Letter to the editor from Donald Weyer:
Batavia's city budget of $37 million for 2024 "includes $1.37 million for street and SIDEWALK improvements" (Joanne Beck's article in "The Batavian", Jan. 12; emphasis mine).
Has the city ever studied who or what uses the sidewalks in our safely walkable neighborhoods? I mean, I do ride my bike (mainly to avoid the danger of the street), probably illegally; dog-walkers; some youth and some senior citizens, the former because of lack of access to a car, and the latter for exercise and because of what they were accustomed to in "days gone by"; some adults who are legally precluded from driving, maybe due to an instance of insobriety. I think that's about the prevalent utility of city sidewalks in the 21st century!
And forget about the walks for most of the winter when residents or some other entity refuse to clear the sidewalks of snow, ice, and slush, plus the propensity of city snow-plows to push the precipitation from the streets up on the sidewalks, further plugging up the process of walking or biking (again probably illegally, but what can I say, a question of life versus [possible] injury, even death), of putting foot or bike tire to pavement.
Shoot, I don't even have a sidewalk in front of my private residence, along with others on my city block "in the same boat" (excuse, please, the mixed metaphor here, and coming up), in addition to others within the city, sidewalk-less, like "sitting in a row boat without any oars".
So you see where this short, maybe rudderless, essay is tacking, goodness, even yawing! $1.37 million is 3.7% of $37 million. Granted, the 3.7% is for both street and sidewalk improvements. What I ask you to consider, though, is:
- What happens to the benefit of sidewalk "improvements" when the dog walkers are replaced by new-fangled "dog parks"? When the youth grow up, and get a car? When the senior citizens, accustomed to the past, are no longer with us? When the legally precluded drivers get sober? When my bike tire gets a "flat"?
- All the cost of sidewalk "improvements" benefits become an empty or moot point when there is no one to use them.
- Maybe the entire $1.37 million is better spent on STREET improvements? After all, that is where modern humanity is primarily focused, drawing soulful inspiration/consolation/imagination, you choose, from engine-charged "rubber on the road" and the exhilaration of instantaneous, or close to it, arrival!
