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Learn How To Use the Sidewalk, Jackass!

By Ron Nurwisah, Boy Reporter

2006_7_5sidewalksmall.jpgIt’s a truth universally acknowledged that as the weather gets warmer the city’s sidewalks get more crowded. On the whole we think crowded sidewalks are great. It means more people to watch while sitting on patios and it’s a sign of a healthy neighbourhoods and a healthy city. But can you walk on the sidewalk the wrong way?
This guy seems to think so. He’s even come up with fake tickets (click to enlarge) outlining a series of the most annoying sidewalk violations. We agree with most of them, crowding isn’t cool especially when it involves butt grabbing of any sort. Riding your bike, razor scooter, segway, pocket bike, etc. on the sidewalk at anything faster than walking speed is annoying and dangerous.
He leaves out one thing that annoys us, people in electric wheelchairs who proceed to honk at you when they want you to get out of the way. I know that you may not be able to walk but is a simple “excuse me” out of the question? Just because you’re in a motorized wheelchair doesn’t mean that the sidewalk has just become the 401.
We’re also going to quibble with the Internet Slacker’s complaint about people who stop suddenly. We think if I decide to stop suddenly and someone runs into me then that person was doing the sidewalk equivalent of tailgating, which is a pedestrian no-no.

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Comments

  • Old Guy on The Simspsons

    “This sidewalk’s for reg’lar walkin’ not fancy walkin’”

  • http://sherrysfishbowl.blogspot.com/ Sherry

    How about when two people are walking toward you side-by-side and neither of them moves to let you pass? I’m by myself, it’s your responsibility to move to the side or behind your friend to let me pass.

  • http://brokenengine.blogspot.com brokenengine

    More:
    1) When people walk out of an establishment(bar, store, etc), and stop in the middle of the sidewalk to chat, impeding all traffic.
    2) When people ride an escalator to the top, and then stop(perhaps not part of the sidewalk discussion, but it still pisses me off).

  • http://www.newmindspace.com kevin Bracken

    aren’t you supposed to walk on the right side of the sidewalk?
    i learned that we are socialized to pass on the right since we were very small.
    and when there are two lanes going in one direction, the left lane is for faster traffic, like escalators.
    in england it’s the opposite, stand left walk right.

  • http://www.jillmurray.com Jill

    Once I was in a great hurry, not quite late, but definitely needing to hustle, so I was walking down the sidewalk, in the left lane, as quickly as I can walk without looking like a speedwalker, ’cause that’s just weird, and someone I passed took great offense that I had passed him.
    He and his friends were doing a wiggly stroll back and forth across the sidewalk, enjoying the lovely evening air, and when I dodged and weaved around them, intent on reaching my destination, he yelled after me: “WELL, looks like I just LOST THE RACE.” and his friends were like “huh?” and he was like “THE RACE. Apparently we’re not FAST ENOUGH. Maybe I should get STUPID RUNNING SHOES and then I could RUSH EVERYWHERE.”
    ’cause he was so obviously zen.

  • http://www.boyreporter.ca Boy Reporter

    One of the things I really really disliked about Vancouver was how slow everybody walked, then I moved here and as a whole I find Torontonians walk faster. I think it’s the cold. When it’s 20 below you want to get out of the cold faster.

  • http://www.flickr.com/photos/dstopping David Topping

    I walk quickly (music’ll do that) almost all the time, unless I’m walking with someone who’s a slower walker than I am. I’ve been like that for a long, long time.
    This is gonna sound really lame, but I’ve found that as I grew up, I got better and better at anticipating how people are going to act around me, and reacting accordingly. I dodge people all the time (most of them are the people who stop suddenly or just walk facing a direction that they’re not walking in).
    The way I think of it is that you get better at walking, like you get better at everything, with practice. Stuff that used to bug me doesn’t anymore, because I’m used to it, see it, and avoid it. When I started biking more last year, I realized that I was picking up a lot of stuff I hadn’t when I was biking before, I saw potential obstacles more, all that stuff. I think walking’s pretty much the same deal, and I don’t avoid walking through large crowds anymore.
    And Jill…who does that? That’s crazy.
    As for this guy’s rules, I mostly agree, but the “walking beside me” one’s kindof hypocritical.

  • http://www.jillmurray.com Jill

    Ooh… that side by side one is tricky. I usually slow down or speed up to maintain optimal personal space, but some understanding is necessary for situations where one person is walking fast enough to need to pass another, but not quite so fast as to be able to do it quickly.
    David, this is probably going to sound pretty dumb, but I do believe walking quickly everywhere has even improved my DRIVING. Yes. My driving. OK, stop looking at me like that.

  • Claire

    Yes, yes. The exit shop then stop in middle of the sidewalkers, the take elevator to the top and then stop in their tracksers…
    There should be two sidewalk lanes (beside the obvious coming and going ones): one for ppl who don’t care when reach their destination and another for those of us who want to get to our destination today. Easily labeled slow and fast lane.

  • Johnnie

    Hmm, I’m not sure where this fits cause it was an example of someone having a complaint about me, but resulted in me having a complaint about him. I was walking with two friends of mine just north of Bloor on the east side of Bathurst on my way to the subway – bear in mind that the sidewalks are quite wide here. A TTC worker who I assume had just finished a shift barrelled through the middle of us actually knocking me so that I fell backwards onto the road and landed on my ass. As he walked away, without even turning his head, he yelled, “walking three abreast!”

  • Page

    I don’t advocate a body slam when people walk abreast by any means.. but more than 3 or 4 strolling along arm-in-arm and smelling the shit is too much.
    I will side-step onto the road if possible, but holy crap let other people have some room.
    As well, has anyone come up with a speed limit? Too fast is just dandy, but too slow should be an offense.

  • Little Boy Blue

    Kevin – In England, it’s stand right, walk left. You only have to stand left on a London Underground escalator once to have this engrained in your brain for life. Stand on the wrong side, and you can quickly find yourself airborne.
    I like the ticketing idea, but see one flaw. To give someone a ticket, you’ll need to “pull them over” – but on a sidewalk, there’s nowhere to go. Therefore, issuing a ticket will result in two people standing still on the sidewalk. This will create another obstruction (double the size of the first one), which itself should be punishable by ticket. And so the vicious circle begins…

  • http://www.taraariano.com Tara

    I want a law that says I can clothesline assholes that ride their bikes on the sidewalk over the age of ten.

  • Michael

    Is this what our lives have come to?

  • Betty

    This doesn’t apply to all sidewalks, but on the busy east/west streets (OK, Queen West) what really bugs me is all the other crap besides slow pedestrians that litters the sidewalk.
    It’s hard enough to negotiate the strolling masses without also having to worry about a sandwich board every few doors. Does the city have bylaws about these, i.e. how big they can be and how much of the sidewalk they can block? Sure, bars, restaurants and shops have the right to advertise this way but sometimes I wish I was a gymnast so I could vault over them.
    Add to that bike posts, trees, newspaper boxes, bus shelters, and trash bins (the presence of which I support, with the exception of most the newspaper boxes) and the sidewalk is a pretty crowded place even when nobody’s walking on it.

  • http://www.boyreporter.ca Boy Reporter

    Betty, The city’s new “coordinated street furniture program” is going to deal with all of these obstructions by creating a placement manual to figure out where trees, bus shelter, paper boxes, etc. are supposed to go. In theory this should create clearer, less cluttered sidewalks.
    I also believe there are currently laws re: sandwich boards but good luck getting anyone to enforce them.
    The sidewalks are pretty crowded but imagine being blind and trying to navigate Queen Street West. That’d be a nightmare.

  • rek

    Tailgating means someone is either going too slow, or blocking the way around. In either case, *they* should be the one ticketed.
    I’m a fast walker, and like David I’m pretty good at crowd flow analysis (picked it up in Seoul as a kid), so when someone does something random like stopping (imagine someone skidding to a stop in the left lane on the 401) or meandering so you can’t get around them, it frustrates my navigation.
    Lately I’ve been tempted to just start shoving people out of the way.

  • AJ

    I’ve never had a problem. Then again, I live in Mimico. Even the hookers have superior sidewalk etiquette.

  • Michael

    I hope the new street furniture guidelines don’t cause mal-placed trees to be cut down. That would be a shame.

  • Dave

    Worse than all of the above, spitting on the sidewalk. Disgusting.

  • michael

    may i add, if your a douchebag in a slipknot t-shirt and a clef pallete (spelling?) trying to sell me weed on my way home walking north on bathurst at college, one ‘no’ counts as a ‘fuck off’. this peice of shit followed me for like two blocks walking right next to me bugging me about it. i dont want your parsley.

  • http://www.epyon-1.com/blog S.D.

    We need these in Manhattan…

  • princessxemina

    Argh…story of my life here in Washington, DC–continually stuck behind: tourists standing on the Metro escalator, blocking the aisle for everyone so no one makes the train waiting on the platform; stuck behind tourists walking FOUR abreast on the sidewalk; having to walk in the street to get around tourists suddenly stopped on the sidewalk directly in front of me to thank their lucky stars they found a Ruby Tuesday’s out-of-town!

  • Nipsey_Russell

    the main question to me is: why isnt walking (and using elevators, escalators, etc) taught to small childern in school. Seriously, all the finer points as debated above, not just left/right/left/right. This has bothered me for some time. I really cant think of anything more important to teach ….imaginary numbers? trig?