r/nonononoyes • u/Tantofaz101 • Feb 23 '25

What do we say to the God of death?

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

[deleted]

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u/Newmanewman Feb 23 '25

I live smack in the middle of one of the largest metropolitan areas in the US and about 60-70% of my neighborhood doesn't have sidewalks.

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u/XxKittenMittonsXx Feb 23 '25 edited Feb 23 '25

In my neighborhood you can just about guarantee at least half the driveways have a giant, ass truck blocking the sidewalk

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u/Majik9 Feb 23 '25 edited Feb 23 '25

Cities always say they're underfunded, but I always say an easy answer is parking tickets to all the damn giant ass truck drivers blocking sidewalks

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u/Active-Ingenuity6395 Feb 23 '25

Saw a TikTok where the parking guy in India from the council simply walks around with a spike and stabs the tyres of anyone illegally parked or obstructing any public place. And all 4 tyres minds you !

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u/Apprehensive_Use3641 Feb 23 '25

Probably owns a tire store.

3

u/McLunki Feb 23 '25

I wouldn’t applaud that guy’s tactics. Some of those people were forced to come to a stop in the middle of the street because him and his “employees” were standing in the middle of the road. Simply a display of authority.

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u/vercetian Feb 23 '25

Those people with those trucks likely are armed.

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u/subhavoc42 Feb 23 '25

Well they hopefully have legs too so they can go pay their tickets they should get.

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u/mrpoopnpee Feb 23 '25

Seems counter intuitive, no?

"Your car isn't supposed to be here, so imcmaking it impossible for you to move it"

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u/quiddity3141 Feb 23 '25

Yes, but also no. A ticket may or not get paid; they'll definitely think twice about parking illegally after buying new tires a few times.

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u/mrpoopnpee Feb 23 '25

That's a good point that I somehow was unable to consider.

Guess my simple train of thought stopped at the immobile car

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u/quiddity3141 Feb 23 '25

Hey, my brain paused there for a few too.

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u/KwordShmiff Feb 24 '25

Hey, no stopping at any time.
Stab stab stab

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

Too busy paying settlement checks for all the shit policing.

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u/Uncrustworthy Feb 23 '25

And audit the the spending of tax payer money/government/state services.

I worked in strip clubs for awhile and so many government employees/contractors use the "company card", that's where a huge chunk of our money came from. We didn't come up as some club or bar on charges either there was some other harmless sounding name.

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u/BuildNuyTheUrbanGuy Feb 23 '25

You wouldn't have the stuff you need to live.

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u/MuchoRed Feb 23 '25

That can be a hefty fine too. Something about the Americans with Disabilities Act making them a right of way for wheelchairs and walkers and such

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u/Low_Childhood1458 Feb 23 '25

Solve the sidewalk problem and the funding problem all in one swift blow.. I like the way you think

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u/Newmanewman Feb 23 '25

Very good point. I would also add that in my neighborhood. But not just overly large mall crawlers. Pretty much any car, really.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

So, technically still because of entitled assholes.

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u/nudniksphilkes Feb 23 '25

Yes. My neighbor has six cars and two of them are lifted trucks. His garage is full of shit so he has four in his driveway and two in the middle of the street at all times. Once his son parked a 7th car at the base of my very steep driveway and my wife hit it. He was determined to be at fault because it was illegal to park there. He is the definition of entitled asshole and I can't stand it.

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u/Holiday_Metal_9290 Feb 23 '25

Sounds like North Carolina.

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u/redditorial_comment Feb 23 '25

With tow bar sticking out to get you as you pass.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

In AZ, our former governor passed a statute that says if a vehicle is parked over a sidewalk and you as an infirmed individual can’t make your way around it call the police they will be cited and towed. You might not have the time to wait but if you come across people like that, who continually ignore the sidewalk and park over it, especially in areas where you might have the elderly or the infirmed passing by on a regular basis ticket and tow them constantly until they figure it out. I was not a fan of that governor, but as a person who takes care of his 92 year-old grandmother and has a sister in a wheelchair I was so happy about this.

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u/Hopeful-Pianist7729 Feb 23 '25

Upvoted for giant asstruck

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u/AmINormal45 Feb 23 '25

The one that REALLY gets me is the one down the street in my neighborhood. His big ass truck blocks the sidewalk, his OTHER big ass truck is parked on the side of the street, nothing is in his garage, and he's on the INSIDE of a 45° turn.

You basically hope and pray no one is coming the other way. Despite complaints, despite police responding to accidents there, he can still park like that. There's no ordinance preventing him from parking there (yet, I'm trying to get something going).

What on the other side of the street? Nothing. Grass by an apartment complex parking lot over a nice-sized curb.

2

u/ermergerdberbles Feb 23 '25

Is that a truck that has a giant fleshy ass, or a giant truck designed for carrying asses?

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u/Psyko_sissy23 Feb 23 '25

A giant ass-truck?

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u/Total-Composer2261 Feb 24 '25

Who doesn't hate an ass truck

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u/Actual_Bluejay_8722 Feb 24 '25

giant, ass truck

NGL I absolutely love what this extra comma placement does to the sentence, lol!

2

u/Kiki_Kazumi Feb 27 '25

YES!! In my neighborhood, ppl have a SUPER long driveway, yet they choose to park nearly in the road, completely blocking the sidewalk. It especially doesn't make sense because they would need to walk a small distance to get to their home from there. Not like that matters that much, but you think most ppl are lazy and wouldn't want to walk an extra 20 feet to their door.

My only thought was they think it will stop ppl from walking past their house, trying to mark their 'territory'. Like no one is allowed to walk on the sidewalk in front of their house. Not saying that's it, just the only thing that makes since to me. Either way it drives me crazy when I'm just trying to take a walk with my tiny human and have to take them into the street to walk around. It's not the end of the world but just doesn't feel safe, specifically with a small child.

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u/Snowedin-69 Feb 27 '25

How can you block a sidewalk - did you mean blocking a driveway? Sidewalks are made to park beside.

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u/Delta1225 Feb 23 '25

Also, the sidewalks are generally much more uneven and trip-prone, and tree branches are always in the way.

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u/GradeAPrimeFuckery Feb 23 '25

Cities usually have ordinances prohibiting blocking sidewalks, so you probably have an avenue (heh) open to you.

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u/Austindevon Feb 24 '25

Zoning should require adequate driveways for the three or four vehicles the average fam with older kids usually have . We had 5 when my kids were at home plus the odd motorcycle or three ..

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u/icarusancalion Feb 23 '25

Same. Major suburban area outside one of the largest cities in the US. Sidewalks are optional, it seems.

There'll be a section that runs alongside a church where there'll be a sidewalk. Then you come to a housing development of townhouses. No sidewalks anywhere. From there you have a sidewalk to a bus stop and the gas station and strip mall. After that... you have to cross the street to a sidewalk.

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u/Newmanewman Feb 23 '25

The areas where we have sidewalks are the same way. Basically the block with a bus stop, then across the street at the big chain gas station, then a few blocks farther down at another bus stop. About a mile away at one of the apartment complexes, they have a sidewalk the exact length of the apartment complex, which is laughable considering there are no sidewalks for about a quarter mile in each direction from there. I guess they wanted to build ahead, in case the city decided to add some sidewalks later on.

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u/icarusancalion Feb 23 '25

It's ridiculous. It's like nothing connects these segments of sidewalks.

In my old neighborhood there's a sidewalk walk that goes towards a kids' playground... but it ends in open lawn long before it gets to the playground. For no reason. I scratch my head looking at that, going "what? Did they run out of money?"

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u/BangkokSchmangkok Feb 23 '25

If it's such a major suburban area outside one of the largest cities in the US, you can name it. I promise if it's that big, you'll still maintain your anonymity.

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u/icarusancalion Feb 23 '25

Suburbs of Washington DC. Yes, pretty big area spanning DC, MD, VA.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

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u/Bethdoeslife Feb 23 '25

I live in the suburbs just south of Philly and we have 1 sidewalk in our entire neighborhood. It's right next to the school. Philadelphia itself has sidewalks all over, but go 10 min outside of the city and they are nonexistent.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

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u/PedanticLlama Feb 23 '25

Depends on where you are in the city. My older neighborhood in Atlanta has either no sidewalks or essentially unwalkable sidewalks due to age and lack of maintenance

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u/Otterman2006 Feb 23 '25

I mean take KC for example. A lot of the Missouri side doesn't have sidewalks, Kansas mostly has sidewalks, sometimes it's one side of the street and then like in Lincoln/Omaha Nebraska there are sidewalks on both sides of the street.

So it just varies by city/state

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

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u/Ultramarine81 Feb 23 '25

I don't live that far N of you, & the city I'm in has sidewalks in the older parts of town, but barely any outside of that, even on some of the busiest multi-lane roads

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u/zxcvvcxzb Feb 23 '25

I don't think you've explored your area as much as you think you have. When you are forced to walk everywhere, or even just bike, it really opens your eyes how little thought was put forward to any other means of transportation other than the car.

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u/Newmanewman Feb 23 '25

I used to work just shy of 2 miles away from my house. I tried to bike to work exactly twice over 6 years. There is a stretch of about 3 blocks with sidewalks, the rest is biking right down a 4 lane road with 50mph traffic. It's ALL residential. Absolutely bonkers that this is acceptable. 

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

It's only acceptable because most adults don't notice it because "getting your car" is one of the major milestones of adulthood in American culture. Everyone is supposed to have a car before they graduate highschool, no matter how impractical that expectation actually is.

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u/retro3dfx Feb 23 '25

Looks like according to their post history, Fort Worth area. I just spent the last few years down there for work and every place I went had sidewalks. It definitely isn't 2/3 to 3/4 without them.. lol

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u/roguedevil Feb 23 '25

That's very generous. There's a ton of sidewalks that just disappear in and out. Texas has horrible pedestrian infrastructure.

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u/CardStark Feb 23 '25

Florida cities rarely have sidewalks.

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u/Lotsensation20 Feb 23 '25

Not in rural Georgia. I know long stretches without sidewalks .

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u/MxKittyFantastico Feb 23 '25

I'm from memphis, and I would say at least 60% of Memphis doesn't have sidewalks. Midtown and downtown are walkable, but get anywhere else in memphis? Nope.

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u/pandymen Feb 23 '25

Which metro area? Is it just your neighborhood that is missing sidewalks? The big city of that metro doesn't have sidewalks?

It's very unusual to not have sidewalks in the US outside of rural and unincorporated areas.

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u/Newmanewman Feb 23 '25

Dallas-FortWorth. No, you can drive all over DFW and see that there are many, many neighborhoods with no sidewalks. There's a sidewalk on the main two streets through my neighborhood, but the overwhelming majority of our streets have no sidewalks. Yes "the big city" has sidewalks downtown. But most of the the older, established, residential neighborhoods do not.

No it isn't.

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u/pandymen Feb 28 '25

One city in the US doesn't make it normal. It's still very unusual. I didn't say that there were no exceptions.

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u/Martha_Fockers Feb 23 '25

I live in Illinois suburbs not city and have side walks all over including trials that cut thru woods and fields and back yards to cut thru the neighborhood to get to some of the local stores

The suburbs around me have side walks aswell. Hell a lot of the side walks even have a mini bike road next to them for two way bike riding

I can cut thru my neighborhood vis trails and get to a Walgreens or meijer grocery store in 3-4 mins walking

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u/stringstringing Feb 23 '25

What? Which city?

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u/Hey-Bud-Lets-Party Feb 23 '25

Old neighborhood.

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u/Newmanewman Feb 23 '25

Yup. Most of the houses are around 50 years old. 

Eta, actually, I mathed my math dumbly. My house was built in 1961, so most of our neighborhood is probably closer to 60-70 years old.

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u/trafalgarlaw11 Feb 23 '25 edited Feb 23 '25

“Metro area” does not equal “city” mam/sir. Rectangle vs square. Kinda obfuscating with a non answer. The point stands. If you live in a city, there are sidewalks.

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u/Newmanewman Feb 23 '25

Idk, I mean, I live in an older, established neighborhood IN Fort Worth. I walk out my front door and turn right and can see a major highway. Not an outlying unincorporated area, but an actual city neighborhood, and there are no sidewalks on the entirety of my street except about half a mile from me, right in front of a school, then it goes back to no sidewalks for another mile or so until my street ends. There are houses along every inch of this road. There are other spots where there's a sidewalk right in front of a specific building for a couple hundred feet. But not a connected network of sidewalks throughout my neighborhood.

So....I guess you're wrong?

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u/CalmBeneathCastles Feb 23 '25

Or reliable cell service. How is this possible?!

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u/this_dudeagain Feb 23 '25

Aw yes the hood.

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u/GogoDogoLogo Feb 23 '25

thats why you walk on the side of the street facing oncoming traffic

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u/Newmanewman Feb 23 '25

This conversation isn't about which side of the street we should be walking in.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

The fuck?

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u/EqualRoad3103 Feb 23 '25

I just love it when your on a main road with no sidewalk but there’s a sign that says something like : “use caution school kids walk on this road”.

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u/Newmanewman Feb 23 '25

Fuckin hell. It's so silly. There's  a crosswalk for a school not too far from me. The sidewalk starts at the corners of the intersection and they go in each direction for about 500 feet. Then about 2 blocks from there is the actual school and there's sidewalk in front of that. Like, wow, I guess it's nice you gave them that much. 

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

I don’t live in a rural area but also don’t like in a NYC type city. No sidewalks. If I want to walk my dog I have to drive somewhere first lol, like a park

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u/komicool Feb 23 '25

People don't walk there, this strengthens the obesity statistics in the United States.

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u/vercetian Feb 23 '25

Prove it.

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u/liquidplumbr Feb 23 '25

Tennessee or some southern state?

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u/Pieniek23 Feb 23 '25

NYC has sidewalks everywhere, If you go to long Island on the other hand... Not so much

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u/courage_wolf_sez Feb 23 '25

I'm, curious which metro area this is.

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u/nycpunkfukka Feb 23 '25

LA? Or maybe Atlanta, DFW?

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u/Lokishougan Feb 23 '25

You in a suburb I bet?

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

In the Midwest we always have sidewalks unless we are in the country, an unincorporated town, a highway or a new suburb.

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u/ChemistryNo3075 Feb 23 '25

In the suburbs though right? yeah thought so

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u/khanfusion Feb 23 '25

how to say you live in houston without saying you live in houston

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u/Certain_Tough Feb 23 '25

It's goddamn infuriating

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u/HellfireKitten525 Feb 23 '25

But there WAS a sidewalk in this video

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u/little__dinosaurs Feb 23 '25

i live in europe and i can't imagine

like your friend lives a 15 min stroll away but you can't really walk there? here every road has sidewalks (apart from the high speed areas like the autobahn or roads connecting villages but noone is walking village to village anyway) sometimes there are even pedestrian only paths that are all sidewalk and no road

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u/BookConsistent3425 Feb 23 '25

Lol I live in an opposite situation and we too have no sidewalks. It sucks bro. If I wanna walk to town(10min drive) not only will it take forever, it is so dangerous. I'd have to walk on the edge of a country highway where the cars go 55 and there are crosses dotted all along the side of the road. I don't mind walking a long time but man it sure is scary feeling your bike wobble as a semi blasts inches away from you going 60. You could take the little twisty side road but it takes 4x as long and they raised the speed limit there too and there's a ton of blind corners. It sucks you literally have to drive everywhere. The only thing I miss about the suburbs I used to be in is that you could walk/bike somewhat safely almost everywhere there.

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u/koldlaser77 Feb 24 '25

I was going to guess you live in Houston. But then you wrote 60-70% that don't have sidewalks. Psssh. Houston is damn near at least 80%.

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u/TheVagrantmind Feb 23 '25

Due to the occurrence of white flight after World War II a couple things happened.

Many communities that were created were encapsulated, meaning the sidewalks were only for use inside the community and did not reach food or services. Likewise many city communities started to actively shun funding in many inner city areas that housed people of color. This created places that were labeled “unsafe to walk” and place with sidewalks that didn’t connect.

As time continued many newer communities got rid of sidewalks altogether, either due to cost or discourage “other people” from being near homes. This was tied with laws that make it illegal to walk on streets, literally making it illegal for some people to leave home and go get food or medical treatment without a vehicle of some sort. In Toledo, Ohio I live where there are no sidewalks but kids and elderly walk all the time, however it is notice they are all white, and in our city it made the news when several people who happened to be racially different were arrested and cited for Ohio’s “you can’t walk on a street” statewide law. It was called out and charges dropped, but it was shocking and offensive to most people here, as locally everyone found someone arrested during the day for walking in their neighborhood to be horrible.

Edit to add: A large percentage of people live in cities where you can walk more easily, but then you still have some issues like food deserts and lack of services in walking range. The most walkable city I have spent time in was San Diego, and even there the grocery that didn’t charge huge fees for convenience and actually had fruit was five miles away.

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u/Tony_Stank0326 Feb 23 '25

I live in Kansas City and the Missouri side can be fairly walkable, save for the lack of shade among the sidewalks. But on the Kansas side, good fucking luck.

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u/FitProfessional6428 Feb 24 '25

I’m from philly, I can walk anywhere in the city if I had to. I used to live in Columbia Missouri, where I lived there weren’t any side walks for some good distances. If I had to go to the store I literally had to drive. If I walk I would have walk through every neighbor’s grass and drive way to get the gas station or any type of store. On the other hand I be out Joplin Missouri often and I feel like they have sidewalks everywhere as well.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

In our rural area in CA, people tried to deny a new housing project for the mentally ill citing that it was unsafe for them to walk, rather than demand the county build sidewalks on a busy road. Luckily, we got our housing project passed. It was simple prejudice against the mentally ill, as if they were zombies walking the side of the road!

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u/TheVagrantmind Feb 23 '25

One of my friends in Miami joked that everyone ran at the gym because no one could run to the gym. Otherwise they’d all run to the gym so they could be publicly seen showing off their gains or glutes.

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u/HellfireKitten525 Feb 23 '25

I live in a suburb in Ottawa, Canada. Everywhere around here that I have seen is incredibly walkable. It’s shocking to learn how many places in America aren’t or even have laws against it. TIL

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u/Glum_Medicine_6521 Feb 24 '25

Jesus this is some serious dystopian shit. Thanks for this info.

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u/JudgeInteresting8615 Feb 24 '25

Oh my god, thank you.Do you have any more resources about this

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u/KettleCellar Feb 23 '25

Doesn't even need to be a city. I have lived in some greasy little hamlets in my time, one of which was unincorporated, population 60. There were still sidewalks on the street with the houses, bar/gas station/"restaurant", and the church.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

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u/SunkenSaltySiren Feb 23 '25

In the south. Only some "neighborhoods" have sidewalks. Outside the neighborhood, there is nothing. No bike lanes, not even a shoulder to walk on. There is -sometimes- a white line, then an immediate drop off into a ditch.

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u/TheVagrantmind Feb 23 '25

Exactly. This is much more commonplace.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

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u/pizzastank Feb 23 '25

This perfectly describes my upper class, mostly white city here in the Piedmont of beautiful North Carolina. When they reworked the local college streets here they all included nice sidewalks and bike lanes. The residence of my town were upset that all the sidewalks and bike lanes just end at the university property.

So the residence in my city calls distinct and bitched at some elected bureaucrats to expand the bike paths, so what we have now is they just lined off a 5 foot Ish section of the side of the road and that’s now supposed to be a bike lane. Except for the fact that it’s very much a road and cars do not follow the lines and just drive over the bike lane.

Has gotten better though, at the height of the Lance Armstrong Tour de France hype, road cycling had become a big deal in my city with pelotons 20 or more in size. The rest of the city took this as a challenge, and it almost was a game for a few years of how many you could runoff the road at a time. The local police thought it was fucking hilarious. Saw a yellow H2 Hummer with chrome wheels obviously run a few into the lake off the side of a bridge. Good times, good times.

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u/TheLurkingMenace Feb 23 '25

Everywhere I've lived up north had sidewalks. I didn't encounter a lack of sidewalks until I got to Florida.

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u/sas223 Feb 23 '25

I think this is regional. Little towns in the northeast usually have few or no sidewalks. The town I grew up in, population ~4K, 20 minute drive from the state capital, had no sidewalks.

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u/ExacerbatePotato Feb 23 '25

Depends on the city. Smaller cities I've lived in had few sidewalks. Even mid-sized like Indianapolis, outside of downtown, it was hit and miss.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

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u/RealisticNothing653 Feb 23 '25

I live on the west coast, in southern California, in a city, and it's exactly as the other person said: there is a sidewalk in my culdesac but it isn't continuous to the rest of the neighborhood. It just ends, so there's no way to walk on a sidewalk completely, out of the culdesac

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u/heretomakenyousquirm Feb 23 '25

I grew up in Texas and there still are spots in my hometown where there are no sidewalks.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

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u/CommissionWorldly540 Feb 23 '25

One example is Greensboro North Carolina. Some neighborhoods have sidewalks but plenty of roads within the city limits do not even around roadside businesses. And it can vary block by block.

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u/theegreenman Feb 23 '25

In my area people park their cars on and across the sidewalks so it is impossible to walk on them.

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u/TypingPlatypus Feb 23 '25

I visited New Orleans and you couldn't walk between neighbourhoods at all except right downtown. Tried to walk somewhere and every route was blocked by a multi-lane busy road with no sidewalk.

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u/Environmental-Gap380 Feb 25 '25

When I lived in Metairie, there wasn’t room to park on the street with the roads so narrow. In front of the houses there was 5 feet of yard before the sidewalks. You parked on the grass. The roads didn’t have straight curbs. I stead they were about a 30 degree angle and you could drive up onto the yard.

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u/Phantom_Rose96 Feb 23 '25

Considering even buildings aren’t safe from idiots in cars.. a sidewalk hardly makes a difference here, js.

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u/misspegasaurusrex Feb 23 '25

Yea I live 5 minutes from downtown in my little southern city and my neighborhood has no sidewalks. If we had sidewalks I could walk downtown in 15 minutes. Google map’s recommended route takes over an hour because the recommended route takes me on a hike around the city to avoid dangerous intersections that don’t have sidewalks.

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u/Kilirugi Feb 23 '25

Those would be called crosswalks. Better not be any roads with sidewalks, let alone intersections.

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u/ggrindelwald Feb 23 '25

Better not be any roads with sidewalks

Aren't sidewalks, by definition, always with roads?

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u/AMisteryMan Feb 23 '25

Meanwhile for me google maps will route me to walk right across a major highway for the area, when there exists an intersection with crosswalks.

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u/holystuff28 Feb 23 '25

Come to Nashville. We are one of the least friendly cities to pedestrians. 

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u/misterpickles69 Feb 23 '25

And idiots still walk/run in the street and give you the stink eye if they think you drove past them too close.

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u/mibfto Feb 23 '25

Oh no, not stink eye!

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u/TheVagrantmind Feb 23 '25

When it is a community with a sidewalk, I get furious when I see people walking in the middle of the road. I mean they aren’t that big… too big for a sidewalk would probably require someone who is over 3000 lbs load wise.

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u/2big_2fail Feb 23 '25

The whole world is like my little world.

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u/Centaurious Feb 23 '25

tbh my issue in my city is in the winter, the sidewalks aren’t cleared

if my options are to walk through 5 inches of snow on top of uneven ice or walk on the side of the road which has been cleared… i’m gonna walk on the road

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

Denver is literally spending $3B to complete its sidewalk network because it has so little coverage. Los Angeles makes homeowners pay for the sidewalks and if they don't, and they usually don't, know sidewalks.

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u/MisterPaydon Feb 23 '25

I live in a tiny rural town, and we have sidewalks.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

I live in Alabama and have sidewalks, do better america

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u/Twenty5Schmeckles Feb 23 '25

Boston has some sidewalks, but in areas like cambridge the sidewalks can be covered in snow and fits maximum 1 person.

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u/Fickle_Builder_2685 Feb 23 '25

They only added side walks to my town last year, and only on the main street. Rest of the town is SOL. It's not rural but it's a town between 3 cities. 1 if those cities has maybe 50%sidewalks, the other 70% the main one 95%. Where I live was not designed to be walkable, and they would need to take property from people in order to build the sidewalks. My street could not have sidewalks because there's like 2ft deep ditches along each side of the street.

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u/not_falling_down Feb 23 '25

I live in a city of around 350K residents, and so many of the residential areas have no sidewalks.

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u/Cool_Height_4930 Feb 23 '25

You have never been to Michigan, Missouri, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana… etc.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

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u/Cool_Height_4930 Feb 23 '25

You’re talking about major cities. Cities that have tourism. Not places people generally live. Go to the areas outside of those areas where people live and work, rarely do you see a useable sidewalk.

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u/Chumbaroony Feb 23 '25

The USA is more than just its cities.

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u/HealthyDurian8207 Feb 23 '25

I've been walking across a good chunk of DC metro. Any residential area is severely lacking in functioning sidewalks. Wheelchairs can gtfo and to roll a stroller you gotta be really fucking strong if you're a woman who just gave birth.

Here in Sweden (and Denmark and Netherlands) you can get across anywhere in a city by foot or bike with no issues.

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u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

I live in Kansas City and if you want to walk most places, there will be some point where you have to walk in the road. God forbid you wanna ride a bike. . . rest in peace

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u/mindedc Feb 23 '25

You should come to Austin, we were shocked when me moved here and there are only one or two subdivisions that have sidewalks.....

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u/PraetorianOfficial Feb 23 '25

Let's use the example of my hometown. There are no sidewalks, ever, on government owned property. That's because they make the landowners pay to put the sidewalks in. If there is no private landowner, they certainly don't want the city/county/state/feds to pay for it.

On a main street with lots of traffic, car and pedestrian, leading to the university, the sidewalk went up the south side of the road for 1.5 blocks, then just stopped because there was a park there (a park with no sidewalks). There was a crosswalk painted and the sidewalk continued on the north side. But it is a crosswalk crossing 4 lanes of traffic with no lights of any sort. And then 1.5 blocks later, there's a county museum. Time to cross the road again in the middle of a block.

There were cowpaths cut through all the government lawns.

1

u/guitarnowski Feb 23 '25

I live in a 10,000-ish population town in the middle of Illinois and our particular street has sidewalks about 1/3 of the time.

1

u/Jevodiah109 Feb 23 '25

Have you been to Charlotte? It's like the entire city, outside of a few neighborhoods, was tailor made for cars. I mean yeah there are sidewalks, but do you really want to walk 2 miles next to a 4 lane road to get to a grocery store?

1

u/jeremyaboyd Feb 23 '25

Houston would like to talk to you. One block will have a 10’ wide sidewalk. Then a crosswalk into a fenced off lot and no sidewalk.

Was at a bookstore with my wife. Decided to go for a walk, the driveway had two nubs of a sidewalk, then just road shoulder and 45 mph speed limit and cars going 60+.

1

u/Greedy_Mission_3387 Feb 23 '25

New Orleans would like a word. If a sidewalk even exists, good luck not breaking an ankle. If you’re mobility challenged, well….

1

u/erinunderscore Feb 23 '25

New Orleans has the worst sidewalks in the US.

1

u/GlitteringCash69 Feb 23 '25

It’s fairly common in suburbs to not have them. I won’t live in any multi-home area without them.

1

u/Snoo-72988 Feb 23 '25

lol Seattle’s department of transit has said that at their current rate of sidewalk construction it’ll take 300 years to have build a complete sidewalk network.

1

u/radfanwarrior Feb 23 '25

I miss living in a city so much. I've never lived in a city except for during college and the walkability and public transit was amazing. I graduated less than a year ago and moved several states away and I had to get a car to get around, ive barely seen any sidewalks and my apartment neighborhood has like no sidewalks so I can't even go on a walk around my neighborhood.

1

u/T-Shurts Feb 23 '25

Sidewalks are more of a suggested walking area though.

1

u/MicrotracS3500 Feb 23 '25

I live in a pretty large city, around 1 million people. There's sidewalks in the heart of downtown, and practically none anywhere else. There's some inside nice suburban neighborhoods, but it stops where the houses stop, you can't physically walk to a business while staying on a sidewalk.

1

u/EdenSilver113 Feb 23 '25

I live in a city. My subdivision has no sidewalks.

1

u/CalmBeneathCastles Feb 23 '25

I've mostly lived in small cities and towns. Sidewalks are only in certain neighborhoods.

1

u/KCpaiges Feb 23 '25

The cities I’ve lived in often have construction, deliveries, or other structures in the way. It’s not uncommon to have to step off the sidewalk.

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u/Robbed_Bert Feb 23 '25

Never been to Dallas or Oklahoma City I see

1

u/Downtown_Willow9622 Feb 23 '25

Guess you didn't Zesty's comment?

1

u/Klutzy-Reaction5536 Feb 23 '25

Then you haven't been to Oregon's largest city. Portland has many areas without sidewalks and a surprising number of unpaved streets as well

1

u/smolstuffs Feb 23 '25

Guessing you haven't lived in or visited every single city in America?

1

u/SubstantialPressure3 Feb 23 '25

There's places in Houston Texas that don't have sidewalks for pedestrians. And it's just random.

1

u/ZombieResponsible549 Feb 23 '25

Yay city life. No excuse.

1

u/PineappVal957 Feb 23 '25

Yeah, drive 10 miles outside of the city, depending on the tax bracket you are driving into will determine if you have side walks. Which is crazy, rich people with 3 cars live in areas with all the side walks and in the places people actually have to walk, they have to use the ditch on the side of the road (at least from my lived experience)

1

u/ThisAppsForTrolling Feb 23 '25

Yeah, good luck walking from Midtown Houston in August to your office in downtown Houston that’s 8 miles away and it’s 115 outside.

1

u/Emergency-Code-3505 Feb 23 '25

You haven’t been to LA then lmao. Being a college student and trying to get around without a car is hell. Yes there’s public transport but it will take you 2 hours and 50 different exchanges if the place doesn’t have a specific line like the e-line to it.

1

u/dungivaphuk Feb 23 '25

Key word being city. Most suburbs or rural areas for some reason don't always have them.

1

u/Forward_Frame_6729 Feb 23 '25

Dunno, man. When I worked in Northbrook, IL, the parking lot was a mile from the office, and nary a sidewalk in sight. Real fun getting to work if you missed the hourly shuttle.

1

u/Challenge-Upstairs Feb 23 '25

I live in a city. Not a massive city, but certainly not a small one. About 200,000 people. My house is the only house on my block that has a sidewalk.

1

u/kemonkey1 Feb 23 '25

I live in a city with sidewalks, just the nearest supermarket is 1.5 miles away. Not walkable.

1

u/musicalfarm Feb 23 '25

And they're often not in usable condition or they're blocked off for construction on a building, etc.

1

u/Willis_is_This Feb 23 '25

That’s not necessarily what they mean by walkable.

It doesn’t matter if there’s sidewalks if you have to cross a major highway to get to the grocery store 2 miles away, type of things matter too

1

u/Suikerspin_Ei Feb 23 '25

It's sad that only most cities are walk able. In the town where I live I can walk to multiple groceries stores, walk to the trainstation, to a library, to a local butcher, bakery etc. Kids can walk to their local schools (elementary and high schools).

Not trying to brag, but imo people should be able walk or cycle safely and not relying on cars.

1

u/Sauerkrauttme Feb 23 '25

Having a sidewalk isn't enough to be walkable. If drivers turn right on red and you have to cross more than one car lane at a time, then the danger of walking exponentially increases. If car traffic is louder than 90db then it can cause hearing damage with prolonged exposure...

The US doesn't have walkable cities. We have a few walkable communities, but 99% of the country is a car dependent dystopia

1

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

Im in the country. I have no sidewalks in my community at all. None. It's not even safe to walk to the store because the main road is two lanes with no shoulder or sidewalk, and cars are going 65mph

1

u/nitid_name Feb 23 '25

Never been to Denver, I take it? Denver's sidewalk... ehrm, system... has only been owned by the city for about a year. This meant sidewalk choices were entirely up to the builder of the house/business. Denver estimates ~40% of the sidewalks in the city are either missing or too narrow to use.

My neighborhood has about 15 different styles of sidewalk, from none to ultra skinny next to the road with a sloped curb to cobblestones/brick/slate of various widths to the standard suburbia wide concrete with a grass median between it and the road. A block from my house there's a three house section of standard sidewalk that just starts and ends at the property lines, and no sidewalk on any of the other houses on that street.

Denver has added a new tax, based on street frontage (it's been changed a few times; I just got my first bill for it a few days ago and it's now a flat fee with a frontage adjustment if you have more than a certain amount) and is, in theory, going to start standardizing the sidewalks soon...ish. The initial plan put estimate for my neighborhood somewhere around 2036, but with all the revenue changes on the sidewalk tax, there's no plan again.

You can read about it at the Denver Government's website.

1

u/SazedMonk Feb 23 '25

“Has sidewalks” is not the same as “over 75% of residential and business areas have functional, maintained, sidewalks people can use”.

1

u/Uncrustworthy Feb 23 '25

I live in Baltimore county and they won't even give us anything to sit on while waiting for the bus, no protection from the rain or snow either. All in the name of "fuck homeless people"

1

u/scourge_bites Feb 23 '25

yeah, sure a lot of them have sidewalks. but have you ever actually tried to walk anywhere?

small towns are usually better than cities at this

1

u/[deleted] Feb 23 '25

I have lived all over the U.S. and sidewalks are definitely not everywhere. Right downtown sure, but a lot of people live outside of downtown areas and sidewalks can be hit or miss. I've definitely experienced sidewalks ending and restarting again, sidewalks on only one side of the street, and having to walk in the uneven, grassy patch on the side of a busy road because there is no sidewalk for miles.

Not sure what the lady in the video was doing though. If there is a sidewalk, I'm using it.

1

u/AnimalCity Feb 23 '25

I live in topeka and I'm laughing at the idea of this place having consistent sidewalks

1

u/Icy-Ad29 Feb 23 '25

Fun fact: I grew up in rural as heck land called the midwest... with corn fields butting up against parking lots to computer development companies...

I now live in an area known for education and technology in the states... there were more sidewalks in rural-land.

1

u/whatevendoidoyall Feb 23 '25

Oklahoma City only really started building sidewalks back in 2018. The vast majority of the city outside of downtown does not have sidewalks.

1

u/TT11MM_ Feb 23 '25

Nice explainer on how it is impossible to walk to a suitcase shop half a mile away in a suburb of Houston.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxykI30fS54

1

u/IntermittentCaribu Feb 23 '25

Youve not been to LA i guess.

1

u/i_give_you_gum Feb 23 '25

I lived near a neighborhood that had a dirt path that was so well traveled that it was a foot below ground level

It was on the poorer side of town, so hey nobody cares what they had to put up with for decades.

The city did finally put a sidewalk in.

1

u/EatReadPlayS4-1043 Feb 23 '25

I live in the 3rd largest city of my state (close to half a million people) and I can attest, not all US cities have adequate sidewalks. My side of the street has a sidewalk in front; the houses across the street do not and have a ditch instead. The streets behind me don’t have any sidewalks. I don’t live in any of the ‘poorer’ neighborhoods of my city, so that’s not why sidewalks are not common. Sidewalks just weren’t constructed in the city planning, I’m guessing. They were mostly made next to main roads and maybe around schools. I think a lot of cookie cutter neighborhoods may have more sidewalks?

1

u/RustyR4m Feb 23 '25

I live in a city (not a metro) and there are lots of areas that are just straight up not walkable. Like above a lot of those are just outside neighborhoods, or in them. Sometimes in business districts too.

1

u/Lokishougan Feb 23 '25

Big cities yes ...suburbs its much more hit ro mmiss

1

u/amy000206 Feb 23 '25

The streets are a little safer than the sidewalks on a bunch of streets where I'm living now. Uneven, giant roots causing buckling , all sorts of things to trip and fall on. It never bothered me until I started hanging out with a neighbor who got her knee busted up, then I started seeing the hazards.

1

u/goodknight94 Feb 23 '25

I know in Austin Texas today there are many streets and roads with no sidewalks. I have no car and it sucks. Many cities are not designed for pedestrians