Pedestrian-hostile design is all too common

From what I gather, urban planners tend to make good money and frequently have stereotypical upper class professional lifestyles with a house in the 'burbs and a long commute to work. Many of them don't even live in the community where they work, much less walk around it routinely. 

Unsurprisingly, the results of hiring people who don't walk, don't live there and don't hobnob with the kind of people who do both walk and live there are routinely less than optimal, especially if you genuinely value pedestrian-friendly, transit-oriented design.

This post was inspired me passing a walking trail from a pedestrian-hostile intersection to a pedestrian-hostile shopping center. At the other end of the footpath was a massive wooden fence that clearly some people hopped over on a routine basis. 

The massive fence obviously does not prevent able-bodied pedestrians from taking the shortcut. It mostly adds a burden to pedestrians not able-bodied enough to hop the fence.

It is shockingly common for shopping centers to actively create barriers that interfere with pedestrian movement, frequently forcing them (or trying to force them) to go in and out only where vehicles go in and out.

It often gives me the impression that upper class urban designers imagine the only reason you would go in or out on foot would be to steal something and they want to give the good guys more opportunities to stop you.

Being on foot: Inherently suspicious behavior. We don't like your kind.

I guess because losers on foot clearly steal so much more than folks loading stolen goods in a car or committing white-collar crimes. Let's go with that theory. 

/s

If you are interested in seeing your community become more pedestrian friendly, I suggest you walk around, take photos of such footpaths and try to find a way to get them elevated to a legitimate route, such as making an opening in the wooden fence and paving the footpath so it connects the parking lot directly to the intersection. 

In many cases, it wouldn't take much in terms of infrastructure changes to dramatically improve thungs for pedestrians. It's just not done because the people who design it don't walk, don't genuinely care and often don't really listen to pedestrians in part because of classism.

Footnote 

Originally published elsewhere on July 16, 2024. The original had a photo I chose to leave out. Post has been edited to account for that fact.