A number of wonderful bicycle and walking paths are springing up in various locations around the north country. For those healthy enough to engage in such activities, these paths are welcome additions to our transportation network.
But most of them seem to be targeted toward recreational use —summer strolls, campground connections, fall color tours and the like—rather than general transportation needs. That’s all well and good, but we’d like to see a more concentrated effort to build such thoroughfares to destinations where people need to go on a daily basis.
That way, we could more easily pedal or walk from home to our jobs, the grocery store, doctor’s office, or local retail outlets—without traveling along dangerous roadways shared with speeding cars and trucks that are too often operated by drivers who are texting, talking on cell phones, or engaged in numerous other distracting and unsafe practices.
Whenever new roads are built, or old ones refurbished, wouldn’t it be a simple matter to also include bicycle and pedestrian pathways separated from the traffic lanes? Maybe road crews could even construct new right-of-ways dedicated solely to foot-powered traffic and connect them to the favored destinations of average working Americans.
Such accommodations would allow short- and medium-distance transportation that doesn’t burn fossil fuels and provides health benefits to those who choose to travel this way. Some users would probably even want to go longer distances when time allows—not just to the beach, or through a local park, but to places they need to visit during normal daily activities.
We don’t know about you, but this would make us much more inclined to dust off our bicycles, or take a walk into town to pick up a few things from the store.
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