American cities don't take sidewalks seriously, costing pedestrians their lives and communities

Sidewalks subservient to car traffic are a form of car-oriented infrastructure. That includes the ones that don't exist. At the most fundamental level, the typical sidewalk design in the United States and other car-centric places prioritizes the greatest physical portion of multi-modal roadway access to vehicles, not pedestrians, marking the most central part of a pathway as off-limits to walkers. In most municipalities, it is illegal for pedestrians to walk in streets that have sidewalks, except at crosswalks: that space is reserved for automobiles. This restriction is admissible given that most municipalities have also made the questionable decision to allow everyday people to operate two-ton (or heavier) motor vehicles capable of reaching speeds above 80 mph with minimal training and zero recurring certifications. Sidewalks' curb-protected rights-of-way end at intersections, as to ensure that cars don't have to slow down. The better alternative would be to prioritize the safety of those vulnerable persons outside vehicles by raising crosswalks to the level of the sidewalk and thereby create a speed bump (or speed table) forcing drivers to pay attention to their surroundings (and reducing traffic fatalities resulting from driver inattention).

The most pedestrian-friendly spaces are ones in which cars are absent: there are few situations in which human drivers of multi-ton vehicles can be trusted, on a population-wide level, not to commit a statistically significant amount of vehicular manslaughter in a given city annually, assuming that pedestrians are also present (likely the case, at least until Skynet takes over). Motor vehicle collisions kill pedestrians; the heavier the car, the more people die. This is why SUVs and large pickup trucks are dangerous. As we have begun driving heavier vehicles, pedestrian deaths have been on a 10-year increase. (A pedestrian-oriented street with begrudging accommodations for vehicle traffic does not exactly have a sidewalk as such but rather devotes a great enough portion of the roadway to the "sidewalk" that the sidewalk becomes the roadway; the car lane becomes the "side-drive." We see such designs occasionally in highly urbanized areas.)

Anyway, this article is just talking about regular car-oriented sidewalks. On streets where automobile traffic is deemed necessary for the functioning of modern human society, it is essential that pedestrians be given adequate infrastructure to separate them from car traffic. Nowhere in the country should pedestrians be forced by inept city planners to occupy the same corridors as automobiles. It is self-evident that streets without sidewalks are hazardous. A simple drive around most suburbs shows how under-utilized sidewalks are in many American suburbs, exurbs, and low-density commercial areas. Many modern American towns neglected to build sidewalks "to give the development a “high-class” non-urban image by discouraging walking." (In the context of 20th century white flight, that's not a great look.) Whether the sidewalks meet my utopian vision for vision zero or not, they need to exist: and for the most part, in the places that need them the most, they don't. This is a failure of city councils and urban planners to protect the most exposed mode of transport: the human body.

A recent study by the urban planner Todd Litman concluded that the average city spent about 1 percent of its infrastructure budget on sidewalks, even though walking accounted for 11 percent of residents’ trips every day and pedestrian fatalities constituted 17 percent of all traffic deaths.

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In 2018, Missoula [Montana] calculated that some 43 percent of its streets with the potential for sidewalks still didn’t have them. More controversially, it concluded that the absence of sidewalks in low-income districts was a contributor to asthma, obesity and crises in mental health.

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The most diligent student of sidewalks and urban vitality is [Todd] Litman, who is based in Victoria, British Columbia. In his recent paper, Litman posited a connection not only between sidewalks and accessibility for pedestrians, but also with higher property values, better transit access and, in the Granovetter tradition, enhanced community cohesion. He found that North American cities were failing in an important civic responsibility. [...] Litman argued that most of the cities would need to spend two or three times that much to complete their sidewalk networks. A full network, Litman says, could reduce vehicle costs and vehicle miles traveled by as much as 3 percent.

An increase of a city's infrastructure budget from 1% on sidewalks to 2% on sidewalks seems worthwhile if it will correspondingly improve pedestrian safety and reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT). Fewer VMT means fewer pedestrian injuries overall, whether or not a sidewalk is present, so it's a double-win. There are also obvious benefits to transit use stemming from the mere existence of sidewalks (if you can safely walk to the train, you have less reason to take the car), which has various social benefits beyond the scope of this comment.

The health improvements that appear to result from the addition of sidewalks presumably stem from a subsequent increase in walking by adjacent residents. That is, if you build it, they will come. When city councils prioritize pedestrian infrastructure, people walk more! And walking is what our bodies are physiologically meant to do! I realize this is a relatively novel concept for most of the car-addicted United States—because who would voluntarily walk more than 15 feet to the mailbox? What are you, a communist?—but it should be unsurprising that making it safe and even pleasant (gasp) to walk in your neighborhood has positive societal benefits.

This is not to mention the indirect economic benefits, like reduced medical costs from having a healthier, less sedentary populace. These savings are reflected both in individuals' medical bills, in hospital congestion figures, and in the budgets of state and federal governments which offer health insurance to their constituents. Plus, fewer VMT means fewer potholes and therefore less road maintenance. Who knew! Installing sidewalks means you pay fewer taxes! Should be every libertarian's dream.

This article talks a fair bit about the purely social benefits of pedestrian infrastructure: that sidewalks are, in some areas, the "Third Place" (home, work, ???) that engender genuine interpersonal connection between neighbors and other community members. I found this perspective interesting, and anecdotally I feel it's true: it's uncomfortable to chat with the neighbors down the street if you end up doing so in the gutter of a car-centric road with no sidewalks. Sidewalks can be the place otherwise transient dog-walkers stop for a chat and become friends; where children draw colorful chalk art; where lemonade stands challenge capitalist overlords; and so on. And that's a part of domestic life that it would be a shame to miss out on.

It's important for American cities to install more and better sidewalks to the benefit of pedestrians.