The sudden end of sidewalks along empty lots in Phoenix, Arizona


I grew up in Minneapolis, in a neighborhood which had been built in the 1920s, and I took sidewalks for granted. There were no vacant lots, and nowhere that the sidewalk would just suddenly end. And then I moved to Phoenix, Arizona, which still has a lot of vacant lots, and although mostly the sidewalks are wonderful, and wide, just like the streets, where there's a vacant lot, the sidewalk ends.

My understanding about why there are no sidewalks along vacant lots, or unimproved parcels, is that the city only requires a sidewalk when the land is developed. And this makes sense, because back when the farmland on Thunderbird Road in Peoria, Arizona (a suburb of Phoenix) where I took this pic this morning, was first developed from raw desert to agricultural land, having sidewalks all around it would have been a useless, and silly, expense. I don't know what Thunderbird Road looked like when that chunk of land which is still agricultural, looked like "back in the day", but my best guess is that there were no stripes on the road, no traffic lights, just paving, which was plenty.

But cities grow, and when sidewalks end, people are neglected. There are two options here, you can either risk yourself along the edge of the road, with car whizzing past you at high speed, protected only by a stripe on the road, or you can forge ahead through the dirt and weeds, which is what it looks like most people do. Of course, it's no place for wheelchairs, or people who have difficulty walking, and that seems an awful shame, because there's a bus stop right up there, which could serve this neighborhood.

I've seen compromises along vacant lots. Before the car wash went in at 67th Avenue and Cactus, there was at least an asphalt path, rough but at least accessible to people in wheelchairs, and to me on my trike. Now, of course, there are nice wide sidewalks, which is wonderful.

I've lived in this neighborhood for a long time, and I've used sidewalks, mostly for walking. When they suddenly came to a stop it was just a mild inconvenience back before my chronically-bad ankle. Now they're a barrier to me on my trike. So when I see some new construction, I rejoice. Sidewalks are wonderful!
If you like pictures of old-time Phoenix, please become a member of History Adventuring on Patreon. I share a LOT of cool old photos there, copyright-free, with no advertising. Your support makes it happen! Thank you!

Click here to become a Patron!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why cars in the future won't need stop signs, red lights, or stripes on the road

Image
Time-travel with me into the future. Where we're going, we'll still need roads, but our cars won't need the kind of stuff that human drivers need, like stop signs, or stuff painted on the road. And if you're already panicking that computers will take over, don't worry, they already have. The fact that you're reading this right now combines so much amazing computing power that it would have been unthinkable to anyone in the 1960s, or '70s, when I was a kid. Speaking of being in the geriatric age group, if you're like me or older, you took a lot of pride in knowing the rules of the road, such as what to do at a stop sign if four cars approach at the same time, the difference between a "yield" sign and a "merge" sign, or maybe how to parallel park. But calm down there old-timer, that type of knowledge will just be as quaint as how to use a horse and buggy is nowadays. Sorry! The best way to picture how traffic will flow in the future is
Read more

Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?

Image
As someone who has been interested in history since I was a little kid, I've always asked the most childish questions, and quite often never got an answer. As a kid, I was told to run along and play, and don't bother the grownups, so I set my questions aside to work on when I myself became a grownup. But some questions I really haven't found a satisfactory answer for, and get thrown away as I find myself learning the more important stuff. I now understand the grownups, but the kid in me still has childish questions like "Why did Adolf Hitler always have such a bad haircut?" The first question to ask is whether a particular style (whether hair, clothing, etc.) was in style at the time. The moustache was, and you can Google a photo of Charlie Chaplin, who wore the same style of moustache at the time, and quite stylishly. The wide lapels were in style in the 1930s, as was were the tall shirt collars and small ties. But the haircut wasn't - it's just awful. Me
Read more

Watching a neighborhood grow and change in Phoenix, Arizona

Image
I stopped to take a closer look yesterday at where the old Circle K had been in my neighborhood, which is a suburb of Phoenix. And it's got me to thinking about how much Phoenix grows and changes over the years, and how people feel about it. This particular neighborhood was built in the mid 1980s, when there had been only a smattering of houses and a community college (Glendale Community College, built in 1965). There are some houses that I can tell are from the 1970s, and a few even older, but what happened here is that the neighborhood suddenly appeared in 1985 or thereabouts. There are three shopping centers on the corner of 67th Avenue and Peoria - the one in the photo is called "Peoria Station", and it was designed to kinda look like a train station. The other three are called Westporte Village, Brittany Square, and Crossroads Plaza. I've lived in this neighborhood for a very long time, and no one ever uses those names, even though the signs are still up. But the
Read more