AJ News

Notes from the Countryside

This column is supposed to be about the countryside, so why am I writing about sidewalks this month? After all, sidewalks are a quintessential marker of the urban environment. But they can do something very powerful for the countryside: they can help keep it intact.

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How, you may ask? Simple—sidewalks are a feature of “walkable” communities that are comfortable and easy to navigate on foot. Walkable communities are basically a trend in the opposite direction from suburban sprawl. Designing new communities on a walkable pattern, or encouraging redevelopment and revitalization in existing communities of this type, helps keep precious acres of countryside from being turned into large-lot development that is unfriendly to anyone trying to get around on foot.

The more we aim to create and maintain attractive, walkable communities for living, shopping and working, the less demand we will engender for countryside-swallowing sprawl. If you’re not sure what I mean by sprawl, take a drive down to Bucks County some sunny Sunday and consider that those endless subdivisions were once farms and woods. Pennsylvania writer Tom Hylton has made the connection clearly in a great book and a video titled “Save Our Land, Save Our Towns” ( www.saveourlandsaveourtowns.org). The video captures an interview with a couple of wistful homeowners. They recount how they moved into a picture-perfect subdivision, and then discovered that it wasn’t a pleasant place to live in—because it was designed for cars, not for people. There were no sidewalks or safe places for kids to play, the houses were too spread out for easy visiting on foot and it was too far to walk to the store, post office or any amenity, which all lay outside the development boundary. They needed their car to get anywhere. This neighborhood delivered all the undesirable aspects of urban life—visible neighbors, limited natural surroundings, car traffic—but none of the desirable ones, like walkability.

It all boils down to how we design the communities we live in: around people and feet, or around cars. Cars don’t vote or pay taxes, so why does it seem we so often defer to them when we plan roads, subdivisions, shopping centers and every aspect of our lives? Why do we accept that the garage should be a prominent feature on the front of a stately home, or that we have to navigate acres of half-empty parking areas to get to the mall?

In our area, sidewalks seem to have gotten a lot less popular in residential areas in recent decades. In many parts of the Abingtons, most new developments seem to be built without any sidewalks at all. There are several reasons why a property developer and even a homeowner might not want a sidewalk: they cost some money to put in, they take up space, and they typically must be maintained by the homeowner. But other things cost money and take trouble, yet we consider them worth the effort—fire hydrants, storm drains, trees. Police forces. Mail delivery. You get the idea. If you think past your own lot boundary to the level of the community as a whole, sidewalks are indeed a thing of beauty and well-worth celebrating.

It is not hard to think of local neighborhoods or communities that are walkable—Clarks Summit and Clarks Green, the centers of Dalton and Waverly, for example. Unfortunately, sidewalks often give out all too quickly, leaving pedestrians to move into the street and take their chances with the traffic. We have a good start in many areas. We just need to maintain and expand what we have .

Mary Felley is the Executive Director of the Countryside Conservancy. Contact her at 945-6995; cconserv@epix.net.