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 ast March, a group of citizens in Encinitas went to
the city council to encourage the city to adopt road standards
that would narrow city roads and, in some cases, eliminate sidewalks
to preserve their "rural community character." In April,
former councilperson Anne Olmstead published an editorial expressing
her belief that sidewalks are always necessary to provide a safe
environment for pedestrians and foster community activities.
 As a
designer of communities for the last 29 years, I must admit that,
up until five years ago, I gave absolutely no thought whatsoever
to sidewalk design. I was taught that sidewalks are five feet
wide, constructed contiguous to the concrete curb - and that
was that. Lately, however, there has been mounting statistical
evidence that indicates our approach to sidewalk design is wrong.
Nationally,
there is a trend of modern planners to reject standardized curb,
gutter and sidewalk improvements in favor of the older "neo-traditional"
standards with narrow roads and either no sidewalks or walking
areas with surfaces other than concrete. They focus on creating
a safe environment for pedestrians by slowing down vehicles and
using different approaches to walkways. For example Portland,
Oregon (thought to be the nation's preeminent smart growth city)
has implemented a skinny-streets program with no residential
street wider than 28 feet (40 percent narrower than Encinitas'
standard street).
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San
Diego is one of the leading areas of standardized "improvements"
in the country. Unfortunately, we have been seeing a steady increase
in pedestrian fatalities since the mid-90s, while the national
trend has seen a decrease. In the City of Carlsbad, for example,
the Streets and Sidewalks Committee examined traffic statistics
for the past five years in the older part of town that showed
that the only documented traffic-related injuries were on the
few streets that did have curbs and sidewalks.
Although this
appears to defy conventional logic, a closer examination of when
we install sidewalks, where they are placed and what materials
we use would give a compelling argument for a change in our current
standards. First of all, we need to examine where we place sidewalks
in a standard residential subdivision. Michael Stepner (city
architect for San Diego's Gaslamp area) has correctly been lobbying
for the return to standards used 30 years ago, whereby the sidewalks
are constructed at a five foot offset from the curb rather than
the current "contiguous to the curb" standard. No one
would doubt that this is much safer, since pedestrians are farther
away from the traffic and protected by trees and shrubs. Statistics
also show that cars drive slower on these streets.
There are
also other reasons to "offset" the sidewalk. It discourages
children from "jumping" their bicycles into the traffic
lanes and also frustrates skateboarders who like to "skid"
the belly of their skateboards along the curbs. Even more important
is the fact that our current standard sidewalk has a 10 percent
cross-slope in the sidewalk at each private driveway. This is
in violation of American Disabilities Act (A.D.A.) requirements
that walkways have a cross-slope no greater than 5 percent. Offset
sidewalks avoid this problem because they do not cross the driveway
depressions.
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The
next item to consider is the materials that we use for sidewalk
construction. If nothing else, coastal communities like Encinitas
should reconsider whether to allow materials other than concrete
for walkways, to minimize the urban runoff that is polluting
our beaches and eroding our bluffs. The city of Carmel, for example,
prohibits the construction of any sidewalk made of concrete or
asphalt. This minimizes urban runoff, discourages skateboarders,
avoids the concrete "cracking" caused by tree roots
and is much more visually appealing.
Some alternative
materials do not meet A.D.A. requirements for wheelchair accessibility.
However, there are several new materials available such as "poly
pavement," "grass-crete" and "grass-phalt"
that are less expensive than concrete but superior in flexibility
and durability.
Lastly, there
is mounting evidence that, where roads serve very few lots, they
may be safest if no sidewalks whatsoever are installed.
Residential
Streets by the American Society of Civil Engineers
and the National Association of Homebuilders concludes that,
although sidewalks are necessary on thoroughfares and areas with
public facilities, our residential streets are overdesigned and,
as a result, induce drivers to speed. They indicate that residential
streets that serve less than 25 homes may be safest when they
have no sidewalks and the streets are shared among drivers, pedestrians,
bicyclists and parked cars.
Other recent publications support this hypothesis.
In Streets and the Shaping of Towns and Cities, the authors
cite studies in Denmark, Germany, Israel and Japan showing that
these shared streets have 50 percent fewer accidents than streets
with curb, gutter and sidewalk. The author explains that a driver
entering a shared street recognizes an area where pedestrians
and bicyclists have the preeminence and consequently slows down.
The Surface Transportation Policy Project, a Washington,
DC-based organization, has said that people are actually walking
less in San Diego because they are scared. Instead of using a
"one size fits all" approach to sidewalk installation,
we need to modify our standards so that pedestrians can feel
safe again when they walk in their neighborhood. 
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