies in the fact that Durham was largely built and developed before the 1990s, when cars were the primary mode of transportation and sidewalks weren\u2019t a major concern for city planners. <\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t seem like it\u2019d be that complicated [to install sidewalks], but there are lots of details that need to be worked through,\u201d McKeel said.<\/span><\/p>\n A local push for sidewalks in cities<\/b><\/p>\n City planners have long cared more about cars than bicycles or pedestrians, said Dan Gelinne, a program manager at the Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center, a state-funded resource housed at the University of North Carolina Highway Safety Research Center. \u201cPlaces like Durham, Atlanta, and Phoenix were pretty much developed when people were driving, so the sidewalk was an afterthought.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n And yet, cities that boast comprehensive sidewalk coverage like New York and Boston flourished much earlier, when most people were getting around on foot. <\/span><\/p>\n Recent decades have seen a push from local efforts to enforce and encourage sidewalks in cities across the United States. Not only do sidewalks decrease the likelihood of pedestrians getting struck in vehicle crashes by 80 percent, but they also raise property value, make shops and businesses more economically viable, and signal a more physically active neighborhood, according to Gelinne. <\/span><\/p>\n